Frankly speaking, although the old craftsmen have already taken out all their best clothes to wear.
But because they are all out-of-date gadgets, they rarely have the opportunity to participate in such high-end banquets.
This made them feel uncomfortable and nervous in the magnificently decorated banquet hall.
It seems a bit dull and restrained, even a bit helpless and dull.
But it doesn't matter, because their works are their real business card and their best face.
The works created by them, and what will be displayed today, have been displayed in the main hall of the Sacrifice Pavilion long before the meeting, becoming the most conspicuous presence.
In fact, all the guests from Northern Chef today need to do is enter here and see the exhibits.
You will definitely look at it with burning eyes, and then with wonder, you will appreciate it carefully and praise it again and again.
Many people seemed to have lost track of time because of this, forgetting that they had to go to Beishen Kitchen next door, the main venue of today's banquet.
And the more knowledgeable people are, the more reluctant they are to leave.
As a result, the main hall of the Sacrifice Pavilion was quickly overcrowded.
Ning Weimin had to ask people to take temporary measures to control the flow of visitors to ensure the safety of guests and exhibits.
Needless to say, the people who can come here today are definitely not without vision, and most of them are in the art industry.
No matter how much I support you or how much I give you face, it won't be like this.
Then why is this still happening?
Hey, there is only one answer, it’s because the stuff is so good!
Almost every one of these things on display is dazzling and fascinating!
It can be called a miracle in the special handicraft category of the industrial art industry!
If nothing else, let’s talk about this porcelain first.
Liu Yongqing, who currently works at the Beijing Arts and Crafts Factory, has fired two pairs of large antique porcelains by himself in recent years.
All the people who knew ceramics at the scene were dumbfounded and praised endlessly.
For example, the pair of "Ancient Colorful Lotus Pond Waterfowl Large Fish Tank" from the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty, 1567-1572.
The pair of large fish tanks imitated by Liu Yongqing are exactly the same as the originals in terms of color and composition.
Not only does it fully demonstrate his superb color matching skills.
The key is that the inner wall of the fish tank requires the painter to hang his wrists to paint, which is a display of extreme skill and cannot be done by ordinary people.
To be honest, all the painters in Jingcheng Handicraft Factory are not of this level.
Originally, in the middle of production, Liu Yongqing himself was worried about this, and once even gave up.
Later, thanks to Ning Weimin who spent 600 yuan to polish the pen and asked Bai Xuese, a professor at the Academy of Arts and Crafts, to solve this crucial technical problem.
It has to be said that a professional painter is a professional painter. Although Bai Xueshi is famous for his landscape paintings.
However, the ducks, mandarin ducks, goldfish, etc. it depicts are still full of life, and they are no worse than the original work.
This resulted in this pair of flawless antique porcelain pieces.
It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of 1984, these large tanks were just finished.
Because it was in time for the Spring Festival, it was temporarily placed in the warehouse of the handicraft factory and almost sold for a sky-high price.
I love the Japanese who don’t celebrate the Spring Festival. At that time, the foreign trade department brought several Japanese businessmen to visit the factory.
This pair of large tanks was immediately spotted by a Japanese businessman, who offered 18,000 yuan in foreign exchange coupons on the spot to transport them back to Japan for collection.
This price is much higher than the 6,600 yuan offered by Tan Palace.
Even the people accompanying the foreign trade department were jealous.
The sales section chief of the handicraft factory was naturally very moved, and he opened his mouth to agree.
Unexpectedly, Liu Yongqing firmly refused.
The old man kept saying that the pair of large tanks were ordered by Tan Gong and that they had already paid the full price.
Later, the Japanese merchant increased the price by 10,000 to 28,000 yuan, but Liu Yongqing did not agree.
The Japanese merchant even offered to pay for the order and deliver it one year later, but he turned his head and refused.
He actually told people that he didn't have time and that he had other more important work to do later.
As a result, not only did the people in the foreign trade department and the Japanese businessmen left in displeasure.
Even the sales section manager in the factory felt very distressed.
Because of Liu Yongqing's stubbornness, he almost suffered a heart attack.
After everything happened, the section chief went to the factory director and complained to Liu Yongqing.
But the factory director was finally not confused this time.
Instead, I told the section chief that our Tan Palace has a long-term cooperation, and they order a lot of tableware every year.
No matter how high the Japanese businessman bids, it is still a one-time deal, and if it fails, the foreign trade department will have to take advantage of it.
What's more, Liu Yongqing wasn't talking nonsense. He did have a big job from Tan Gong that cost more than 20,000 yuan.
If we can actually make it, it will definitely shock our peers in the industry and spread the reputation of our factory throughout the country.
We can't settle petty accounts, let alone keep our word.
As a result, the section chief ate a lot of roast chicken. To take the overall situation into consideration, he had no choice but to keep silent.
As for the big job that the factory director said cost more than 20,000 yuan and can make a name for itself, it is another pair of antique porcelain on display today - a two-meter-eight-meter-high imitation Qianlong pastel white flower vase.
This thing is really amazing!
It can be said that it is the pinnacle of all the works that Liu Yongqing has created in his life.
If compared with this pair of floor-standing vases, the pair of large fish tanks that the Japanese businessman was interested in would probably be reduced to mere mortal objects.
It's not enough to see, it's such a big gap.
Why do you say that?
Because the technical requirements for making this pair of Dashang bottles are so high that they are unprecedented.
Except that the 2.8 meter vessel is very large and the required porcelain body cannot be purchased from JDZ, so it can only be made at home.
The main technical difficulty of this pair of large vases lies in their pastel pattern of "no flowers showing".
The so-called "a hundred flowers never show up" is also called "a hundred flowers never fall to the ground".
This is a technique of glazing porcelain that was born in the Qianlong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty.
It refers to the combination of pastel and gold colors, and flowers of various colors fill the entire picture, without exposing the porcelain base or the branches of the flowers. The flowers are like flowers scattered by a goddess, floating in the air, hence the name.
"Hundred Flowers Picture" is also known as "Ten Thousand Flowers Brocade", "Ten Thousand Flowers Pile", "Ten Thousand Flowers Presenting Auspiciousness Picture", etc.
According to the records of the Qing Palace, this special kind of porcelain was specially used by emperors to enjoy flowers and the occasion.
Therefore, compared with other official kilns in the Qing Dynasty, the craftsmanship is more exquisite.
Its complicated firing process, rich colors, and colorful paintings cannot be achieved by just a few people, and it is the most popular colored porcelain.
In fact, even for the royal family, making colorful porcelain without flowers showing is a high-hanging fruit with the possibility of failure.
First of all, the Construction Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs needs to issue drawings, design a drawing of Hundreds of Flowers Gathering, and deliver it to the imperial kiln factory as a powder copy.
Secondly, the craftsmen of the imperial kiln factory copied the drawings and sketched them on the white porcelain body, which must be consistent with the original drawings.
At the same time, we must take into account the uneven characteristics of the instrument surface that is different from the paper surface.
If you make a mistake at this time, the whole situation will change.
No matter how beautiful the colors are, no matter how skilled the painter is, they cannot make up for the original charm of the painting.
In addition, the number of color materials prepared is also the first among all porcelains.
If a hundred flowers are not exposed to the ground, no less than thirty kinds of colors can be seen on one vessel.
Therefore, before painting, all the pigments for colored porcelain must be prepared. There are nearly hundreds of kinds, and they all need to be adjusted one by one.
It is easy to imagine how much manpower, time and cost are required to complete this work.
If there are no good craftsmen to compose and design it, and skillful craftsmen to apply color and dye it, it will never be possible.
To be honest, such craftsmanship could only appear in the Qianlong Dynasty when craftsmanship was prosperous.
In addition to the overall social environment in which porcelain art was advanced at that time, there was also Tang Ying, the envoy of pottery research, who worked hard to collect the achievements of famous kilns in the past, including the best of Chinese and foreign wares, and used them to cultivate the skilled craftsmen of the kilns.
Only in this way can we use porcelain as a body and lay colored glazes to create such a brilliance that has never been seen through the ages.
But even so, there was no "Hundred Flowers Not Revealed" colored porcelain that was larger than the size of the Qianlong Dynasty, because it was too difficult to make.
Therefore, as a master of antique porcelain, Liu Yongqing, a famous painting master, has always had the greatest wish in his life, which is to produce a pair of stunningly large colored porcelain pieces with no visible flowers.
Thanks to the support of wealthy people like Ning Weimin.
The old man, who is increasingly feeling low on energy, can try to surpass his predecessors before he completely ages.
Needless to say, the painting requirements for this pair of large vases must be much higher than those of the pair of large fish tanks burned by Liu Yongqing.
In the end, thanks to Ning Weimin, who was willing to pay 5,000 yuan for retouching, the famous painter Zhu Danian was able to solve the problem.
This great painter, who was also a professor in the Department of Art and Design Ceramics, was a colleague of Ye Hemin and a great connoisseur of ceramics.
Therefore, the conception of his drawings is particularly clever.
Not only does it conform to the size of Liu Yongqing's porcelain body, but it also captures the image of spring without the feeling of being piled up.
But the pain lies in the fact that this work is too labor-intensive and time-consuming.
Unlike Bai Xueshi's fish tank painting, which could be completed in a week, even if Zhu Danian brought several top students from the ceramics department together to start it.
It took several months of meticulous painting one after another to complete the painting of this pair of bottles.
Fortunately, the subsequent firing process went smoothly.
Under the watchful eye of Liu Yongqing, who almost never left the kiln entrance day and night, this pair of absolutely unique colored porcelain treasures was finally successfully released.
However, this is not yet done.
After the pair of large reward vases were burned, Liu Yongqing and Wan Danian were both happy and extremely lucky.
But they also felt that the design was not well thought out, resulting in undue flaws.
This is a great pair of bottles, but because the bottle is too big and the beauty is reflected solely by the flower-covered pattern, it seems a bit monotonous.
To put it bluntly, it means that it can only be viewed from a distance, not up close.
So they all agreed and began to wonder if they could add more exquisite details.
After pondering over and over again, their focus finally fell on the stamens of the flower pattern.
The overall opinion is that it would be great if the stamens could be made of gold and three-dimensionally raised.
As a result, I was reminded of the unique filigree inlay technique in Beijing.
This kind of craftsmanship is famous for its fineness and ingenuity, and is also called gold and silver fine craftsmanship.
It has been a royal craft since its inception, specializing in the craft of making high-end customized gold and silver jewelry for the royal family.
Its essence lies not only in the filigree, which breaks the monotony of gold and silver materials, but also in the ingenious method of inlaying jewelry and dotting green to add color.
Taking the gold-silk winged hat unearthed from Dingling Mausoleum as an example, the sophistication of this hat is absolutely incredible to modern people.
It uses 518 gold wires with an average diameter of only 0.2 mm.
Hand-knitted by skilled craftsmen, it is as thin as fine yarn and has even gaps.
There is a dragon playing with beads on the top of the golden crown. The dragon body and claws are all made separately.
Only 8,400 pieces of dragon scales were used, which is a masterpiece of filigree inlay work.
But the only thing that makes people a little worried is whether this technology can be applied to porcelain. It seems that no one has done this before.
So for this matter, Liu Yongqing and Zhu Danian made an appointment with Ning Weimin, and the three of them went to the Beijing Filigree Inlay Factory together.
At first, the person in charge of the factory was scratching his head after hearing this.
But I didn't expect that there are really experts in this factory. One of the old masters is actually a descendant of the "King of Filigree" named Zhang Chongming.
As a master of technology, this old man replied in the affirmative without stumbling.
He said that whether it was gold inlaid with jade or jade inlaid with gold, he had done it all.
He even used gold to repair the defects of ancient porcelain for Zhang Boju. This was not a difficult task.
Not to mention inlays on porcelain, even slippery utensils are no problem.
But the only downside is that it definitely costs a lot of money.
Using gold to make flower stamens for the two large vases is actually equivalent to making more than a hundred gold buttons of different sizes and then inlaying them on the porcelain vases.
The work and materials are not cheap. If I estimate the approximate price, even if the price of gold starts to go down, it will be around 15,600.
Therefore, Liu Yongqing was very embarrassed for this.
He thought that all the responsibility lay with him, which was why Ning Weimin spent such a large sum of money unjustly.
But Ning Weimin didn't think so. Instead, he thought it was the real finishing touch.
It also inadvertently elevated the level of this pair of Dabo Bottles.
If these exquisite golden stamens are really made, then for the Dajuan vase, it will have everything you need, and there will be no shortcomings.
On the other hand, if you don't do it, you will have these regrets.
No matter how much money I spend in the future, I am afraid that I may not be able to find anyone who can do this job again.
So he didn't hesitate and said on the spot that he would pay for the money.
So far, Ning Weimin has spent as much as 40,000 yuan on this pair of vases.
But this is not the end yet.
Because by coincidence, around this time, the two copper-embedded filigree-painted enamel glass pavilion-style palace lanterns that the palace lantern factory promised to repair for him were also completed and finally delivered to him.
These two palace lanterns were originally the treasures of the family's factory. They were the works of Xu Baizhai, a master lantern maker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Qianlong period.
The preciousness lies not only in the fact that it is an antique, but also in its luxurious and exquisite craftsmanship.
It's a pity that the lantern painting was destroyed, and the various gemstones originally inlaid in it were cut out and taken away during special periods.
Thanks to Ning Weimin's keen eye for pearls, he discovered them in the warehouse of the Palace Lantern Factory, and was willing to buy them for a huge price of 50,000 yuan, and asked the Palace Lantern Factory to help repair them, so the pair of treasures were finally saved.
Why did it take almost more than a year to repair it?
That's mainly because you have to buy all kinds of gemstones.
The palace lantern factory also asked people to find connections, and finally managed to get cat's eyes, tourmalines, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and citrines from jewelry factories and jewelery factories in the capital.
That's not to say, now this thing is truly dazzling. Ning Weimin saw it in his eyes and fell in love with it in his heart. He couldn't put it down.
But just because this thing is so beautiful, the gemstones obtained by the palace lantern factory are of high quality but very cheap.
I heard that in unusual years, these factories collect good things with the money of three melons and two dates.
In Ning Weimin's eyes, many things that would fetch at least hundreds of thousands or millions at auction in the future are only one thousand, eight hundred.
He suddenly had an idea again and decided to play something big.
They were two large ornamental vases with no flowers exposed. They were not yet made of pure gold flower cores and stamens. He would also use the relationship between the palace lantern factory to buy various kinds of jewelry and inlay them on them.
Just like that, the money he spent on these two large bottles was simply lost.
The two bottles required more than a hundred gems of various sizes, and cost him tens of thousands.
The final overall cost was nearly 100,000.
What is that concept?
In other words, the cost of making these two bottles can at least cover four courtyards.
Besides, all the hard work put in by the old craftsmen was wasted.
At this point, it was Zhang Chongming's turn to take over and work slowly and carefully.
Then think about it, what kind of quality are these pairs of vases when they are finally completed?
It was the brainchild of two master craftsmen and a well-known painter.
The silk tapestry is extremely exquisite and exquisite, almost miraculous in its craftsmanship.
Come out with one weapon and be loved by the world!
It cannot be said that it is unprecedented, it is also unprecedented!
Although it may seem like a new gadget, its value, craftsmanship, and artistry can be compared with the authentic pastel porcelain from the Qianlong Dynasty.
Not only is it indistinguishable, but it is even better. It is a precious and valuable product.