Beautiful bowl, but the bottom is intriguing.

by Jim Szczesny
(Brookeland, Texas)

Greetings,
I hope you can help me identify this bowl. I find that the bottom consruction is unusually different than most, (at least to a novice as myself).

Japanese or Chinese?

As you can see in the pictures,the bottom is etched (seems unusual) in a flat Carmel colored brown. The blue mark over the white in the center also seems different. Is that glazed or some type of lacquer?

Also, is the mark english script (somebody's name) or is it Chinese or Japanese characters or both?

Thanks for all your help

Jim