This miniature Satsuma earthenware vase is minutely decorated.

Covered with small flowers and decorative diapers in kimono designs, with peonies in a surround on one side, gold dots in the sky and golden grasses.  On the reverse, honored scholars and a young boy decorate the reserve, the boy holding round objects in each hand, and the scholars kneeling in the grass.  This vase is Meiji period, circa 1890.  It is signed in gold paint on a red reserve on the base.

This is an unusual shape, an inverted conical form small at the top and becoming wider at the base. The Satsuma glaze is finely crackled as would be desirable, to reflect light.  It has no damages.  It measures a total of 3 1/2 inches high, and 1 5/8 inches in diameter approximately at its widest point.