Vinyl flower vases have actually been around for a while, even if you’ve never happened to see them before. The elegant vinyl vase designs named “Hope Forever Blossoming” by Japanese brand D-BROS even ...

So, today let's shed some light on one tiny slice of Japanese culture: the usubata vase.

John Schneider remembers liking the purple vase in his grandmother’s house. Eventually it became his, but he knew little about it before bringing the piece to a recent appraisal session at ...

Dial up the Japanese vibes with this ginkgo leaf-shaped vase, pretty enough to be displayed on its own. Add flowers without them spilling out by throwing in a flower frog to hold stems steady.

The vase was designed by Ryosuke Uehara and Yoshie Watanabe, art directors at the Japanese design firm D-BROS, who were working on a label for shampoo packaging at the time.

This Japanese ink-wash painting is worth at least $75, maybe more if the artist can be identified. If these vases are early capodimonte porcelain they are worth at least $900.

If you were to wander into Akira Satake Ceramics — a light-filled studio housed in a century-old tannery-turned-artists' complex in Asheville, North Carolina — you'd pick up on the Japanese ...