Chen Wenzhe knows how to distress, so he knows how difficult it is to distress the bubbles under the glaze layer.
Especially the aged glaze bubbles that have not cracked will not even give you a chance to fake them. How do you make them look old?
Because no matter what method you use, you will not see through the glaze layer, and the effect will be in the bubbles under the glaze layer.
Although he has not seen this piece of porcelain with his own eyes, Chen Wenzhe believes that it would be too simple and crude to deny some porcelain with Hongwu-year loans just because no porcelain with dating marks has been found during the Hongwu period.
After all, there are really not just one or two pieces of this kind of porcelain, but neither of them has been recognized as authentic.
In addition to the above two pieces, there is actually another more difficult piece of porcelain, which is a blue and white underglaze red plum vase "Made in the Hongwu Year of the Ming Dynasty".
Underglaze red itself is difficult to fire, and blue and white underglaze red is even more difficult to fire.
Therefore, if this one is authentic, its value will be higher.
What's more, it also has the inscription of the Hongwu Year of the Ming Dynasty.
This blue and white underglaze red plum vase is 35 centimeters high and 5 centimeters in diameter.
It has round feet and a white and delicate body, made of hemp granary soil.
This is the key point. Even if it is an imitation, where does the Macang soil come from?
Also, because of its water absorbency, the pedicure is not precise enough, and the string lines and papillary protrusions are obvious.
The glaze is bluish-white, and it feels like pits when touched by hand, with more brown eyes and dust appearing.
The shape of the vessel is correct, with plump shoulders drawn down and a circle of Tang grass pattern painted on the shoulders.
The most important thing is that on the front of this circle of Tang grass patterns, "Daming Hongwu Year System" is written horizontally from right to left in regular script.
The font is elegant and hand-written, so this piece of porcelain is also known as the first official kiln mark discovered during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty.
But it is certainly not easy for someone to have such a title and dare to claim to be number one.
The main decoration of this plum vase is blue and white with cloud pattern and red underglaze.
The dragon pattern is single and extremely fierce.
It opens its mouth and sticks out its tongue, its three claws are sharp, and the flame pattern flutters strongly, showing a colorful, vigorous and exquisite picture.
The blue and white red colors are rich in color and the painting is exquisite. The blue and white are painted with imported sumali green materials. There are strong iron embroidery spots that look like tin light and are slightly haloed and penetrate deep into the fetal bones.
This is because the green material is not pure enough and may be waste green material left over from the Yuan Dynasty.
The red is bright, slightly gray, and rarely red.
If we only look at these characteristics, this plum vase seems to be mediocre, without any outstanding performance.
In fact, it still has many unique features, such as its dazzling and distinctive official kiln designation.
This inscription was written by hand, and needless to say, its existence is very rare.
If it is genuine, its value may be more valuable than Yuan blue and white.
The second point, and perhaps this point, truly confirms that there were official kilns in Hongwu years.
And from this we can also determine the approximate time when the Royal Kiln Factory was established.
Because judging from this plum vase, it should have appeared relatively early, that is, in the early Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty.
From this point, we can determine the establishment time of Hongwuguan kiln.
"Hongwu" is the reign title of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty.
There are two theories about when the imperial kiln factory was established in the early Ming Dynasty.
The first is the thirty-fifth year of Hongwu recorded in "Jiangxi Dazhi" written by Wang Zongmu of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty.
The other is "jdz Tao Lu" written by Lan Pu in Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty, which records the second year of Hongwu.
Liu Xinyuan, the late director of the Jingzhen Archaeological Institute, once studied the geographical location of the imperial kiln site of the Ming Dynasty and the physical remains unearthed from the site.
After combined with literature analysis, it was determined that the establishment of the Jingzhen Royal Kiln Factory should be in the second year of Hongwu.
Therefore, combined with the plum vase, it can also be determined that the Jingzhen Royal Kiln Factory in the Ming Dynasty should indeed be established in the second year of Hongwu.
There is still a lot of controversy about this point now, and some people even believe that there was no imperial kiln factory at all during the Hongwu period.
In fact, regarding the Hongwu chronological porcelain, Volume 194 of the Wanli edition of the Ming Dynasty's "Da Ming Huidian" has made detailed records.
"In the 26th year of Hongwu's reign, it was decreed that when firing vessels and other items for worship, samples must be determined and artificial materials calculated. If the quantity is large, craftsmen will be sent to Beijing to set up a kiln and start work."
The book records that royal wares from the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty were temporarily sent to several important porcelain-producing areas in the country for firing as needed.
If the demand was large, craftsmen would be dispatched to Beijing (today's Jinling) to set up kilns for firing.
This confirms the existence of Hongwu official kiln porcelain.
The identification of Hongwu porcelain only happened in the past few decades.
In the past, many domestic museums dated the exhibits from this period as "the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty".
But as time went by, until the 1960s, a batch of Hong weapon fragments were unearthed from the Ming Palace in Jinling;
In the 1980s, some fragments were unearthed from Shendu No. 4 Middle School and Jingzhen Imperial Kiln Factory;
In the 1990s, another batch of Hongwu official kiln remnants were unearthed from the ruins of the Ming Palace in Jinling.
As a result, Hongwu porcelain gradually became known to people.
In fact, this royal kiln factory was established even earlier.
According to research, in the fifteenth year of Zhizheng of the Yuan Dynasty (1278), the Yuan Dynasty established Fuliang Porcelain Bureau in Jingzhen to make porcelain for the palace.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, wars continued in the Jingzhen area.
But the kiln fire in Jingzhen has never been extinguished.
Since there is something ready-made, even if Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang is frugal and knows how to live, he cannot use it.
Therefore, in the second year of Hongwu (1369), an imperial weapon factory was established at the foot of Zhushan Mountain in Jingzhen.
This imperial kiln factory specialized in making porcelain and paid tribute to the imperial court. This is the so-called Hongwu official kiln.
In addition to the Dalonggang kiln, the kiln site also has 20 celadon, color kilns, wind and fire kilns, etc.
By the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, there were 58 imperial wares factories and countless private kilns.
Jingzhen is rich in porcelain-making raw materials "porcelain stone mines". According to Ming Cao Zhao's "Xin Ge Gu Yao Lun", Hongwu period pottery has fine soil texture, thin carcass, and two colors: blue and black, with pure color as the main color.
good.
According to relevant archaeological data, most of the Hongwu official kiln wares had thicker carcasses, even enamel, and very fine decorative paintings and blanks.
The porcelain of this period is characterized by thick enamel and sometimes cracked glaze.
In addition, there is also the characteristic that "the color of blue and white is not correct and appears gray-black".
Based on these characteristics and some modern technical means, it is actually not difficult to accurately date the porcelain of the Hongwu period.
Let’s talk about the above-mentioned plum vase. In addition to having a year number, plum vase like this was not uncommon in the Hongwu period.
For example, the Hongwu-glazed jade pot spring vase with red pine, bamboo and plum patterns in the Ming Dynasty has been passed down to the present.
There are many such porcelains in the National Palace Museum.
Unfortunately, after studying the archaeological excavation data in recent decades, no official kiln-style porcelain bearing the "Made in the Hongwu Year of the Ming Dynasty" has been found among the Ming Dynasty porcelain unearthed from tombs and sites.
The National Palace Museum in Shendu has a collection of more than 70 pieces of Ming Hongwu blue and white porcelain and underglaze red porcelain, none of which bears the Hongwu official kiln mark.
It can be seen that whether there is a "Hongwu" official kiln date mark today has become a key point for identification.