Riding the wind of rebirth

Seeing such protective measures, Zhou Zhi had already given up hope for the wrapped porcelain. However, after looking over the porcelain, he discovered that it was in perfect condition, without any cracks or dents.

The object is not big, it is a willow leaf vase, and it should be a soft red color, but now it is emitting a green glow under the light, which should be different from its appearance in the sunlight.

The willow-leaf vase is a small bottle with a slender shoulder and a similar shape.

However, it got this name not because it looks like a willow leaf, but because its shape is the same as the willow branch and bottle held by Guanyin in the traditional pattern. It is usually placed on the desk for viewing, and only decorative plants such as willow branches and horsetail grass, which are not of much weight, can be inserted, hence the name.

This is an item with a large opening. Looking at the inscription on the bottom, I saw the six characters "Made in the Kangxi Period of the Qing Dynasty" written neatly on the bottom of the object.

This is a piece of kidney bean red porcelain from the Kangxi period.

Kangxi Cowpea Red is a famous product created by Jingdezhen in the late Kangxi period. It is a high-temperature copper red glaze, a special category among the colored glazes of the Qing Dynasty. It was created in the late Kangxi period and is a copper red variety before the appearance of Sacrifice Red and Lang Red. Its biggest feature is its instability.

The reason for the instability is that copper, as a special colorant, will show different colors from red to green and from warm colors to cool colors in oxidizing flames and reducing flames. Such a span of change is too great, so the color rendering process of cowpea red is very advanced. If the environment is slightly wrong, the color will be alternating between red and green and change unpredictably.

Because of this characteristic, it can be said that the color of each piece of cowpea red porcelain is different.

The best ones are called "Dahongpao" or "Zhenghong", with bright and vivid glaze color, uniform color all over, clean and flawless; the slightly inferior ones have glaze color like cowpea, with spots of varying shades and green moss, also known as "Beauty Drunk" or "Beauty Mist"; the lighter red ones are called "Baby Face" or "Peach Blossom Piece", although not as gorgeous as the darker ones, they have an elegant and delicate look.

If the color is lower, it can only be called "donkey liver" or "horse lung".

In order to solve the problem of firing being too difficult, kiln workers have come up with many ideas. The first is to reduce the size of the vessel and the surface area of ​​the glaze, so that it will be less affected by environmental changes. Therefore, it is rare to see large vessels with cowpea red glaze.

The second is to apply the glaze thinly and evenly. The Jingde kiln workers invented the method of blowing glaze, first applying a layer of base glaze on the blank, and then blowing glaze on it.

The blown glaze surface is much thinner than the traditional glaze flow method, which ensures that the glaze can fully contact the environment and reduce the flow of glaze during the firing process.

However, in order to blow the glaze evenly, it must be done multiple times. Due to the different levels of glaze blowing, water stains will appear on the glaze surface after firing. Where the glaze is slightly too thick, green spots will appear due to oxidation during the firing process, just like moss spots.

This finished product, which could have been considered a "craftsmanship flaw", has become interesting and brilliant because of the green spots mixed into the seamless red glaze, just like green gems dotted across the red clouds. Therefore, a Qing Dynasty poet described this glaze color as: "Green like spring water on the day of the birthday, red like the morning glow about to rise."

However, the aesthetic taste of literati was not what kiln workers pursued. The kidney bean red glaze only lasted for a short time and was soon replaced by red glaze with more mature craftsmanship.

This in turn makes it precious.

Zhou Zhi currently has a pomegranate vase in his collection of red-glazed cowpeas. Because of the change in the glaze, the pomegranate vase has a large cluster of green spots. Combined with the shape of the pomegranate vase, it does look more like a pomegranate, half artificial and half natural, but it has lost its purity. The willow leaf vase in front of us is very pure, in line with the characteristics of "Yinliuzhai Shuoci" that "the beauty lies in the bright red and brown spots in the light red, and the green in the backlight", reaching the color standard of "Meiren Ji".

Although this bottle is much smaller than the pair of Qianlong Benba bottles, it will be more expensive. Zhou Zhi checked it carefully again and even ran it over with his fingernails. He indeed did not find any defects. It is a perfect product.

The normal market price should be around 30,000 US dollars. Because foreigners particularly like this color and call it "Peach Bloom", there will definitely be a considerable premium in the overseas market, which is 40,000 to 50,000 US dollars.

The first piece of porcelain that was opened was so surprising that Zhou Zhi quickly opened the second one.

The second porcelain piece is also not big, it is also a bottle, also in cowpea red color, and its shape seems to be a combination of the neck of a willow leaf bottle and the body of a plum bottle, with two circles of string patterns at the bottom of the neck.

In the Kangxi Cowpea Red, this kind of porcelain is called "Radish Bottle". Radish means radish, so it is named after the shape of the vessel.

The color of this radish vase is lower than that of the willow leaf vase, but it is the standard Peach Bloom that foreigners like most. There is almost no green background, and only some places with thinner glaze can be vaguely seen with white background, which is also very uniform.

That’s 60,000 to 100,000 US dollars. Zhou Zhi just figured it out and was suddenly shocked: “If the remaining pieces are all cowpea red… they won’t be size eight, right?!”

"What is the eight sizes?" Mai Xiaomiao saw Zhou Zhi begin to eagerly unpack the packages, so she helped and asked.

"As an early monochrome red glaze, cowpea red is very popular in the cultural circle. Because it is difficult to fire large pieces, people designed a set of eight porcelains for display and appreciation in study rooms. Common shapes include willow leaf bottles, radish bottles, coiled dragon bottles, chrysanthemum petal bottles, Taibai zun, tongluo washbasin, ink box and apple zun. Four of them are tall and four are short, and together they are called the 'eight big codes'."

"Is this the short one?" Mai Xiaomiao had already opened the package in his hand and took out the porcelain. From the color, it was still cowpea red, but the coloring was uneven. The upper part was bright red, while the bottom showed a circle of flesh-white "horse lung". "Why do I feel like I have seen this shape before?"

Although it is not the most perfect one, but because pure red is very precious, this one can be considered a top-quality piece.

"Yes, this is called an apple vase. When I visited the old house of the Tanyang family in Shudu, I received a kiln-changed glaze apple vase from the Qianlong period. You should have seen it in Suihuaxuan."

"Yes, I remember now. Suihuaxuan looks the same as this one, but it's red and green!"

After a while, all the porcelains were taken out. They were indeed a series from bright red to pink. In addition to the four bottles, two vases, a basin, and an ink box mentioned by Zhou Zhi, there was also a small bowl.

Zhou Zhi took the small bowl aside and said, "That's right, this is the eight large pieces, plus a small tea ball."

After that, he asked Elizabeth, "Ms. Elizabeth, do you really want to sell these things?" (End of this chapter)