Since you want to make something special, you need some special raw materials.
Fortunately, he had been here in South Vietnam for a long time, and Chen Wenzhe had already prepared everything he needed to prepare.
Especially gold, which is what he lacks the most.
Therefore, after taking some mineral materials, he also specially took some gold powder.
He planned to use gold to make some pieces of porcelain. It turned out that he knew how to use precious stones and gold to glaze, but he had never done it before.
Now that agate and other precious stones are used to make Ru porcelain, gold also needs to be used.
Since the raw materials were valuable, Zhang Gu did not dare to do it, so Chen Wenzhe had to prepare some glazes by himself.
After the configuration came out, Zhang Gu's eyes were a little dull just by looking at the color.
"Carmine?"
"Yes, gold-red glaze, also called Yangcai, doesn't require difficulty? The difficulty comes with the price."
This time, Chen Wenzhe imitated a Qing Dynasty "Made by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty" rouge red rolling pastel consecrated landscape bowl.
Carmine glaze, also called golden red glaze, is named because its color is like rouge. It is a glaze color with royal bearing.
Such unique purple-tinged reds are not common. This is because gold is added as a coloring agent during color mixing, which is expensive and can only be fired in the prosperous times.
The size of this small bowl is not large, it is .5cm high. Chen Wenzhe made it very carefully, so the finished product is very exquisite.
This small bowl has a curved mouth, deep curved walls, and rounded feet.
The interior is glazed with white glaze without any decoration, and the outer wall is made of carmine red color on the astringent body. There are three flower-shaped consecrations, separated by intertwining branches.
The three consecrations are all made of yellow material, with a peony flower painted on each.
The inside of the circle foot is glazed with white glaze, and the outer sole is decorated with a four-character square inscription "Qianlong Imperial System" in blue colored regular script. It has a double frame on the outside, thick on the outside and thin on the inside.
The peonies are painted with fine brushwork techniques, giving them a very realistic feel.
Peonies have been painted with special characteristics by Chen Wenzhe. As long as the peonies he painted are beautiful, no matter whether they understand the art or have no sense of aesthetics, they can tell that they are beautiful.
Even though it's not finished yet, just a painting of golden peonies makes this small bowl unique.
Overall, this small bowl has a bright color and excellent texture.
Despite its small size, this small bowl is very complicated in craftsmanship.
After that, several complicated processes are required to truly complete it.
If such a piece of porcelain is authentic, it should be no problem selling for 7 to 8 million yuan.
Even if it is a replica and marked with Yi Niantang, it should be very popular for a price of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan.
The carmine color itself is high-priced famous porcelain.
The most important thing is that Chen Wenzhe now has more experience in firing carmine-red porcelain.
To know this kind of craftsmanship, he learned it from the porcelain of the Qianlong official kiln.
Moreover, this kind of porcelain comes from Wu Er. Without the porcelain he picked up from his antique shop, Chen Wenzhe would not be able to make this kind of fine porcelain.
What Chen Wenzhe is selling this time is definitely craftsmanship. Generally speaking, the artistry of a piece of art accounts for 70% of the value of the entire artifact.
The rolling process is complicated and the carmine ground firing is difficult. Combining the two, the price will definitely be higher.
Although carmine glaze already existed in the late Kangxi period, carmine glaze is not a traditional Chinese glaze. It is a glaze introduced by enamel technology.
Due to the high technological content, it requires manual glaze blowing and secondary firing to shape. The process is complex and cumbersome, which also results in a low yield and no large-scale firing.
It was not until the Qianlong period that craftsmen truly mastered the technology and could use carmine freely.
Many people must have guessed the subsequent story.
Emperor Qianlong, a "flower of wealth in the world," once liked this glaze color, would use it luxuriously in the color, ground, carving and other decorative techniques of porcelain, regardless of cost.
This also allows the rouge-red porcelain to win high prices when it comes out.
In 2021, the Fenglai Yi revolving bottle made by the Emperor Qianlong was ranked the most expensive porcelain in the world with a price of 265.65 million. The neck and bottom of the bottle are made of carmine red ground brocade pattern.
Another more famous rouge porcelain is the Qianlong rouge ground rolled brocade pattern plum vase with entangled branches and flowers. It was sold at the Xiangjiangsu Bifu Autumn 18 years ago in 2004.
It paid a high price of 44.4 million.
The process of revolving bottles is more complicated, and Chen Wenzhe doesn’t want to do it now, nor does he have time to do it.
There is no need to make a revolving bottle with a too simple process. If it is too complex, it will definitely require a lot of craftsmanship and technology. That kind of revolving bottle is too troublesome to make and will not be made in a while.
Now he is just making gaps in Ru porcelain and making some simple porcelain. If he is making a revolving vase, he can only concentrate on it and cannot distract him.
Therefore, he can make a high imitation Qianlong plum vase with rouge ground rolling, brocade patterns, pastel intertwining branches and floral patterns. After all, the shape of the plum vase is not complicated, and it is not troublesome to make. The main thing is the craftsmanship on it.
As long as Chen Wenzhe wants to, he can pile on a lot of craftsmanship, whether it is decoration or craftsmanship.
If he doesn't want to, then do something simple, just lay the ground and then use the tie-breaking process to make it, it won't be troublesome at all.
Of course, breaking it down into several steps would be simpler for Chen Wenzhe, otherwise he wouldn't do it.
The first step is to carmine the ground, then to roll the brocade pattern, and then apply pastel to draw the intertwining flower pattern.
Chen Wenzhe has done these several times today, and now he is even more familiar with them. It just takes a little time to complete.
In fact, the difficulties here are all in the glaze preparation and then the kiln firing.
As long as these two key points are done well, a piece of carmine-red porcelain will be successfully fired.
Regarding the glaze formula and the kiln firing process, Chen Wenzhe will definitely make no mistakes.
Therefore, as long as each process is completed now, it means the birth of a noble piece of porcelain, that is, a piece of lead-pink-rouge-red porcelain!
Carmine is actually pink in layman's terms, but it is difficult to actually make it pink.
Therefore, the ancients gave this kind of porcelain, which is difficult to predict the success of firing, an elegant name - "rouge red".
Carmine red porcelain is a rare pink color that is "colored with gold" and has a purple tint. Because the glaze contains gold, it is often called "gold red".
This type of glaze color, which makes people feel warm when looking at it, is used on porcelain and is sought after by countless enthusiasts at home and abroad.
The production cost is also very high, because it mainly involves grinding raw gold into powder.
The gold is first mixed into the glaze and then painted, thus creating carmine red porcelain.
Because carmine is "colored with gold" and belongs to low-temperature glaze porcelain, the heating temperature is probably controlled at about 800 degrees.
It is made by applying an iron-based coloring agent on the fired thin white porcelain, which contains a glaze containing one to two ten thousandths of gold, and then baking it in a color furnace.
Here we should focus on the one and two ten thousandths, because they are one of the keys to controlling the final color.