Message Behind the Bat Designs (Part I)

Ohhhh! Bears miss you guys so much!!!!  At the beginning of the Year of Rooster, we wish you all the best!   So, we will talk about something blessing - bat designs in Chinese art objects and what auspicious message behind the designs. This entry is written by my friend over the bear village, in exchange of few fishes, thanks for his kind effort!

Message Behind the Bat Designs (Part I)

In many Chinese art objects, such as ceramics, jade, gold paintings, textiles and etc., auspicious bat imagery can be found in the objects.  It is common to use symbols in art in many cultures, which makes the art objects unique.  It is worth noting that the Chinese language serves as the backbone of Chinese symbolism.  There are an abundant number of homophones in spoken Chinese, symbols derive meanings by pictorial puns or rebuses.

Bats are the most popular among of all pictorial puns, because the phonetic similarity with the character for “blessings” (福, fu).  In Ming dynasty, bats had an unprecedented visibility in a wide range of materials.

Metropolitan Museum, New York

The above Qing dynasty porcelain dish, from the Yongzheng period (1723-35), decorated with a total of eight peaches (five on the front and three on the back) growing flowering branches and five bats (three on the front and two on the back).  This composition of bat and peach became conventional during Yongzheng’s time.  

Bats as a pictorial pun for blessing while peaches are customarily associated with immortality.  It is said that Xiwangmu (西皇母), the Daorist goddess of longevity, grows peaches of immortality in her garden.  Peach trees need 3000 years to blossom and take another 3000 years to bear the fruit that will bestow immortality  on whomever consumes it.  In general, it is used to wish people with vast blessings, just like the blessings are filled in whole sky 

Look at the dish again, we can see the expansion of colours from the original overglaze enamels with its much greater variations in tone.  It captures the brush of fuzz and spots on the skin of mature peaches.  Besides, the branch extends from back over to the front of the dish is a design known as guozhi (過枝) or “crossing over the rim” that suggests the sound of changzhi (長治), meaning a long and peaceful reign, which is a compliment to the emperor and wish him has a long reign.  The red bats fly between two sides along the peach branch, forming a balanced and animated scene that charm the emperor for some time.  

*sniff* *sniff* 

We smell something fresh, sweet, juicy..... is it peach?  Sorry, it is time to enjoy delicious peach! Although it is not grown by Xiwangmu and we won't have immortal life after eating the peach, it is a healthy food for our life!

Next time, we will keep talking about bat designs.  Bye~~~~~

Chinese Blue and White Dish (Who to trust?)

So, after a long time, I have come back!!

I have just finished my first semester in anthropology, wrote a ethnography and some papers… I must say it is very inspiring and important to my career.

In our blog, we constantly talk about how to identify fakes, don’t trust the description, we need to perform research before buying anything, these are the rules of being an antique buyer (or connoisseur).  However, for most of the buyers, either rich or lazy, they think that the stuffs from a famous auction house such as Christies, Sothebys or Bonhams, are good enough and trust worthy.  I hope to let you all to know that, even a well-known auction house, the stuffs can also be questionable.  In this week, we will out-perform the specialist in a world class auction house, with our skills.

This time, we will talk about a blue and white dish from previous Christie’s auction.

Preview Entry 7 - Christie's (Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art (Parts I&II) 23 March 2012

An unusual Blue and White Shallow Dish

Lot 2047

6 Characters (大清雍正年製) mark

Estimated: $5,000 - $7,000
Realized Price: $7,500

Like its title, it is really unusual to me, if viewed as an imperial piece from Yongzheng reign, reasons below:

Brownish mouth rim coating

It is one of the key styles of export wares or private kiln production.  We call it as 醬油邊(Soy sauce Rim), the rim is covered with brownish color coating.  If you find one export plate from Yonghzheng and Qianlong reign, you may find this kind of rim, since this kind of rim is very common for the export wares during the mentioned reigns, and the plates with these rims are very sharp.

Checker rim decoration

As we can see near the rim, there is some Checker pattern decoration.  

It is a common style for export wares or private kiln products.  Besides, it is also a common style for Japanese porcelain wares.  However, this pattern should not be decorated on Imperial Yongzheng pieces, I have never come across with a Yongzheng imperial piece with this decoration.

And I found one book from Metropolitan Museum which talks about export ware!  In here you can find some example pieces with this kind of rim decoration.

Poor written mark
It was written as “Dai Qing Yongzheng Nian Zhi” (大清雍正年製) (Made during the reign of Yongzheng).  However to me, there are two problems:

1.      Poor coloring

For the color, it is in dark blue, it is the result of poor firing, either in too high temperature, or firing too long.  It is a quality problem that should not be accepted in imperial production.

2.      Style for the mark

As we can see in here, it is a poor imitation of Yongzheng reign mark.  Few strokes are tilting upward (marked Red), which is a features for later period, it should not be happened in Yongzheng pieces.  The character "Nian" 年 is barely acceptable to me though.  Again it is a quality problem, during Yongzheng reign, there were already workmen assigned solely for mark writing, so the marks should be in consistent style.

Conclusion

To me, the best scenario for this piece is, it is a private kiln production near Guangxu (late qing)/ republic of China or later period.  I would not say it is a fake piece since it is a common practice in the time of Republic of China with an older reign mark, and actually it is a great piece for that period. I do not suggest it is an export ware from Yongzheng period since it is contradictory to for an export ware from Yongzheng reign to bear a reign mark.  Also, the quality of the landscape painting is beyond the quality of an export ware.  If I work in Christie’s, I would suggest it is from 19^th century, instead of 18^th Century.  Also, the buyer would be disappointed if he/ she wish to buy an imperial piece.

 Extra stuff!

Well!  In last week, our facebook page got one new like, it is from Marilyn Loraine!  This time we fell off from chair since we are really lazy these weeks and still have one like.

Preview Entry 1 - Wensly Auctions (Asian Works of Arts 08-29-2015)

Chinese Qing Porcelain Famille Rose Bowl

Lot 22

2 3/4 x 5 7/8"

6 Characters (大清雍正年製) mark

Estimated: $1,500-$3,000

Starting bid: $200

Hello there!  This is the first entry from our Connoisseur Bear.  In this blog, we will analyze different works of arts from different places, we hope that you can learn from those pieces, and be a good connoisseur, just like our bear!

So, in this week, we are analyzing a Qing Famille Rose Bowl with "Peach" theme.  Qing dynasty bowl with imperial mark is always a number one choice for collectors and dealers, and if it is decorated with Peaches(!), and with a imperial mark(!!), the combination can make the bowl worth over US$3,000,000 (Sotheby's, October 2011, HK0377, Lot16).  But wow, now you can buy it with $200, even our bear sniff around and say this bowl is kinda fishy (not salmon!).

Here's why:

1. High Contrast Peaches

By looking at the peaches, we can see the unnatural color because of the high contrast effect, the tips of those peaches almost turn into purple.  For the genuine one, the color is much natural. See the collection from Metropolitan Museum(MET) for reference:

2. Bat's wings

The next concern we have, is the wings for the bats, please notice the detail of the bat wings from the collection of MET, we can see the "fingers" of the bats, but for the one we featured this one, we cannot see any of them.  For a bowl with imperial six characters mark, it should be in superior quality, so it should not be painted in this way.

3. Bottom rim quality and the mark
Basically, we stop inspecting if there is one thing in doubt.  But since we are here to teach, we will come across the bottom rim(red arrow) and the mark(black arrow) also,

First of all, we will look at the bottom rim first, the rim of this bowl is kinda "dirty", this is one of the red flags.  Bottom rim is where we can see the quality of a porcelain, we must know that the clay used by imperial kiln in Qing court must be in supreme quality, so the bottom rim supposed to be whitish and dense.  For rim like this, usually it happens in late Qing and Republic of China, since the quality of porcelain is affected by the budget of late Qing Court.  But you may see other areas of the bowl are whitish, it is because it is decorated with slip (化妝土), it is not the main body of the bowl.

After this, we will look into the mark, it is written as "Dai Qing Yong Zheng Nian Zhi" (大清雍正年製), which can be translated as "made in the reign of Yongzheng".  With this mark, it indicates this bowl supposed to be made from the imperial kiln during the Yongzheng period, and it is made for the internal use of Qing court.  I must be honest that the character "大，正，年，製" are nicely written, but for the character "清", it is kinda distorted toward the arrow's direction.  But the mark is kinda OK to me, since sometimes our bears can find stuff like this and laugh our ass off.

so these are the opinions and views from my boss, which is a bear.  If there are any questions, please let us know, and we will redirect it to the Connoisseur Bear.