Vintage Fukagawa Cobalt Blue Porcelain Vase – Hand Painted Peony, Gold Leaf Veins, Gilt Rim, Ruri Glaze, Signed Arita Japan, 1950s–1970s

A deep cobalt vase from Fukagawa of Arita — one of the great names in Japanese porcelain, and a purveyor to the Imperial Household since 1910. Against the glassy blue ground a spray of peonies is painted blue on blue: paler cobalt shading the petals over the darker field, the leaves and outlines drawn in fine gold, a gilt line at the rim. That deep, even lapis glaze is Fukagawa's signature — fuka-ruri — and the tonal blue-on-blue peony is the hardest and most characteristic thing they did.

The base carries the underglaze Fukagawa mark — the character 深 (fuka) and the firm's little Mount-Fuji device, partly obscured by old label residue — together with a "Made in Japan" foil label. That label is worth reading honestly: Japanese export porcelain marked Nippon dates to 1891–1921, while Made in Japan foil stickers belong to the post-war Shōwa years. So this is a mid-century Fukagawa (c. 1950s–1970s), not a Meiji antique — the same celebrated house and glaze, from a later era, priced as such.

A baluster jar form, about 8 inches, decorated on one face with the plain cobalt reverse turned to the wall — the usual way these were meant to stand.