When it comes to bronze Buddha statues, you first need to look at the bottom and the condition of the paste, as well as the degree of gilding.
Nowadays, people often scrape off the gold from gilded Buddha statues, make them old and pass them off as inferior ones.
In addition, from the inside of the Buddha statue, there is a big difference between the new imitation and the old one.
Because the interiors of Buddha statues that have lasted for hundreds or thousands of years have been naturally weathered, and most of them are very clean, and the patina is also very natural. New imitations often have mud and sand on the inside and are relatively dirty.
During the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties of the Qing Dynasty, due to the strong national power and the emperor's admiration for Buddhism, not only a large number of statues were made, but the workmanship was also very sophisticated.
Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Tibetan statues have become the mainstream of palace statues, and their influence and influence have been wide-ranging, and few have been damaged in modern times.
Taking the Palace Museum as an example, there are tens of thousands of gilded Buddha statues from the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty alone.
The Lama Temple also houses thousands of Tibetan Buddhist statues from the Qing Dynasty palace, and there are countless small gold and bronze Buddha statues scattered among the people.
In the current auction market, the most common ones are Tibetan official gold and bronze Buddha statues from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Exquisite Buddha statues make many people willing to spend a lot of money to buy them.
The reason is that many people collect Buddhist statues first for religious needs, and then for the purpose of investment and value preservation.
Of course, enshrining a high-quality Buddha statue in your home will further highlight your status.
Due to the exquisite craftsmanship of the Ming and Qing Buddhist statues and the small number of them in existence, the Ming and Qing Buddhist statues have occupied a dominant position in the Buddhist statue collection market for a long time.
Whether it is in terms of price or popularity, it is unmatched by Buddhist artworks from other periods.
Even for Chen Wenzhe now, what can be seen, or may be collected, are basically small bronze Buddha statues.
Judging the value of a Buddha statue is not entirely reflected in the material.
Just like Chen Xingchen's first-look fakes made of good materials. The materials are good, but the workmanship is poor.
Therefore, in order to identify the court Buddhist statues of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, we should also look at its status and artistic value in the history of Buddhist statues.
Secondly, it depends on its craftsmanship and inscriptions. The material is only a reference factor.
Generally speaking, the value of giant and large Buddha statues is higher than that of medium and small statues;
Buddha statues cast in the palace are higher than those among the people;
In Tibetan Buddhist statues, the angry phase is higher than the auspicious phase;
The Bodhisattva costume is higher than the Buddha costume.
For gilt bronze Buddha statues, regardless of whether they have a mark to prove their royal status, as long as they are large in size and exquisite in shape, their prices can be said to be rising year by year, and there is a lot of room for appreciation.
However, the Buddha statue in front of him was getting worse and worse, and Chen Wenzhe had lost interest.
Besides, what if these are all genuine? They are just used to enrich the museum.
He is not interested in Buddhism or Buddha statues.
"Let's take out the rubbings of the Six Horses of Zhaoling and take a look!" Chen Wenzhe said a little casually.
Seeing that Chen Wenzhe really didn't have much interest, Chen Xingchen took him to the manufacturing workshop.
Coming outside the workshop, there are two rows of glass exhibition halls at the door, which display various fine porcelain produced in the factory.
No matter how exquisite the porcelain is, it is still not as good as Chen Wenzhe's craftsmanship.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe looked directly at the six rubbings hanging on the wall.
With just one glance, Chen Wenzhe could tell that this was an old extension.
This set of Zhaoling Six Horses, a total of six pictures, is very complete.
"Why do we look familiar?"
Walking into the exhibition hall, Chen Wenzhe discovered the problem after just a quick glance.
In the antique shop, as long as something looks familiar, it's not a good thing.
If it is not mass-produced, as long as it looks familiar, it means that it has been seen elsewhere.
Since it exists in other places and is famous enough for you to see it, it goes without saying that there must be something wrong with the thing in front of you.
"Doesn't it look familiar? We just saw a high imitation of the Zhaoling Six Horses stone carvings!" Li Jinli was stunned and said.
But Chen Xingchen smiled: "Manager Li didn't do enough homework. The Ugly Goddess Art Museum once donated one to China!"
Li Jinli immediately understood that there was also a set of century-old rubbings of the Six Horses of Zhaoling, a national treasure donated by the Chouguo Goddess Art Museum in China.
It is also a national treasure that has been lost overseas for many years and has been collected by the American Goddess Art Museum in Philadelphia for more than 20 years.
However, they only have one rubbing, which is a century-old rubbing of Quan Maoguan, one of the Six Horses of Zhaoling carved on stone in the Tang Dynasty.
This precious century-old boxing rubbing is attributed to Zhao Qiong, the curator of this museum, who has a keen eye for treasure recognition.
That was 2002, and it showed up at a small auction in Philadelphia.
As a sculpture artist and a doctorate in literature and art history, Zhao Qiong recognized its identity at a glance.
Plus, there was an introduction to the lot next to it, and she was immediately moved.
At that time, she also felt that it looked very familiar. After all, there were not many rubbings of this kind of stone carvings from the Tang Dynasty!
At that time, she thought to herself that no matter how much money she spent, she would definitely get it.
Unexpectedly, although there were many locals at the auction at that time, there were very few Asian faces, and the transaction price was within her budget.
She was like a treasure, and since then this treasure has become one of the collections of the Goddess Art Museum.
Since then, more than a dozen Chinese collectors, artists, entrepreneurs, etc. have offered Zhao Qiong a high price to purchase this rubbing, but she has declined them all.
In the end, she chose to donate it to China. She had not done so before because the rubbing was very large and was directly pasted on the wooden board, making it difficult to peel off.
Even if it is transported by plane, it is very difficult, so this rubbing has been treasured for a long time.
People who don't know what's going on may think that Zhao Qiong is just waiting for a price, but they never thought that she has a sincere heart and doesn't care about "money" at all!
Now, it has finally returned to its hometown.
The most valuable thing is that this is a complete picture.
Through this rubbing, we can see the complete image of this stone horse fist when it was not cut and smuggled overseas a hundred years ago.
This is a three-dimensional painting rubbing made by the thieves before cutting the fist stone carvings. It is completely different from the current rubbing process.
The thieves had a plan back then.
This rubbing is made so that after it is cut and smuggled, the rubbing image will be used as the basis for restoration in the future.
Perhaps out of caution, when I made rubbings, I made more than one rubbing.
Obviously, this time Li Jinli was lucky enough to buy a complete set of well-preserved rubbings of the Six Horses of Zhaoling.
At this time, Chen Wenzhe also realized that no wonder an antique craft factory in Yangluo was able to imitate the six perfect stone carvings of the Six Horses of Zhaoling. It turned out that they had a good template.
Needless to say, this set of rubbings must have come from that antique craft factory.
Li Jinli definitely did not suffer any loss. Just purchasing this complete set of rubbings was worth the price.
I have admired the real objects before, but now when I look at the rubbings from a hundred years ago, I feel the same.
Compared with the real thing, the image in this rubbing looks a little less interesting.
From this we can also see how powerful the master who imitated the Six Horses of Zhaoling is.