Chapter 1,345 The difficulty of fishing for porcelain from the sea
Convenient tools are even more important, especially for primitive ancestors.
So in the end, they regarded this kind of plant with entwining vines and continuous melons and fruits of various sizes as the endless reproduction of human descendants, and also as an auspicious symbol of many children and good fortune.
In our country's traditional culture, the gourd fruit is also used by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and has become the embodiment of the yearning for peace, happiness, and longevity.
The gourd vase is also called the "Daji" vase because it has a homophonic sound with the word "good fortune" and the image of the bottle is the Chinese character "吉", which means good luck and fortune for generations to come.
During the Jiajing and Wanli periods of the Ming Dynasty, because the emperor advocated Taoism, most of the arts and crafts used auspicious patterns in decoration.
As a result, the late Ming Dynasty became a period when ceramic gourd bottles shined, and their production reached an unprecedented level of prosperity.
The varieties of this period were mostly blue and white and multicolored. In the shipwrecks of the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, blue and white gourd vases were generally found most frequently.
There are currently 3 gourd bottles in domestic collections, but this time he went to sea and salvaged several sunken ships. Chen Wenzhe discovered not only 1,000 but also 800 large and small gourd bottles.
Among them, there are red gourds with glaze, and there are also colorful gourds. The most common ones are blue and white gourds.
At this time, he saw that it was a blue and white gourd from Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. The patterns of this gourd were relatively similar.
The shapes of the vessels vary in size, with round lips, slightly open mouth, long neck, girdle waist, circle feet, and a gourd shape with a small top and a large bottom.
A blue and white banana leaf pattern is painted around the neck, and the upper abdomen is divided into six sections with double vertical lines.
The consecration is decorated with blue and white flowers separated by Bogu patterns, and a circle of blue and white flowers is painted on the waist as a dividing belt between the upper and lower abdomen.
The lower abdomen is fan-shaped and the curves are like waves that are inverted and opposite to each other.
The bright interior has blue and white floral patterns, separated from the dark Eight Immortals pattern.
The blue and white hair color is faint blue, the carcass is thick, the lines are smooth, and the design is exquisite.
Not to mention other works like this, as long as they can be preserved well and the blue and white glaze is not allowed to fall off, when seven or eight hundred gourd vases from the Ming and Qing Dynasties suddenly appear in an exhibition venue, it will be a shocking scene.
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Unfortunately, the maintenance of Hailao porcelain is really not easy to do.
Desalination is basic and descaling is a must. Apart from the first time, the most important thing should be to deal with the problem of gloss loss on the glaze.
"First Evolution"
Due to long-term soaking in sea water, the glaze surface of Hailao porcelain appears partially matte or has spots of corrosion.
However, it can now be repaired with a solution, which means that after soaking, the glaze can be restored.
Of course, most people definitely don't know the formula of this solution, but Chen Wenzhe does.
As long as you have seen more antiques, or even visited museums a few times, you will definitely have seen porcelain restored using this method.
Others have seen it, that is, they have just taken a look and don’t know what they saw.
But Chen Wenzhe is different. He has seen it before, and now he can check some details through the Sui Marquis Pearl.
For example, there are methods for repairing porcelain, including methods for restoring matte finish, and there is a formula for this solution.
If it were true, this formula would be dispensable to Chen Wenzhe.
But it's different now, because he has too much porcelain from the sea.
With so many high-quality salvaged porcelain items from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, wouldn’t it be a pity if they were not properly restored?
However, repairing so many porcelain from the sea is certainly not something he can complete alone.
After porcelain sinks to the bottom of the sea, seabed organisms must go through the process of adhering to, surviving and dying on the porcelain.
Afterwards, the porcelain was struck by sea currents together with the porcelain, and was eventually buried by mud and sand.
Therefore, the remains of seabed organisms that can "parasitize" on porcelain all have obvious characteristics of the times.
These remnants look "dry" and "old", and there are basically no remains of undersea creatures that have "moved to new homes" recently.
After hundreds of years, the remains of seabed organisms that can "parasitize" on porcelain have been completely calcified.
Some have become fossilized and have no freshness.
If you open up the remains of individual seabed organisms and observe, you will find that the degree of calcification is the same inside and outside, the color is basically the same, there is no smell, and there are basically no sharp angles or particularly prominent parts.
But there are also special circumstances. Some porcelain pieces just fall into the gaps between seabed rocks or coral reefs, so they are less affected by the impact of ocean currents and sediment.
Some underwater creatures, such as corals, can also grow into certain shapes on porcelain.
Porcelain is derived from china clay, which has a good physical affinity with calcium carbonate minerals.
Seawater contains a large amount of calcium carbonate minerals. The movement of ocean currents and temperature changes will cause these salt substances in seawater to gradually accumulate on the surface of porcelain and deposit them.
Because of the glaze layer on the surface of porcelain, it is hard and smooth.
Some of the deposits attached to the enamel are not firm, and some of them can be scraped off with your fingernails after getting out of the water.
Using the principle of osmosis, soak the porcelain in dilute salt water for several days.
Those salt deposits on the surface of porcelain will gradually peel off.
Individual seabed biological residues that are firmly attached can generally be cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaning machine.
But this job is really troublesome.
Not only because of the quantity, even if there is only one piece of porcelain found in the sea, it is not easy to deal with it.
For example, before starting the desalination treatment and repair of porcelain fished from the sea, all kinds of dirt and impurities on the surface of the porcelain, broken edges, and cracks must first be cleaned and removed.
Only in this way can we provide good conditions for the implementation of subsequent protection and repair processes.
Afterwards, whether it is cleaning with soap, mechanical removal, or using chemical solutions, the basic principle should be to not harm the utensils.
If you are not sure about the planned method during the implementation process, you must first conduct relevant experiments on substitutes such as broken porcelain pieces of the same type.
After reaching a conclusion, implement it on the porcelain object to be repaired.
For common stains on underglaze porcelain such as blue and white and Longquan, diluted alkaline solution must be used for soaking. The concentration and time will depend on the condition of the stain.
Then rinse with clean water, use a bristle brush dipped in soap powder to scrub gently, and finally rinse with warm water.
For stains that penetrate deep into the texture of the body through the damaged glaze layer, they visually show the unique traces of Hailao porcelain. In line with the purpose of respecting historical information, they are appropriately preserved to reflect its historical authenticity and readability.
For those porcelains that have been repaired by non-professionals and must be disassembled, cleaned and repaired, first immerse the original repaired parts in acetone for three to five hours to dissolve the filling lines and bond the damaged 502 glue.
Then immerse it in hot water and add a little alkali. It usually only takes 10 to 20 minutes for the bonded joint to fall off automatically.
Use cotton to roll the dirt in the punch into strips, and use a dropper to inject concentrated nitric acid.
The saturation degree is 80%~90%, apply it on the punching hole, then seal it with plastic film, and it can be removed after opening the next day.
Having said that, it is not difficult to clear, repair and maintain Haihai Porcelain, but what is rare is that the quantity is too large.