kaolin
-one of the main raw materials for making porcelain. The color is white with gray or yellow, hence the name of Jiangxi Fuliang (now Jingdezhen) Dongxiang gao ling cun. The word "Gaoling" first appeared in the Records of Fuliang County in the 21st year of Qing Emperor Kangxi, and was translated into Gao Lin in the national standard, becoming an international term.
Macangtu
-Jingdezhen porcelain raw material in Yuan and Ming Dynasties is a kind of kaolin produced in Macangshan near Jingdezhen, hence the name.
china stone
-One of the main raw materials for porcelain making is the rock minerals mainly composed of timely and sericite. The color is white with yellow, green, gray or light red, which has been used for making porcelain in China for a long time.
The word "no"
-Porcelain-making raw materials are processed into brick mud, which is called "Buzi" or "Baibu". This term is widely used in Chinese and foreign ceramic literature.
Glaze paste
-that is, glaze, applied to the surface of porcelain blank. According to the literature, the glaze slurry used in Jingdezhen porcelain making is made of glaze fruit and glaze ash, which is mainly composed of silica, alumina, calcium oxide, potassium oxide and sodium oxide. Glaze ash is made of limestone and Pteris multifida.
Shimianyan
There are many kinds of coloring raw materials for blue and white porcelain, which can be roughly divided into two kinds in ancient times: one is a cobalt clay mine with high manganese content and low iron content in China; A soil mineral with low manganese content and high iron content, produced in cobalt in western Asia.
Suni Ma Qing
-Also known as "Ma Su Li Qing" and "Suniboqing", it is a blue and white pigment imported from Persia. This blue-and-white pigment was mostly used in Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. It is characterized by dignified and rich hair color with black rust-like spots. After testing, the material contains low manganese and high iron, which is obviously different from domestic green materials.
Ping Dengqing
-Also known as "Bitangqing", it was the main pigment used in Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain from Chenghua to Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty. Produced in Leping, Jiangxi Province today, the color is elegant.
(of winter crops or transplanted seedlings) turn green.
-It is an imported blue-and-white pigment, which is mostly used in Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain wares of Zhengde, Jiajing, Qin Long and Wanli in Ming Dynasty. Its characteristic is that its coat color is blue-purple, which is different from Li Qing in Ma Su and equivalent to cyan tone.
Shi Ziqing
-Also known as "Shi Qing", the pigment used in Jingdezhen folk kiln blue-and-white porcelain in the middle of Ming Dynasty. Produced in Shanggao, Jiangxi Province today, the coat is thick with gray.
Zhu Mingliao
—— Blue and white pigment produced in Yunnan and calcined from cobalt clay ore. The main green material used in Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain in Qing Dynasty was bright green.
Second, handicrafts.
throw
-Put the mud on the pulley (that is, the wheel), and pull the mud into the required shape with both hands through the rotation of the pulley. This is a traditional ceramic production method in China, and this process is called blank drawing. Dishes, bowls and other circular devices are all formed by drawing blanks.
Profit gap
-When the blank is semi-dry, put it on the winch and trim it with a knife to make the surface smooth and uniform. This process is called blank making.
Dig your foot
-A 3-inch-long mud target (handle) is left at the bottom of the circular drawing machine, and then the foot of the machine is dug. This process is called digging feet.
Mud belt tray structure
-The original method of pottery molding. When making, the mud is rolled into a strip, then it is built from bottom to top according to the requirements of the device type, and then the internal and external decorations are polished by hand or simple tools to make the device. Pottery made in this way often leaves traces of mud strips on the inner wall.
Wheel system
-The method of making ceramics by handcart. The main component is a wooden round wheel with a vertical shaft below. The lower end of the vertical shaft is buried in the soil, and there is a hub on it to facilitate the rotation of the round wheel. When working, the round wheel is rotated to make it rotate smoothly, and the soil is pulled into the required shape by using the rotating force of the wheelbarrow with both hands. The wheel method began in the late Dawenkou culture in the Neolithic Age, and the artifacts made were regular in shape and uniform in thickness.
Yangshao culture
-a method of firing porcelain. Put a cushion cake or high-temperature resistant fine sand in the sagger and bake the vessel vertically, which is called back burning.
Stacking ignition
-a method of firing porcelain. That is, a plurality of blanks are stacked and fired, and the utensils are separated by mats. Can be divided into: (1) Zhi Ding Shao, commonly used in ancient times. (2) The supporting ring is repeatedly burned, such as kiln burning. (3) Stacking or scraping the glaze, that is, scraping a circle of glaze inside the utensils (mostly plates and bowls), then scraping a circle of glaze from the burnt utensils, and then putting the burned utensils' feet (unglazed) on them. General 10 blocks are stacked layer by layer. This method is very popular in Jin Dynasty products. Its advantages are high yield and low cost; The disadvantage is that there is no glaze inside the object.
Overburning
-a method of firing porcelain. That is, covering porcelain in a sagger with a supporting ring or a cylindrical stepped bracket and baking it began in Ding Yao in the Northern Song Dynasty, and this method was also widely used in Jingdezhen and southeastern China. Its advantages are high yield and small deformation; The disadvantage is that the edge of the mouth is not glazed and it is inconvenient to use.
Cookie making
-refers to the ceramics that need to be fired twice, that is, the green body is fired once in a kiln at a low temperature (about 750 ~ 950℃), then glazed and then fired in the kiln. It can increase the strength of green body and improve the qualified rate of products.
Plug ring
-Before the porcelain body is fired, a circle of glaze is scraped off inside the ware. The place without glaze is called "astringent circle", which was popular in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties.
glazing
-Dipping glaze is one of ceramic glazing techniques, also known as "dipping glaze". The green body is immersed in the glaze for a period of time and then taken out, and the glaze paste is attached to the green body by using the water absorption of the green body. The thickness of glaze layer is controlled by the water absorption of green body, the concentration of glaze slurry and soaking time. Suitable for external glazing of thick green tires and cups and bowls.
With the increasing warming of the collection market, more and more people participate in investment through collection channels. However, like other market investments, there are risks in art investment. Only by collecting genuine products can it appreciate. Many people often buy collectibles through auction channels, but at present, domestic auctions are not very standardized, and there are many problems in the authenticity rate of auction items.
It is reported that there was a ceramic auction in Guangdong, and the authenticity rate was only 1%. Nowadays, many people are optimistic about the returned foreign collections, but there are also mixed cases in the returned collections. A collector spent millions of dollars to buy back a batch of porcelain from England, which was identified as a fake by experts. Therefore, in order to avoid risks, it is very important to know how to distinguish between true and false when investing in artworks.
How to identify real ancient porcelain?
If counted from Shang and Zhou Dynasties, China's porcelain production has a history of three or four thousand years. Throughout the ages, porcelain production is in development, and each dynasty has different characteristics. Therefore, by understanding the evolution of porcelain in different dynasties and the characteristics of porcelain production in different times, we can identify authentic porcelain in different dynasties more accurately.
Generally speaking, the shape, decoration and style of porcelain can be imitated by future generations. So these are not the primary factors to identify the authenticity of a porcelain. Of course, these conditions must be considered in dating.
For example, the dragon patterns painted on porcelain in different dynasties have their own characteristics. Take the Qing Dynasty as an example. The dragon in Shunzhi Dynasty was commonly called Chicken Claw Dragon, and its claws were painted like chicken feet. Gonglong and Kuiwenlong were more common in Kangxi dynasty; The dragon head in Yongzheng dynasty is often painted like a crocodile, and the dragon pattern is more common. In the Qianlong dynasty, the dragon head was painted like a bearded old man; After adding the island, I saw more ichthyosaurs. This dragon is very long, like a swimming hairtail and arched like a shrimp bow. During Guangxu period, I saw many beautiful dragons, and longan seems to have just been ordered, which is particularly magical. Knowing these characteristics of dragon paintings, whenever you see a A Qing dynasty vessel with dragon patterns, you can accurately determine its age by combining other characteristics. But these factors can only be some reference factors before determining the authenticity.
Four elements of porcelain
To determine the authenticity of a piece of porcelain, the first thing to consider is its following four elements, namely:
First, look at the quality of the fetus; Second, look at the light; Third, look at color materials; Fourth, it depends on whether it is really old-fashioned.
First of all, the fetal composition of China porcelain is different from dynasty to dynasty.
Before the Tang dynasty, porcelain was in its infancy, and the fetal structure of the utensils was relatively rough. Like Tang Sancai, the fetal quality is half porcelain and half pottery, which is relatively loose. If the fetal quality of "Tang Sancai" you see is very delicate and compact, then this thing is definitely wrong.
Another example is the black glaze of Jizhou Kiln in Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the fetal quality is relatively loose. Moreover, at that time, workers did it quickly and neatly in the process of wire drawing, and the bottom of each bowl was simply scraped quickly with a bamboo knife, so the rotation trace of the trimmer was very obvious and rough. If the Jizhou kiln bowl tire repair you meet is exquisite, meticulous in workmanship and very hard and fine in tire quality, then you don't have to look at other aspects. This bowl must be an imitation.
Now Yuan Qinghua's porcelain products are very concerned by collectors. Distinguish between Yuan blue and white, in addition to glaze thickness, glaze has a sense of fat accumulation; The color material is "Ma Su Li Qing", which has the characteristics of strong green and iron spots, and also has some obvious characteristics in fetal quality.
Generally, the matrix of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain is relatively heavy, and the bottom of the porcelain often cracks after firing. The quality of the fetus is fine, which is caused by Bai Jian. There is often reddish flint red at the junction of fetal glaze. This flint red will also radiate flesh red in the thin white glaze of the blank. If the glaze of the "Yuan Blue and White" ware is dry, the fetal quality is rough and loose, there is no flint red, and there is no meat red in the thin glaze, then collectors must be careful.
In addition, Kangxi porcelain is delicate, clear and firm, but the porcelain-making style is rough and there are spin marks on the bottom of the porcelain. Because it is a manual tire washing, there are impurities no matter how fine it is. So there are some black spots on the bottom glaze. If it is written by Kangxi, but the bottom is bright and clean, there are no spin marks and black defects, nine times out of ten it is imitation.
The second is to look at the glaze.
Glazing of porcelain is constantly changing with the development of the times. The glaze used before the Northern Song Dynasty was lime glaze, which had weak adhesion to tread patterns. Therefore, the glaze is thin, flowing and easy to peel off, which is also a key point of identification. For example, to identify the glazed ware in the Tang Dynasty, we should first look at whether the glaze color flows and whether the colors blend because of the flow. Second, we should pay attention to the phenomenon of peeling and cracking of glaze before the late Tang Dynasty.
In addition, Tang porcelain can generally be seen under a magnifying glass, and this opening method is not obvious. If you can see it from a meter away, it's an imitation.
After the Southern Song Dynasty, lime-alkali glaze was used instead. This glaze has strong adhesion and can be applied very thick. Therefore, porcelain such as Ge Kiln, Guan Kiln and Longquan Kiln after the Southern Song Dynasty are rich in glaze color, and unmelted timely particles can be seen under the magnifying glass.
In addition, from the point of view of glaze, many characteristics shown from it are conducive to identification. Orange peel lines can be seen on the surface of porcelain in Xuande and Yongzheng dynasties. Small sawtooth marks can be seen on the glaze seam of dry dragon monochrome glaze; Finger mark watermarks can often be seen on the glaze of Wanli and Kangxi blue and white flowers; In the late Qing Dynasty, the bottom glaze of several pieces of porcelain was uneven, commonly known as "wave glaze" and so on, which were the identification basis provided by observing the glaze.
The third is to look at color materials.
Different times, different color materials are used. Generally speaking, ancient porcelain is made of mineral materials, while modern imitations are often replaced by chemical materials. Therefore, those who use chemical materials can be excluded in the identification process. And mineral materials are also different in each period. Take blue cobalt used in blue and white painting as an example. The Ming and Qing Dynasties had their own uses.
During the Hongwu period, there were two kinds of green materials: imported and domestic. Imported materials are bright, but domestic materials are dark. The official kilns in Yongle and Xuande dynasties mostly used imported "Ma Su Li Qing" materials, with rich hair color and "iron rust spots" on blue and white; Chenghua went to Zhengde, using Ping Dengqing material, and the hair color was elegant and delicate; From Jiajing to the early years of Wanli, the official kilns were mostly imported green materials, with bright hair color and purple in the green; From the late Wanli to Chongzhen, Shi Ziqing or Zhejiang materials were used, except for a few bright colors, which were generally light and dull; Shi Ziqing was used in the early years of Shunzhi in Qing Dynasty, and Zhejiang was used in the later period. In the early period of Kangxi, Shunzhi continued, and the blue and white colors were gloomy and occasionally light. Zhejiang material and Yunnan pearl material are mostly used in the middle period, which are emerald blue with distinct layers and light color in the later period. During the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, the color was not as good as that of Kangxi, and the level was also reduced; At the end of the Qing Dynasty, all dynasties regressed.
According to the different situations of using green materials, we can roughly judge the age of the utensils. The same is true of other colors, whether multicolored or pastel, the colors used in different dynasties are different. Familiarity with these helps to identify and judge.
From the external performance of color materials, it can also be used to distinguish multicolored, pastel and enamel. In addition to turquoise and glass color, all the colorful utensils are painted flatly and the surface is rough; Pastel is drawn by rendering method, with strong three-dimensional sense, pink texture, smooth surface and no glass texture. Pastel can't be all pastel, alum red must be colorful. Because the firing temperature is high, alum red will flow, so if alum red is found to be powdery or vitrified, it must be a modern technology after the Republic of China; Enamel color is also drawn by rendering method, with strong three-dimensional sense, glossy texture, glass texture and no powder texture. There is no clam light because no lead oxide process is used.
The fourth is to look at the really old-fashioned objects.
There should be traces of use and storage on the handed down products, and there should be traces left by years; There should be traces of rustic invasion on the unearthed objects. These marks are all displayed on the utensils, one of which is the patina formed by air oxidation and long-term storage in space. On a patina-coated object, there will be a layer of warm luster like thin oil. The older you get, the stronger the light. If it is blue and white, then the blue and white under the patina should sink, just like there is a layer of water on it, commonly known as "head".
There is no water head on the blue and white of the new device. Old handed down products must have some traces of use, such as scratches and scratches. This mark is irregular and naturally remains in the passage of time. Different from the use traces of modern new products made by hand, handwork is regular and blunt, which can be distinguished by careful observation. If the object has been buried in the soil, there should also be traces of erosion such as soil erosion and gray skin.
The newly unearthed things should smell of earth. Now there are artificial methods such as acid corrosion, but they are not as deep, irregular and smelly as real soil erosion and gray skin.
At present, the aging is still carried out by glaze and zinc plating during firing. Because zinc is more active at high temperature, it can make the glaze bubble burst, thus achieving the purpose of using the old for the new. However, as an old galvanized object, it can also be concluded that the bubbles of galvanized objects are broken at one time at high temperature, unlike natural aging, which has time factors to join, so there are more or less and uneven.
In addition, the glazed surface of galvanized parts flows due to the bursting of a large number of bubbles, and curved water ripples can be seen under the magnifying glass. In short, all old things must have a real old spirit; Anyone who can't find any old-fashioned utensils must be new.
Identification should be combined with the above four factors, from the shape, decoration, style and other aspects of comprehensive consideration If you find anything wrong, you can totally deny it. The reason why the identification of ancient porcelain should start with the above four elements is because these four points are difficult for modern counterfeiters to imitate.
In terms of porcelain identification, fakes focus on Gu Zhuo, simple and honest, clumsy and beautiful, exquisite and gorgeous, and make detailed analysis and comparison to find out its evolution law. Take the jade pot spring bottle for example. From the early Song Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, it was made in all dynasties, but the style was not as good as that of each generation. For example, the spring bottle of Xuande blue-and-white jade pot, which was imitated in Yongzheng period of Qing Dynasty, was beautifully made, and the rest was ignored, only the subtle differences in shape could be seen. In addition to the overall style, we should also observe different utensils from the mouth, abdomen, bottom, handle, ear, neck, flow, department, foot to the inside of porcelain to see what are the similarities and differences in different times. If we can often play with and measure the body parts, weight and size of ancient porcelain, it will be very beneficial to the appraisal.
Ornaments, like shapes, have obvious characteristics of the times. No matter the theme, decorative techniques or crafts, decorative patterns in different periods have different performances, which has become a powerful basis for dating porcelain and identifying fakes. For example, in the early Ming Dynasty, the unique phenomena such as light blue pigments and pits in Yongxuan porcelain could not be accurately reproduced by later generations. In the Qing Dynasty, Yongzheng imitated the eternal propaganda device and deliberately added blue and white dots to imitate the effect of the celebration, but because of the different cobalt materials, it could not overcome the disadvantages of floating color. Another example is "flowers have no dark side and leaves have no negative side" in Chenghua Doucai decoration; The clothing lines of characters are not rendered, regardless of appearance, like a single coat. These subtle characteristics of the times are often ignored by later counterfeiters. As for the evolution of color painting technology, such as purple and no black (black should not be used in Zhengde at the earliest); The red color in Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty was deep red jujube skin; In the Ming dynasty, green was mostly yellow-green; Pastel appeared in the middle and late Kangxi period; This knowledge is a must. In addition, the style and brushwork of decorative patterns are also particularly noteworthy. For example, after imitating the enamel, pastel, multicolored, fighting colors and other artifacts in the early Qing Dynasty, the brushwork is often stiff, naive, unfamiliar and dull, or the patterns are unclear, lifeless and some decorations are too delicate, which is enough to arouse our suspicion.
In terms of fetal glaze, the fetus is bone and the glaze is clothes. When identifying tire quality, we can start with the unglazed part of the tire foot, and pay attention to the purity of tire soil erosion and the meticulous degree of sintering. Due to the different scouring methods of the times, before the Ming Dynasty, there were more metal impurities in the tire soil than in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. For example, the famous Yong Xuan fine sand bottom device can be seen in the exposed tire with dark brown stars or flint red formed by natural oxidation of metals; Later, the imitations of carcass in Qing Dynasty and Republic of China were too fine to have such oxidation spots, which became the fatal defect of the imitations. In addition, in the Ming Dynasty, the light on the carcass was mostly flesh red. The transparent matrix of Ming Chenghua is ivory white and pink white. But the imitations of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China were all blue and white. The embryo quality of Kangxi porcelain in Qing Dynasty is pure, delicate and hard, which is beyond the imitation in late Qing Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. However, many Japanese porcelains that imitate China's Ming and Qing porcelains are burnt too much, which sounds clear. As far as imitation is concerned, it is also a defect. As for the identification of glaze, we should mainly pay attention to the thickness of enamel color, old and new luster, the thickness of glaze layer, the size and density of bubbles. For example, the glazes of porcelains in the Ming Dynasty are all blue and white to varying degrees, and the glazes of feet and bodies are different. In the early Ming dynasty, colorless natural glaze opening and shrinking often occurred; The orange peel glaze of Xuande in Ming Dynasty is slightly different from the small wave pattern of imitators in Yongzheng in Qing Dynasty and after the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The glaze of Kangxi porcelain in Qing dynasty has a sense of compactness, the blue glaze is hard and bright, the white glaze is broken and bubbles are broken. All kinds, each with typical characteristics of the times, are the most convincing for seeing through fakes. In addition, judging from the old and new luster of the glaze, many imitators mystify and make the imitation glaze old: burying the soil, polishing it, smoothing it with medicine, boiling it with tea, and even slightly damaging it to show the appearance of the soil. Then these unnatural old luster, there is no ancient porcelain "crisp light" phenomenon naturally formed over time.
In terms of money, the past dynasties are even more different. To understand the different styles of each generation, we can start with the study of brushwork, then compare the true and false porcelain inscriptions with each other, and repeatedly examine the font structure, arrangement, inscription position, font color depth and so on in combination with the real objects. In addition, we should also pay attention to summarizing the changing laws in the early, middle and late stages of the same period.
Small knowledge of porcelain maintenance
1. Bottles, cans and statues with large bodies are generally spliced from bottom to top and have a certain weight, so you can't carry the neck of the upper part of the object with one hand. Customers who buy large vases should pay attention to the fact that porcelain vases with large bodies, such as large vases, are generally made up of two pieces. Because they are large when moving, you can't hold the upper neck of an object with one hand. You have to hold the bottom with one hand and the neck with the other, so as not to separate the two sections that were originally spliced. Some bottles and statues are decorated with ears. We can't just lift our ears when we pick them up, so as not to break them. We should grasp the main body of an object, not it. Because these places are easy to break, or the handle is sticky, it is easy to break again when grasping the handle. When picking up a porcelain with a cover, the cover, the base and the main body should be taken separately, and the cover and the base should not be carried together. Take off the detachable part first to prevent it from falling off and breaking when moving.
Second, porcelain is fragile. In preservation, first of all, we should pay attention to shock prevention, extrusion prevention and collision prevention. Pay attention to wearing gloves and cushion the table with flannel when appreciating. Don't pass it on to each other while watching. One person will put it back on the table after reading it, and others will hold it. Containers with thin tires are lighter and more delicate, so be more careful when handling and placing them. You should hold them with both hands and avoid using one hand, especially bottles. Their feet are very small and long, and they must be blown down by the wind.
3. Newly-bought high-temperature glazed or underglaze porcelain should be soaked in water for about 1 hour, then the oil stains outside should be washed off with detergent, dried with towel and put into a box, and some foam padding should be put in the box, and the foam diameter should not exceed 0.5 cm. The collection should be put in a box, so as not to squeeze it, so as not to hurt the collection.
4. So what is the best way to preserve porcelain?
First of all, when there is no display, first of all, we put the porcelain in a customized box with a sponge or foam pad. Secondly, don't put two pieces of porcelain together. If we have to put them together, we have to separate them with foam. Let me talk about the display of porcelain first. If you want to display porcelain, you'd better put it on a fixed wooden shelf, such as an antique shelf made of solid wood. The shelf must be firm and not easy to shake.
Five, clean.
Actually, the cleaning of porcelain is very simple. Usually, you just need to wipe the dust. Usually, you can wipe porcelain with a wet cloth, clean porcelain dust with a soft brush, and brush porcelain seams with a soft brush. Don't wash unglazed pottery directly with water, because pottery is absorbent and unearthed pottery looks loose. Some makeup soil on the body is like powder and can't be cleaned. Be careful when cleaning.