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Vintage Japanese Dragonware Pink Lustre Miniature Plate — 3.5″ Flamingo Florida Souvenir, Moriage Dragon

$22.00 Only one available

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Mid-Century (1940s–1960s) Gilt, Porcelain / Ceramic Very Good
HDRH-VR-0027
Here's the kind of thing that makes collecting fun. Somebody took a stock Japanese dragonware blank — the raised, hand-piped dragon coiling around the rim, all horns and whiskers and clawed feet chasing a pearl — and dropped a pink flamingo into the middle of it. A mythic Asian dragon meets a Sunshine State roadside souvenir. The pink lustre glaze gives the whole thing a soft iridescent sheen, and at just 3.5 inches across, it's a butter-pat-scale piece made for a plate rail or a shelf, not the dinner table. A little pink plate somebody carried home from a trip south, back when the flamingos were on the postcards. Highlights & Details
  • Miniature display plate, 3.5 inches in diameter
  • Porcelain with a soft bubblegum-pink lustre glaze
  • Raised, hand-applied moriage dragon — horned head, whiskers, scaled body through clouds, clawed feet chasing a pearl
  • Printed Florida souvenir scene: pink flamingo, leaning palm, pastel waterfront skyline, birds in a sunset sky, "Florida" banner
  • Scalloped edge finished with a gold rim
  • Dark-blue foil "JAPAN" label on the base; circa 1950s–1960s
Condition: No chips or cracks. The gold rim shows light wear consistent with age, while the pink lustre stays bright and the raised dragon relief is crisp and fully intact — it displays beautifully.
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Vintage Japanese Dragonware Pink Lustre Miniature Plate — 3.5" Flamingo Florida Souvenir, Moriage Dragon

Circa 1950s–1960s

Mid-Century Japanese Souvenir Ware

Japanese export potteries produced dragonware by the thousands through the mid-twentieth century — porcelain ringed with a raised, hand-piped dragon in a slip-trailing technique called moriage. A maker took one of those stock dragon blanks and set a printed Florida souvenir scene into the center: a pink flamingo, a leaning palm, a pastel waterfront skyline, and a scrolled "Florida" banner. The result is pure mid-century roadside kitsch, from the era of postcard flamingos and orange-blossom motels.

The base wears a small dark-blue foil label reading "JAPAN" — a stick-on country-of-origin mark rather than an ink stamp, and no maker's name. That foil label, together with the pink lustre glaze and the moriage relief, places the piece in the 1950s or 1960s. It came to us from an estate in Woodbridge, Virginia — a little keepsake carried home from a trip south and kept for decades.

Materials Porcelain with pink lustre glaze, hand-piped moriage dragon relief in white and gray, printed Florida transfer center, gold-trimmed scalloped rim.
Care Display only — this miniature plate is decorative, not food-safe. Dust with a soft, dry cloth; avoid soaking, dishwashers, and abrasives, which can dull the lustre and wear the gold rim.
From the Research Archives
vintagerose.us Catalog No. HDRH-VR-0027 • July 2026

Specifications

Dimensions
6 × 6 × 4 in
Weight
2 lbs
SKU
HDRH-VR-0027
Japanese export potteries turned out dragonware by the thousands — porcelain blanks ringed with a raised, slip-trailed dragon piped on by hand, a technique called moriage. This one has the full cast: a horned head with trailing whiskers, a serpentine scaled body winding through stylized clouds, clawed feet, and a raised pearl for the dragon to chase. Classic stuff, and centuries of Chinese myth behind it. And then, right in the center well, a pink flamingo. The maker dropped a printed Florida souvenir scene into the middle of that ancient dragon — a flamingo wading in the shallows, a palm leaning in the breeze, a pastel waterfront skyline, little birds crossing a sunset sky, and "Florida" lettered across a scroll banner. That collision is the whole charm: a mythic dragon and a kitschy roadside flamingo sharing one three-and-a-half-inch plate. It's pure mid-century vacation Florida, the era of postcard flamingos and orange-blossom motels, when a little pink dish was exactly the sort of thing you brought home to prove you'd gone. This one came to us from an estate in Woodbridge, Virginia, a long way from the palm trees. The miniature scale is a big part of why collectors chase these. At 3.5 inches, they're butter-pat size — made to be displayed, not used — and they group beautifully on a plate rail or in a cabinet, a whole row of tiny souvenir worlds. The pink lustre glaze catches the light with a gentle iridescence that photographs never quite do justice. Highlights & Details
  • Miniature display plate, 3.5 inches in diameter
  • Porcelain with a soft bubblegum-pink lustre glaze and gentle iridescent sheen
  • Raised, hand-applied moriage dragon — horned head, whiskers, scaled body through clouds, clawed feet chasing a pearl
  • Printed Florida souvenir scene: pink flamingo, leaning palm, pastel waterfront skyline, birds in a sunset sky, "Florida" banner
  • Scalloped edge finished with a gold rim
  • Dark-blue foil "JAPAN" label on the base; circa 1950s–1960s
Condition: No chips or cracks. The gold rim shows light wear consistent with age, while the pink lustre stays bright and the raised dragon relief is crisp and fully intact — honest vintage condition, and it displays beautifully.

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