A hand-thrown Japanese Sumida Gawa (Sumida-yaki) vase signed Ban-ni, dating to the Meiji period, circa 1890–1910. The low-fired earthenware body is of tall ovoid form, thrown with horizontal ribbing and finished in a deep oxblood-red slip ground of dry, crawled, bark-like texture, rising to a short waisted neck and an everted, irregularly folded and lobed mouth. The shoulder and neck are sheathed in a lustrous lavender-and-purple flambé glaze streaked with green, black and cream — an unusual and striking palette for the ware — pooling and running in heavy curtains down over the red ground in the manner of Chinese Shiwan (Shekwan) wares, the lavender breaking to mottled grey and aubergine where it thins. Applied and modelled in high relief to the front is a robed elder, his white kimono finely painted in underglaze blue with a scattered snowflake and floral design, seated upon applied rockwork and holding a dark bowl, beside a young karako (boy) in green and a gnarled applied tree b...