Riding the wind of rebirth

"But what we consider 'new' is different from what everyone else considers 'new'," Master Ma said with a smile. "You can think of it this way: after a period of time, the glassy glaze on the surface of porcelain will react slightly with the air. This reaction is negligible, but it accumulates over time and eventually manifests as a change that can be seen with the naked eye. This means that although the porcelain is still 'perfect,' the gloss of the glaze surface is different from when it first came out of the kiln."

"Furthermore, there is the maintenance process. Even if you use the softest silk to wipe it, it is still a polishing process in theory. Even if you can't see any difference with the naked eye in a single process, the change in the glaze is real."

"Over thousands of years, these changes have accumulated and will be faithfully recorded on the surface of the porcelain, eventually becoming changes that are clearly visible to the naked eye."

“If it’s just a matter of accumulating the number of times, then it can be done with a machine,” Liu Zhengyun said doubtfully. “For example, if I use a motor to wrap silk around a new porcelain surface and then polish it by hand, as long as the number of times is equal to the cumulative effect of each polishing, can’t I achieve the same result?”

“No, because the changes that accumulate over time are much more complex than that.” Zhou Zhi laughed. “We don’t even need to talk about the erosion and accumulation of surfaces like crazing. Let’s just take a simple example: the weathering and oxidation of traces.”

“Genuine antique porcelain, especially those passed down through generations, will leave invisible scratches after each maintenance. If this porcelain is a thousand years old, then the scratches accumulated on it will be the result of each maintenance over thousands of years. Therefore, the oxidation of the scratches themselves will also continue for thousands of years. Thus, the oxidation time of these scratches will range from thousands of years to the most recent time.”

“It is very difficult to achieve this with antique-style porcelain. Even if you polish it tens of thousands of times, the weathering and oxidation marks of these polishing marks are concentrated together, making it difficult to achieve a phenomenon where both the ‘overlay’ and ‘composite’ characteristics match those of antique pieces.”

"This is just the simplest manifestation of a trace on the surface of porcelain. In reality, the process of authenticating a piece requires reference to far more than just this one indicator. Therefore, the authentication of cultural relics is not actually very difficult, and the difficulty of forgery is not as low as people imagine. In fact, most of the time, being 'fooled' is not only due to a lack of professional knowledge, but more likely due to a lack of focus and seriousness, being intentionally interfered with, or simply falling into a scam. But that's another story."

“If you, Lao Ma, had the time to write those stories, they would probably be very exciting,” Liu Zhengyun said.

"Let's forget about it." Master Ma shook his head: "If their tricks are exposed, they'll come up with new ones. If we're not careful, all the losses we suffered before will be for nothing."

"Didn't you just say that counterfeiting wasn't easy? Why are you losing confidence now?" Yu Bin joked with a smile.

"Because the scammers' stories are too convincing," Zhou Zhi laughed. "They exploit people's greed and create opportunities to scam them, generally not giving you a chance to carefully examine their work."

"So finding a house isn't difficult; the difficulty lies in overcoming one's own greed." Master Ma laughed. "People like Elbow are not so easy to fool nowadays. The incident where he found Kangxi Eight-Character Code in the hands of an old lady and grandson at an amusement park in the United States, in terms of the sequence of events, is very similar to the traditional 'brokerage' scheme. But Elbow wouldn't be greedy for that kind of bargain, so even if it really was a 'brokerage' scheme, he wouldn't have fallen for it."

After hearing this, everyone felt that it made a lot of sense.

The establishment of this museum is a concentrated display of Mr. Ma's collection. Overall, it is a very good attempt and can be regarded as paving the way for the museums that Zhouzhi will build next.

Many of Zhouzhi's collections are so precious that there were some concerns about whether they should be exhibited. Now, many of the high-quality collections are becoming well-known in the industry, and with Master Ma's collection as a precedent, it is no longer too shocking.

Master Ma's works are all quite good, but his calligraphy and painting are a bit weak. Most of them are modern and contemporary works. The older ones are Zhou Kun's "Copy of Tang Yin's Ten Views of Zhongnan Mountain" from the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Baixi's "Poems on Lantern Viewing on the Lantern Festival" and a collection of selected works from the Sanxitang Calligraphy Collection, which contains a poem "Song to Daoist Yun'an" in the calligraphy of Huang Tingjian.

However, those were imitations made using the double-line tracing method, dating from the late Qing Dynasty. There are many small-scale works by modern artists such as Tang Yun and Bai Jiao, but most do not reach the level of "important collectibles."

"I also have to thank Mr. Zhou for his great support in this collection," Mr. Ma said with a smile. "I really didn't expect that Mr. Zhou had collected so many calligraphy works and letters from prominent figures of the Republic of China era."

As the level of his collection increases, Zhou Zhi is gradually getting rid of his former collection. Now, even the two or three hundred calligraphy and painting letters discovered in Suihuaxuan are being replaced.

Because of the large number of his collections and the increasing sources of their acquisition, Zhou Zhi has drawn several boundaries for his collection. Except for pieces that particularly catch his eye or are of particular value to him, his porcelain collection is limited to the three Qing emperors, meaning he will no longer collect antique porcelain after the Qianlong era.

Only the Zhushan Eight Friends and Mao Porcelain series can break through this restriction; the rest will be transferred or handed over to Lin Wanqiu and Zhang Cheng for disposal.

The same applies to calligraphy and painting. Limited to the Republican era, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, apart from the representative works of the first-tier masters and the Sichuan painters as a separate series, the rest were also eliminated.

The calligraphy and letters discovered in the secret room of Suihuaxuan included many couplets and scrolls by famous Qing Dynasty officials, as well as calligraphy and letters from prominent figures of the Republic of China. These people were not actually known for their calligraphy, but were historical figures. Their letters also contained some secrets and famous historical events, which were also very valuable.

Just as Master Ma was about to open his museum, he set up a small-scale calligraphy and painting collection as his own. When Zhou Zhi learned of this, he transferred all the collections he was preparing to sell to him.

This is also a common practice among collectors with good relationships to exchange items. The categories of collections are diverse, and as the saying goes, "one man's poison is another man's honey." They often resell their items at a friendly price, which can be considered a way of helping others achieve their goals.

This can be seen as Zhou Zhi's way of thanking Master Ma for taking such good care of him and helping to look after his collection and club in the capital.

“Many of these items belong to an elder member of my family,” Zhou Zhi said. “However, he came from a secret society and didn’t really understand collecting. I guess many of the items were suggested by his advisor. After acquiring them, I found them to be quite mixed.”

"Now I just want to make my collecting path clearer and more transparent. Many things can only be resold. It just so happens that Mr. Ma is quite obsessed with this, so I gave them all to him."

“Actually, it’s quite fun to study these letters,” said Master Ma. “Among the things that Elbow gave me, the most important ones are the letters from the two Zhous, the two Mas, and the three Shens, which immediately elevated the level of my collection.”

"The two Zhous are Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, right?" Mo Yan asked. "Who are the others?"

"The 'Three Shens and Two Mas' were prominent figures in the cultural circles of Beiping during the Republic of China era. The 'Two Mas' were Ma Yuzhao and Ma Heng, and the 'Three Shens' were Shen Shiyuan, Shen Yinmo, and Shen Jianshi. Like the 'Two Zhous,' they were all brothers." (End of Chapter)