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~~~~~

Qianlong porcelain bowl from Norton's Art

Hello guys, I know that I am mega lazy right now but since I receive some likes in my facebook, so I have decided to post some entries.  In this week, I have found an interesting piece that can showcase what we have learnt previously.

Preview Entry 9 - Norton's Art (Fine Chinese Ceramics, Painting, Works of Art) 7 July 2016

Chinese porcelain bowl, famille rose glazed, marked

Lot 8M

6 Characters (大清乾隆年製) base mark

Estimated: $100 - $200

Motifs

For this piece, apart from the shape, we must be aware for the motifs on this piece.  As we can see here, we can find the butterfly (蝶), which has the meaning of longevity, double happiness (雙囍), and floral design that resemble peony (牡丹), which has the meaning of wealth.  For double happiness and butterfly, these motifs are well used in late Qing pieces especially during Tongzhi reign (同治 1856-1875).

Palace Museum, China

Now we explain why it is problematic

Motifs again

As we mentioned before, double happiness and butterfly motifs are common used in Tongzhi reign, to be honest here I haven't seen a Qianlong piece with this motifs combination (I seen butterfly motifs on Qianlong fabric though).  Actually it is very weird to see Tongzhi motifs (1856-1875) on a Qianlong piece (1711-1799).  I know time travel is possible but I don't think it is possible 200 years ago.

Another thing is the poor drawing of motifs, for the butterfly I think it is quite nice, similar to the pieces from Tongzhi reign.  But for the double happiness and Peony, they look questionable, I guess they spent all the budget on the butterfly.  The double happiness are separated, the peony is too simple.  I cannot find a Qianlong piece with Peony motifs yet, but as you can see here, you can see the really big difference.

Palace Museum, Taiwan

Weird mark

For the base mark, It was inscribed as “大清乾隆年製”.  Actually, it is okay to me if it is a piece from Tongzhi or Daoguang reign, since the mark is usually not very good in a famille rose piece, the production quality is dropping due to budget limitation.  The size for the mark is okay to me, not over sized or under sized.  Just one thing look weird to me, which is the "大", the head for the 大 is missing, I don't know if it is poorly photographed or what.

Shape

Actually I was going to skip this part since it is just too easy to spot the problem, the bowl is warped due to bad firing.  And the most important part is, it is not even a bowl, it looks like a satellite dish to me. seriously?

Conclusion

I think it worth the price if it is sold in $20, good for holding your key chain or coins, but I highly doubt that it is an authentic Qianlong piece.

So this is the preview after the long long vacation, I received lots of PMs from facebook, the pms and likes are meant a lot to me so I really thanks for the supports from you guys!

Hello! Connoisseur bear here~ how’s your holiday?  I was having a good time, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, and eat some more…I am now so fat that I will have to get some new pants… oh no!

This week we are going to talk about a Qing famille rose yellow ground dish.  For this dish, our bears think it is interesting since it looked so good, but somehow there are still some small features that are problematic to us.  So, it is a good opportunity for us to discover and learn from this dish.

Preview Entry 8 - HGPY NY Auctions (Asian Fine art and Antiques) 16 January 2016

Qing Famille Rose Dayazhai Yellow Plate

Lot 63

4 Characters (永慶長春) base mark

Estimated: $5,000 - $10,000

For the background information, supposing if this is a genuine piece, this piece is made for Empress Dowager, Cixi (1835-1908).  This group of pieces bear her special ‘Da Ya Zhai’ 大雅齋 (Studio of Great Elegance) marks, and were designed and produced during late Tongzhi period (1862-1874) or the early Guangxu period (1874-1908) (ref 1).  This type of wares are usually grisaille-decorated墨彩, and decorated with floral and bird motifs.

Here are the reasons why we think it is a questionable piece:

Density of the black

As we can see in this section, the motifs are grisaille-decorated, however, they are in a high density of dark color, for example the pedals and the bird.  For the pieces from Palace museum in China, as we can see the motifs are not in that density, and if you put them together we can see the difference.  One interesting side note for the grisaille decoration is, the darker area usually is the shadowed part of the motifs, it is to convey a sense of three dimension.  Feature like this started after Yongzheng period (1678-1735), at that time there were Western missionaries serving in the Qing Court, and they brought the knowledge of Western painting and the idea of linear perspective to Court painters.

Lot 63, Qing Famille Rose Dayazhai Yellow Plate

Yellow Ground Porcelain 'Flower and Butterfly' Plate, Dayazhai Mark, Qing Dynasty Guangxu period.
黃地墨彩花蝶紋盤
Collection of Palace Museum, China.

Glossy Surface/ Perfect Rim

For the glossy surface, we must be careful when we see a piece with glass-like reflection, for older piece it should be in a less reflective/ dull surface.  But please be aware even if you see a dull one.  If you see many scratch marks on a porcelain, it means it is treated with sand paper, people use sand paper to make the piece less reflective and to make it looks older.  For famille rose pieces, the sand paper method cannot be used, since it will remove the glaze.

For the perfect rim, it is also related to the condition of this piece, it is just too perfect, it is covered with brownish glazed completely.  Usually the coating should be damaged a bit.  It means A, it is in a really condition.  B, restored.  C, Modern.  

For reference piece, please see below bowl from British Museum, as you can see the rim is scratched a bit.  Also, the yellow ground is less reflective, perfect than the one from HGPY NY.

Porcelain Bowl, Collection of British Museum 

A side note for the brownish rim is, it seems to be a common feature for late qing imperial pieces to have a brownish rim, unlike previous periods like Qianlong and Yongzheng.

Beautiful, yet weird mark

For the base mark, It was inscribed as “Yongqing changchun” (永慶長春) (eternal prosperity and enduring spring), I must say it is nicely written, much better handwriting than I do.  However~, it is not similar with other Dayazhai pieces.  Please compare the style from this piece and the piece of Palace Museum (sorry for the quality).  

As we can see from the piece of Palace Museum (left), the circled strokes of 慶,長,春 are longer.  For the piece from HGPY NY auctions (right), they seems ‘taller’ and ‘slimmer’.  I must say the mark is the red flag for me.

Reference:

1. Ronald W. Longsdorf. 1966. "The Tongzhi Imperial Wedding Porcelain." Pp. 69-78.  In Orientations. Hong Kong: Orientations Magazine Ltd..

2.   故宮博物院編，《官樣御瓷──故宮博物院藏清代制瓷官樣與御窯瓷器》，北京：紫禁城出版社（2007）。

3.   Bowl, British Museum,  (Ok I admit that lazy for this one)

So!  That’s the analysis for this week!  Time to eat some more~

Also!  Oh my god we got another Like for our Facebook page~~~~~~~~Thank you Chrissy Goh! You know every time when I see a like in our page, I dance in joy and jump around in my home.

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 6 - New Castle Art & Antique Gallery (Chinese Antiques and Collectibles 11-08-2015)

Hey Hey Hey, Connoisseur Bear is here!  I have noticed that we talked about many good stuffs recently, it’s time to talk about some “questionable” stuff, so that we can practice what we have learnt…

This week we will talk about a Qianlong monochrome dish.

For this dish, like the color itself, is full with red flags!

Chinese Porcelain Red Glazed Dish

Lot 245

4 Characters (乾隆年製) mark

Estimated: $600-$800

1.      Body & Foot rim

For the body of this dish, it is greyish and full of 
black dots (kiln grits), the greyish color and kiln grits (circled) are due to poor firing.  It contradicts with the quality of Qianlong wares already.  During the reigns of Kangxi康熙, Yongzheng雍正, Qianlong乾隆(we call it as Kang Yong Qian 康雍乾), it is the golden age of China pottery craftsmanship, so the quality like this dish is not acceptable at all, the potter who in charge of this dish can be punished for submitting stuffs like this.  

And the foot rim, it is kinda “dirty”, remember the peach bowl we talked about in first week (link)?  The foot rim reflect the quality of the material used, for this dish, it is not very good.  However, the porcelain near the mark is white and smooth, it means that the potter applied a good amount of slip (化妝土) near the mark, so it is white and shiny, but the bad thing for using slip is, it will turn yellow as the time pass.

2.      Mark

This one is too obvious… please have a quick look first.  There are two major issues I want to point out, first is the script style, second is the number of words.

For the script style, we can see that the style of this mark is quite different from the marks we talked about previously, even though they are in the same category, regular script (Kai Shu楷書), there is a slight difference.

Usually if you see fonts are writing in a direction like this, it’s a red flag, since this kind of script style is not used in Qing dynasty, you might find it in Ming dynasty though (still rare), or modern piece.

For the number of words, this one is the real problem.  In this mark, it is written as “乾隆年製”, however, in my knowledge only enamel or glass pieces use a 4 character marks, for the rest it is usually大清乾隆年製, either in regular script or mostly in seal script (Suan Shu篆書).  So this mark contradicts with the style during Qianlong reign.

Due to these two elements, this piece is problematic to me.  However, I do admire the courage for the one who bid this piece, let’s cheer for this person! (slow claps).  It’s a hard and crazy decision for me, or for him, if he read my blog.

wow come on!

Chinese celadon vase, decorated with symbols, marked Kangxi

Preview Entry 5 - Carlo Bonte (Asian Arts Part II 10-28-2015)

A Chinese celadon vase, decorated with symbols, marked Kangxi

Lot 451

6 Characters (大清康熙年製) mark

Estimated: €400 - €600

Realized Price: $7,000

Hey Hey Hey, Connoisseur Bear is here!  Sorry guys I have dragged into the study of anthropology and the readings and paper amount is hellish!!!

This week we will talk about a Kangxi jun 尊 vase.

For this vase, I am quite positive about this vase.  Reasons below:

1.      Shape matters

For this vase, it resembles the shape of jun 尊 vase during Kangxi period, usually besides finding example pieces from museum catalogues and exhibition, we also read different materials related to Chinese antiques.  In one of our Chinese porcelain text book written by Geng Bao Chang, 耿寶昌, he mentioned about the shape of a “jun” vase during Kangxi period, which kind resemble the vase we featured this week.  As we know that, the pieces from imperial kiln are strictly restricted in style, so the form of a vase should not be in a huge variety.

Abstrict from "Ming and Qing porcelain on inspection", 明清瓷器鑒定, page 17

2.      Motif matters

For the motifs on the vase, we usually call them as animal mask, 獸面.  This type of motifs is popular for archaistic bronze wares during Shang dynasty 商朝(c. 1600 BC–c. 1046 BC), and suddenly it is “revived” in Kangxi period.  This kind of motifs is unique in Kangxi reign as it is hard to find animal mask motifs in later reigns.

'Fangyi' Covered Ritual Wine Vessel with 'Taotie' Decor, collection of Harvard Art Museums

3.      Mark matters

We always talk about the mark, that because it represents the written style of certain dynasties and periods.  We have talked about the written style of Yongzheng and Kangxi period in previous entry, which is related to the composition of the Chinese texts.  You guys can refer to it.  The mark of this vase can be resembled to the mark during Kangxi period.

4.      Foot rim matters

Another thing that we always talk about is: foot rim, this is the thing that “gives out” the quality of a ceramic,  as it reveals the body of a porcelain piece.  For celadon pieces during Qing dynasty, we call this type of glaze as 東青釉 (eastern green), which is extremely similar to the celadon glaze in later reigns, 冬青釉 (winter green).  For the pieces that in eastern green or winter green during Qing dynasty, we can see many “rings” in the foot rim, which very similar to the piece we featured this week.  However, one thing to remind you guys is that, if we see this kind of rim in blue and white pieces, it is problematic and usually it is a red flag.

The ring (not the spooky one)

Conclusion: 

Analyzing a Chinese antique is hard, it required years of experience and devotion of learning via reading different books that are academic and reliable.  I hope that I can serve as a bridge for you all to admire the beauty of Chinese ceramics.

Wow!

BESIDES, WE JUST GOT ONE LIKE IN FACEBOOK, SHOUTOUT TO OUR HERO, MICHAEL SHANG!  OUR BEARS ALMOST SHUT THE BLOG AND SCRATCH THEIR TUMMIES BUT NOW WE WILL CONTINUE OUR EFFORTS

celebrate good times come on