This small, globular lidded vase is made by the world-famous firm of Kinkosan, signed on the base with both a painted and an impressed mark.

The overall style is typical of this company, with a cobalt blue ground and two large landscape panels. One of these depicts three wild ducks swooping to land on a bamboo-fringed lake, the other a flock of animated sparrows congregating in a clearing among peony bushes.

As is usual, the blue ground is decorated with stylised gilt foliage but there is also a puzzling motif repeated nearly a dozen times in all. Puzzling that is, until you realise that the shape is that of an origami duck!