A small hand-painted ceramic dish featuring painted flowers in shades of pink, purple, and green with painted gold accents and gold and blue rim.  The dish measures a diminutive 3 3/4" across and 1/2" high.  The bottom is stamped over the glaze with "Hand Painted Nippon" and the blue rising sun, which indicates a possible date range between 1897-1921.  The small dish's condition is excellent, with no chips, cracks, crazing, or wear to the hand-painted images.  

What is Nippon China?

The McKinley Tariff Act was passed by the United States Congress and enacted in 1890.  This law required that all manufactured goods imported to the United States be marked with the country of origin. As "Nippon" was the English word for Japan, goods made there for import into the United States was marked "Nippon" to comply with the law.  This stood in effect until 1921 when it was ruled that the country of origin needed to be in English and thus from 1921 on, any Japanese porcelain exported to the United States was marked "Japan" instead of "Nippon."