Riding the wind of rebirth

"What's wrong?" Mr. and Mrs. Lu were so nervous that their hearts were in their throats.

Lin Wanqiu was still holding out hope for the object at first, but when she saw the state of the painting, she couldn't help but shake her head: "Can this scroll still be opened?"

"Let's talk about packaging first." Zhou Zhi sighed.

The sac is lined with foam in ancient times, and cotton is mainly used to increase the elasticity, drop resistance, and shock resistance of the sac. The cotton used is high-quality cotton, which requires long fibers, distinct layers, stretch resistance, and easy peeling.

On top of the cotton is silk, which needs to be soft, colorful, smooth, and easy to shape. Silk products are placed on top of the cotton and underneath the cultural relics, fixing and setting off the cultural relics without causing any friction damage to the cultural relics.

In addition to his eyes, Zhou Zhi actually trusted his fingers more when it came to identifying silk. He gently scraped the silk twice with his fingernails and fingertips, and he had a feel for the fineness and uniformity of the silk. He then looked at the cotton and said, "It's fine. Although it was not well preserved and was severely damaged, this is the original sealed box from the Qianlong period."

Mr. and Mrs. Lu couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: "Then please ask Mr. Zhou to take another look at the painting."

"This painting..." Zhou Zhi thought of Lin Wanqiu's question. After thinking for a while, he said, "Let's move it indoors. Tianjin is by the sea and the wind is quite strong..."

What I mean is that I'm really afraid that once I open it, some pieces will be blown away by the wind and I'll never be able to find them again.

"Yes, Mr. Xiao Zhou is very thoughtful." Old Lu nodded: "Let's go into the house. There is a big ping-pong table in the house. It can be set up."

The house looks small from the outside, but it is quite spacious for an old couple living there. The main room is spacious, and filled with dancing fans, waist drums, diabodies, kites and other items. It seems that they are morning exercise enthusiasts.

There is also an old ping-pong table in the room with the words "Tianjin Labor Middle School" written on the table legs. It was probably discarded by the school and given to Lao Lu to take home.

The painting could no longer be taken out using conventional methods, so Zhou Zhi had to open the painting box by placing its side against the billiard table, and then "pour" the scroll out.

"It's up to you guys to do it next." Zhou Zhi spread his hands and said to Lao Lu.

"What do you mean?" Old Lu didn't understand.

"Your painting will be damaged every time you unfold it now." Old Ma shook his head and said, "The damage will be quite serious, so the customer is worried about causing disputes, so he lets you open it yourself."

"Hey!" Old Lu finally understood: "I am a retired private teacher after all, how could I be so unreasonable?"

However, Zhou Zhi still smiled and stood with his hands up, not responding.

"Come and lend a hand." Old Lu called to his wife.

"Wait!" Zhou Zhi suddenly raised his hand: "Do you have any extra sheets or quilts at home?"

"what?"

"Take it and spread it on the table first, then unfold it." Zhou Zhi frowned: "I'm afraid if I unfold it like this, I won't be able to put it away later."

The two looked at the scroll on the table and felt that what Zhou Zhi said made some sense. Aunt Lu went to the bedroom to search again and took out a white quilt base cloth: "Is this okay?" "Okay." Zhou Zhi could also help with this. He helped the two spread the bed sheet on the table, then carefully moved the scroll up and put it away, and asked the two to carefully unfold the scroll.

The old couple unfolded the scroll from one end of the table to the other, leaving a large section unrolled. Old Lu said, "This is the only way."

Zhou Zhi nodded: "Let's look at it this way first."

When the scroll was unfolded, both Old Lu and Aunt Lu were terrified. The scroll was in tatters. Not only the picture itself, but also the picture and the mounting were broken into pieces in many places.

The picture has been stained so badly that the original color of the painting is almost invisible, and there is a layer of white stains on most places.

Generally speaking, if calligraphy and paintings are not preserved properly, white spots will easily appear. These white spots can be dusted off with a feather duster, which is called "dry mold" in the jargon.

Another type of mold is "wet mold" that grows in a humid environment. Wet mold is usually gray-green or gray-black.

The stains on most of the painting were neither dry nor wet mold. Zhou Zhi frowned and asked, "Master Ma, is this what you call powder falling off?"

"Yes, it looked almost like this the last time I saw this painting, but it wasn't so badly broken then," said Ma Weidu.

Lin Wanqiu even covered her nose.

"It's indeed not good." Zhou Zhi carefully examined the scroll: "But it is really 'Twenty Pictures of Tao Ye'. Judging from the size of the scroll, it should be a good one."

"Yes, yes." Old Lu nodded repeatedly: "Old Ma saw it when it was unfolded last time. There were twenty pieces in total, and one piece is not less."

"Elbow, what do you think of these paintings?" Master Ma began to examine them secretly.

"To be honest," Zhou Zhi studied the painting for a while, then looked up and said, "Compared to Wang Zhicheng's set of Taoye Scrolls, the painting skills on this set are not as good. So although it is from the Qianlong period, it should not be Tang Ying's painting. It should be painted by his craftsmen and painters."

Master Ma was full of admiration for Zhou Zhi, gave him a thumbs up and said with a smile: "Amazing, you can see that!"

Both soft and hard films have paintings, but one is for painters and the other for painters. The difference between the two actually lies in the different systems: one is creation, the other is imitation; one has rich and complex details, which is conducive to conveying the author's emotions and feelings, the other has relatively simplified and systematic details, emphasizing completion and decorativeness; in fact, the directions they pursue are different.

As an expert who has studied both sides, Zhou Zhi could of course identify them. He asked with a smile, "Oh? Master Ma, you also figured it out?"

"I didn't see it, I went back and looked up information after seeing the painting." Ma Ye said, "In fact, this was painted by the palace enamel painters during the Qianlong period. In April of the eighth year of Qianlong's reign, the court handed over 20 'Ceramic Paintings' to Tang Ying, the kiln supervisor, along with the Emperor Qianlong's order. The original words of the order were roughly 'Write in detail what craft is depicted in each painting, and the number of words in each article should be even, with more or less than ten digits.' In addition, Qianlong also asked Tang Ying to write down the names of the mountains where he got soil and the places where he got materials and water, and then sort the 20 paintings in the order of the pottery and send them to the palace for him to review."

"After receiving the imperial edict, Tang Ying compiled the article "Tao Ye Tu Shuo" according to the emperor's will, and wrote some explanations on the painting, which was sent to the palace in May. To be precise, Tang Ying's "Tao Ye Tu Shuo" is actually the instruction manual for the first edition of "Tao Ye Tu"."

There are a lot of materials on the Qing Palace. Although Zhou Zhi has read Tang Ying's Tao Ye Tu Shuo, he didn't pay attention to the origin of this article. Today he has learned a lot. He nodded and said, "With this set, there should be three sets of Tao Ye Tu in total." (End of this chapter)