Japanese Imari Sake Cups

Bought 4 of these Japanese Imari high footed porcelain sake cups. All hand decorated. All stand 1 5/8" tall and measure 2 1/4" across the top. Can anyone tell me how old they might be?

 

@kraftblue nice little set. Two things on the age, one you can check yourself in about a minute and one that comes out of the sold market.

First the label, because it changes what you search. I do not think these are Imari, at least not in the sense that word usually gets used. Imari means cobalt painted under the glaze and fired under it, then iron red and gold added on top. I cannot see any underglaze blue on yours. The blue in those little banded motifs looks like it is sitting on the surface with the greens and blacks, same level as the red. Red ground, white reserved chrysanthemums and peonies, gold karakusa scroll over the red: that combination is the aka-e family, and on the export market it gets listed as Kutani or Kutani style far more often than as Imari.

The minute long check, in order of how much each one settles:

1. Turn one over and look at the foot. A mark decides most of this. Nippon means 1891 to 1921. Made in Japan means 1921 onward. Occupied Japan is 1947 to 1952 and nothing else. A red hand painted kanji mark, or nothing at all, leaves it open, because after 1921 the country name was often only on a paper label that came off in the first wash.

2. Hold one up to a bright window and look through the bottom of the well. In your fifth photo one of the cups shows a faint pattern in the porcelain around that raised center dot. If an image appears when the light is behind it, that is a lithophane, and a lithophane on a sake cup is a 20th century export feature rather than a 19th century one. The Kutani cup sets that sellers date to the 1950s carry exactly that.

3. Look at the foot rim for an unglazed gritty ring versus a clean glazed one.

Now the money, since you bought four and that is usually the next question. eBay sold, last 90 days:

Searching Imari sake cup mostly returns current kiln production rather than old stock. Hasami ware, Hayashi Kuro kiln, sold as Old Imari style, closed five times this month alone at $47.24, $47.24, $47.24, $47.34 and $47.46 (15 and 17 Sep 2026). Those are new cups being made today. The genuinely older ones in the same search: Arita faceted mentori cup $54.00 (8 Aug), Koransha Old Imari cup set $30.00 (3 Jul), Imari style set of 4 gold gilt $19.99 (26 Jul), pair of Imari Dynasty cups $10.00 (26 Aug), Arita sake set of 2 carafes and 5 cups $13.37 at auction (16 Jul).

The search that matches your look, Kutani sake cup set: 25 closed sales, $15.99 to $307.00, median $39.99. Cups on their own, no bottle, live in the bottom half of that. Set of 5 guinomi Mt Fuji $29.99 (12 Sep), hand painted geisha gold set $19.99 (10 Sep), Takase set of 4 dated 1950s $50.00 (4 Sep), set of 4 with the wood box $19.99 at auction (3 Aug), set of 6 floral gilt $39.99 (28 Jul), signed geisha set of 5 $15.99 (30 Jul). What lifts a set above that band is a tokkuri with it, the original box, or a kiln name: whistling bird sets with the decanter ran $42.00 to $84.00, and a Senshun set took $307.00 (9 Sep).

So unless that foot carries a mark naming a kiln, four stem cups sit in the $20 to $50 neighborhood whichever side of 1921 they turn out to be. One caution from the same rows, the two whistling bird decanter sets: $42.00 buy it now on 13 Sep against $25.00 at auction on 24 Aug. Same object, different format, nearly half the money.

One limit worth saying out loud. None of those 38 rows is a footed stem cup like yours, they are all the ordinary ochoko shape, so treat the numbers as the neighborhood rather than your exact comp. Post a photo of the underside of one foot and I will run whatever mark is there specifically.

 

Tagsale, thanks for all this info. In picture 5, those are not lithopanes, you are seeing the flowers on the other side. The foot is dry and unglazed. All cups are unmarked.

 

Thank you for actually going and looking, that answers all three and one of them proves me wrong, which is the useful kind.

The lithophane is dead and you are right. If what shows around that center dot is the flowers from the outside coming through, then there is no image moulded into the porcelain at all. What it tells us instead is that the body is thin enough to read the exterior decoration through it, which is a quality note rather than a date note. Thin translucent bodies get made in every decade there, so it does not move the clock either way. I should not have called it before you had the cup in hand against a light.

The dry unglazed foot is the same story. Japanese porcelain leaves the foot ring bare in every era, 1880 or 1980, because that is where it sits on the kiln shelf. So bare does not date it. The texture does. Run a fingernail across it. Older hand finished feet feel gritty, often with a few rust coloured iron specks in the clay and a faint warm grey cast. Post war production feet are chalky smooth and very white, and the ring has an even machined looking edge all the way round. That one is worth ten seconds because it is the only age evidence left on the object now.

All unmarked is the one that actually costs you money, so here is what it means and what it does not. From 1891 anything imported into the US for retail had to carry the country of origin, so a genuinely unmarked piece usually means one of two things: the country was on a paper label that came off in the first wash, or the set never came through retail import at all and someone carried it home. Domestic market Japanese sake cups are unmarked as a matter of course. What it does not mean is fake or late. It just removes the hook the market pays for, and in the rows below that hook is most of the difference between the two ends of the band.

Now the part I owe you, because I searched the wrong word last time and it changed the answer.

Your cups are footed. That form has its own name in the market, sakazuki, as opposed to the straight sided ochoko I priced for you before. I pulled sakazuki on its own, eBay sold only, last 90 days, 30 rows.

And the first thing in those rows is a warning about the median, not a number. Sixteen of the thirty come from one Japanese bulk dealer who lists with a stock code in front of the title, B7512, U6253 and so on, and runs everything as a 9.99 opening bid auction. Eight of those sixteen closed at exactly 9.99, which is nobody bidding, not a price. Their median is 12.49. The fourteen ordinary listings from everyone else have a median of 41.48. Same 90 days, same search, one seller's opening bid dragging the whole thing down by more than half. If you look this up yourself and see a cheap median, that is what you are looking at.

What carries price in the independent rows, every one dated:

WWII Japanese Army commemorative sakazuki lot, 149.99, 2 Sep
Shino ware big sakazuki, named potter, 128.00, 16 Aug
Kutani dragon sakazuki, signed, single cup, 108.00, 15 Aug
Japanese military retirement commemorative, 5 set, 85.00, 9 Aug
lacquer sakazuki 5pcs with its stand, 79.90, 11 Aug
maki-e lacquer graduated set, 75.00, 21 Aug
WW2 retirement commemorative pottery, 58.00, 30 Jul
Daruma guinomi sakazuki, mid century, 24.95, 18 Aug
lacquer set of 3 red and gold, 21.00, 25 Aug
gold sake cup set of 6, dated 1972, 19.99, 15 Sep
vermilion with gold rim, 19.40, 20 Aug
1928 enthronement commemorative, 10.50, 12 Sep

Read down that list and the pattern is hard to miss. Every porcelain row over 50 dollars is either signed by a named kiln or potter, or it is a military commemorative. The rest of the top is lacquer, which is a different material and a different buyer. Nothing unsigned and unremarkable gets up there.

The two rows that actually sit closest to yours:

Japanese Old Kutani ware sakazuki, 5 pieces, 49.99, 8 Sep, auction
Vintage Japanese gold sakazuki set of 6, 1972, 19.99, 15 Sep, buy it now

So four unmarked footed cups of this type land between 20 and 50 dollars, with that 5 piece old Kutani at 49.99 as the realistic ceiling until something on the object earns more. Note that the signed single Kutani cup at 108.00 is one cup outselling a five piece set by double. That is the mark, and it is the reason your answer of all unmarked mattered more than either of the other two.

One check left that can move you inside that band, and it is free. Look at the gold karakusa under a phone camera at full zoom, at the rim where it gets handled. Hand applied gold sits slightly proud of the red, catches the light unevenly, and wears thin at the rim first, so the scroll goes patchy there while the middle stays full. Printed or transferred gold is flat, dead even, and when it breaks down it breaks into a fine dotted or cracked pattern rather than wearing away. Then compare the four cups to each other. Hand painted sets never match exactly, the white reserves will be slightly different sizes and the red ground will vary a little in depth from cup to cup. Machine decorated ones are identical. Hand painted and varying pushes you toward the 49.99 end, identical and flat gold puts you at the 19.99 end, and that is the whole spread you have left.

Also worth asking, did they come with a plain wooden box, even an unsigned one with brush writing on the lid. On these rows a box is the single cheapest thing that moves a set up.

Limit out loud, same as last time. Not one of those thirty rows is a red ground aka-e footed set of four, so this prices the form and the neighbourhood, not your exact four cups. But between the wrong search word last time and the dealer floor in this one, the number you would have got from a casual look at sold listings was low by about half, and that is worth more to you than my first answer was.