Antique Japanese Porcelain Soup Bouillon Bowl and Plate Thousand Faces Meiji

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Antique Japanese Porcelain Soup Bouillon Bowl and Plate Thousand Faces Meiji:
$49.00

Beautiful antique Japanese Porcelain two handled coveredbowl or bouillon cup with under-plate, Meiji Period or slightly later. The thousand faces pattern is a classicdesign. The pattern is an abstractrepresentation of a host of people. Therays in the design are the bodies of the people at the front of the crowd, themulticolored rays are brightly colored kimonos. You can see the textilepatterns have been sketched in with gold. The replication on pattern in therays and abstract faces gives the decoration a rhythmic quality that almostfeels like motion. The center of the plate, cup, and lid are all decorated witha coiled gold dragon. The lid has a ring foot, allowing it to serve as a saucer.When used this way, the inside of the lid is exposed to reveal a pair ofdragons that flank a symbol for good luck.It is a bit unusual to find covered soup cups in this pattern, and evenmore unusual for the inside of the cup and the inside of the lid to bedecorated as well. The handles are molded to give them the segmented appearanceof bamboo.

The cup and the plate are both signed by the painter. The last character is “zo”, indicating “madeby”. But I am not familiar with theactual maker signature represented in the first two characters. The set is in amazing condition for itsage. The porcelain has no cracks, chips,or repairs. There is some wear to thepaint, but I would assume that this has never been used since the decoration onthe inside of the cup seems to be in essentially the same condition as theoutside. There is a slightly indented area on the rim of the plate, this mustbe a manufacturing flaw as the decoration is painted over it and this appears tobe original paint, not a later repaint. The cup measures approximately 2 ¾”tall including the lid (2” without the lid) and 4 1/8” in diameter. The plateis 5 ½” in diameter.

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