A Satsuma vase


By Kinkozan, Meiji era (1868-1912), late 19th/early 20th centuryFinely decorated in enamels and gilt, depicting a procession of townsmen around the bulbous body, each group enacting a different ritual or festival, including manzai dancers and children holding a drum, ema (votive picture) and gohei (strips of ritual papers), a mother and a boy carrying a stalk of bamboo with paper decorations (used at the Star Festival) and a lady holding a kumade (bamboo rake) with a mask of Otafuku, alluding to the Tori-no-ichi fair, all beneath a tall flaring neck decorated with repeated patterns of formal chrysanthemums interspersed among a stylised florette enclosed within a lobed cartouche; signed on the base within a gilt square reserve Kinkozan tsukuru and an impressed seal Kinkozan tsukuru. 25cm (9 7/8in) high.