Japanese Imari porcelain mark translation

[pamcg]

We have a Japanese Imari porcelain quail with a marking on the bottom. Can someone please translate the marking for us, thanks. Picture attached.

 

[Majestic]

The short answer: Ga-something, Chin-something.

The long answer:
I suspect this is a four character mark. Reading top to bottom, right to left, the first character when read on its own is Miyabi (雅). But this would be part of a two-character combination, and so the reading changes to “Ga”. The second character directly under it would form the second part of the name, but it has been mostly eliminated by the hole in the item. The tiny bit that is left almost looks like the character Ryu (琉), which would make the name/mark “Garyu”. I searched the web for a “Garyu” mark but nothing turned up.

The third character (top left) is Chin (珍). The character under this is indecipherable to me. It looks like a scribble. Since the other two characters are so carefully drawn, one wonders why this last character is so poorly rendered. Is it obscured by a stain, is it an effect of the photograph, is there a crack that has disfigured the character? Or, is it just a sloppy letter? Or could it be a counterfeit?

The two legible characters are fairly distinctive, and one would think that even with the other two characters being illegible something would show up in a search for Imari + Ga + Chin, or Imari + Garyu, etc…, but I couldn’t find anything.

Sorry I couldn’t be any more help.

 

[pamcg]

The short answer: Ga-something, Chin-something.

The long answer:
I suspect this is a four character mark. Reading top to bottom, right to left, the first character when read on its own is Miyabi (窶ｰﾃｫ). But this would be part of a two-character combination, and so the reading changes to ﾂ“Gaﾂ”. The second character directly under it would form the second part of the name, but it has been mostly eliminated by the hole in the item. The tiny bit that is left almost looks like the character Ryu (窶板ｮ), which would make the name/mark ﾂ“Garyuﾂ”. I searched the web for a ﾂ“Garyuﾂ” mark but nothing turned up.

The third character (top left) is Chin (窶卍ｿ). The character under this is indecipherable to me. It looks like a scribble. Since the other two characters are so carefully drawn, one wonders why this last character is so poorly rendered. Is it obscured by a stain, is it an effect of the photograph, is there a crack that has disfigured the character? Or, is it just a sloppy letter? Or could it be a counterfeit?

The two legible characters are fairly distinctive, and one would think that even with the other two characters being illegible something would show up in a search for Imari + Ga + Chin, or Imari + Garyu, etcﾂ…, but I couldn’t find anything.

Sorry I couldn’t be any more help.

Thank you for your reply, looks like it could be very helpful in tracking the origin and the date of this piece. Perhaps the reason the bottom marks look disfigured could be because it is hard to photograph. I will delve into it deeper.