Riding the wind of rebirth

"It's not good-looking." Now Mai Xiaomiao has been influenced by Zhou Zhi to tend towards oriental aesthetics. After finishing work in the large study, she often stretches herself and picks up a teacup to admire the calligraphy and paintings in the room, as if she can't get enough of them. She keeps shaking her head at this bottle that is full of Western style.

"This is actually a curiosity, and the emperor is no exception." Zhou Zhi said: "Qianlong also wanted to know what people thousands of miles away looked like and how they lived. Before the invention of photography, such decorations allowed him to get a glimpse of it."

"How do you know these things are real?" Li Laosan was amazed: "Why can't they be made by foreigners themselves?"

"Because its body, glaze, painting, firing technology, base pattern and so on are all typical characteristics of the Qianlong official kiln." Zhou Zhi said: "Every process, like every brushstroke, has its own rules to follow, which is also impossible for Western craftsmen to imitate."

"It's like putting a sketch there and then copying it with a brush dipped in ink, or hanging an ink painting on the wall and then imitating it on your own drawing paper using the sketching method. The one drawn with a brush is still ink, and the one drawn with a pencil is still a sketch. You can tell them apart at a glance."

“The Eastern and Western craftsmanship of porcelain is almost as obvious to me and Sister Wanqiu.”

"The rest is experience. Although porcelains with painted enamel and Western landscapes and figures are rare, there are still many of them in the old collections of the Qing Palace. Most people can only see them through glass windows. Sister Wanqiu and I have plenty of opportunities to get our hands on them, observe them, and remember their characteristics with a set of learning systems. We can also personally understand the detailed differences between authentic pieces and various imitations from different dynasties."

"Once this system is established, it will be much easier to identify porcelain."

"Good luck." Lin Wanqiu said with a smile, "We got three boxes this time. This painted enamel square window figure vase alone is worth it. Although Xiao Miao doesn't like it, it has a unique theme and is a fine-lined porcelain from the imperial kiln with enamel colors. It is very expensive in the market."

After saying that, he patted Zhou Zhi on the shoulder and said, "Appraise them carefully. When you're done, I'll give you two pieces as labor fees."

Among the three boxes of porcelain, only a few pieces are enamel-painted Western figures from the Qing Dynasty, and the rest are basically traditional Chinese porcelain.

Apart from a few pieces of Ming blue and white porcelain which are also of considerable value, the rest are mainly porcelains from after the Third Dynasty, including official kiln enamels and some foreign enamels from Guangdong province.

Yangcai is actually also imported enamel, but its quality cannot be compared with that of tribute. The level of painting by Guangdong porcelain workers cannot be compared with that of domestic workshops. Therefore, in the traditional classification of antique business, the two are distinguished in name.

But then again, although they are not as good as the products of the real inner workshops, due to the cost of materials, these folk kiln workshops are destined to use their best craftsmen to make them, and the goal of craftsmanship is obviously to catch up with the inner workshops. Many porcelains can be imitated to be almost indistinguishable from the real ones, and the craftsmanship level is also much higher than ordinary porcelains of the same period.

Because of its age, many auction houses in later generations turned a blind eye and auctioned it as official kiln porcelain. Although this behavior disrupted the market, it also inexplicably raised the value of this type of porcelain.

Valuable porcelains account for about half of this batch, about fifty pieces, and the remaining fifty pieces are basically imitations from the late Qing Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty. It seems that the Avar family is not very proficient in Chinese porcelain and suffered a lot of setbacks in the past.

After the collection was finished, Zhou Zhi picked out a few pieces of celadon and said, "I'll take these."

A few laymen couldn't understand, but Lin Wanqiu frowned: "These pieces do look strange. Are they the kind of Hizen porcelain from the 18th century that imitates Chinese porcelain?" Zhou Zhi shook his head: "No, these pieces are Goryeo porcelain, which is the successor of the "Akikushou" porcelain in the island country. The age is similar to what you said, from the 17th to 18th century."

"It looks like it's made in imitation of the blue and white porcelain of Yongle and Xuande periods of the Ming Dynasty, but the shape is more exaggerated and delicate, and the color is completely wrong. Instead, it has a bit of the black glaze and iron-brown glaze commonly used in the Ding kiln of the Song Dynasty." Lin Wanqiu said, "So this is the autumn grass hand that is so popular with the shogunate and the emperor."

"This is not Qiu Cao Hand in the full sense. The shape and painting skills are those of Qiu Cao Hand, but the glaze is not."

"Because it was difficult for Goryeo to get the blue and white glaze introduced from China, the color of Goryeo blue and white porcelain is more elegant than that of Chinese blue and white porcelain. For some designs, elegance has a watercolor or ink effect, and it is often more interesting when used on porcelain. After the Goryeo people discovered this, everyone praised it. Later, they gave up the complicated patterns and replaced them with patterns with prominent themes, large blank areas, and strong freehand nature, which is closer to the small freehand in Chinese painting. It has also reached a very high level."

"In the first half of the 16th century, this kind of porcelain with open structure, large blank area, simple pattern, elegant color, and blue and white patterns of plants, landscapes, clouds and dragons, flowers and birds began to be favored by the island countries."

"Just like the precious glazes that can only be used by the painters in the inner workshop, this blue and white pattern is also from the hands of Goryeo court painters, so its artistic level is quite high, even higher than the painting level of Jingde craftsmen in China at the same time, and it is very popular in the island country, which calls this kind of pattern 'autumn grass hand'."

"But these pieces of porcelain are not blue and white." Mai Xiaomiao asked in confusion: "You said that if the temperature of blue and white porcelain is not controlled well, the color will turn black, but it is also blue-black, but these pieces of porcelain are brown-black and red."

"Yes, so they are not real 'Autumn Grass Hands'." Zhou Zhi said: "We know that the color of blue and white porcelain actually comes from cobalt. After the extinction of Sumaliqing, China quickly found several alternative glazes in the country, that is, cobalt from northern Xinjiang, called Huiqing. Later, Zhecai, Zhumingcai, Shiziqing and Pingdengqing were discovered, preserving such a brilliant and great porcelain variety."

"But Goryeo was not so lucky. After the 17th century, cobalt became difficult to obtain, so they had to use iron instead of cobalt to paint on the porcelain surface. The fired pictures were brown-black, called 'iron-painted white porcelain' or 'iron-painted celadon'."

"There is also a more advanced genuine product that uses cinnabar as the painting material. The patterns on the objects painted in this way are vermilion, and are called 'cinnabar-pointed sandware' or 'bright red sandware'."

"Even more extreme, there are a very small number of pieces that are painted with blue and white, iron painting, and cinnabar, which are the pinnacle of Goryeo porcelain."

"Because this kind of porcelain is usually treated as underglaze color, it is called 'three colors underglaze'."

"Then these pieces of porcelain should be called cinnabar wares." Li Laosan looked at a thin-necked vase with a small, stretched reddish-brown orchid on it: "The grass on it is red."

"This one is reddish brown." Mai Xiaomiao also carefully picked up a general jar: "There are some black spots in the color, so it should be called iron painting porcelain."

"Yes." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "The most expensive one here should be this plum vase. Although it doesn't have blue and white, the branches are painted with iron and the flowers are cinnabar, which can be regarded as two colors under the glaze." (End of this chapter)