Chapter 1580: Look at jade, skin and porcelain, look at the bottom
There has always been a saying in the collecting world that "the Ming Dynasty looks at Chenghua, the Qing Dynasty looks at Yongzheng", which is not unreasonable.
Chenghua refers to the doucai porcelain used by Emperor Chenghua. At that time, the craftsmen in Jingzhen waited for countless days and nights in front of the 1,300-degree high-temperature kiln fire, and smashed countless cups before they finally made Chenghua.
The emperor made dozens of exquisite and small palace cups.
Among these imperial cups, there is the "Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup" that is unique in the world.
Naturally, there is also the "Sanqiu Cup" that is hidden in the city, and it is the leader of porcelain and the most important weapon of the country.
Holding this small cup, Chen Wenzhe looked at it repeatedly.
Its shape is exquisite and unique, its texture is fine and crystal clear, its color materials are selected and pure, its color tone is soft and tranquil, and its painting is elegant and graceful.
Such a light and elegant style is unique for a while.
It even completely got rid of some characteristics of the Hongwu, Yongle, and Xuande periods.
It does not have the grand style of Yongle porcelain and Xuande porcelain, but pursues small and medium-sized works, pursues pleasing to the eye, and pays special attention to the beauty of lines.
Take a closer look at the glaze. The enamel is plump and as moist as gelatin!
The texture of Chenghua porcelain is white, fine, and dry;
The carcass is beautiful and thin, and appears tooth yellow or flesh red when exposed to light;
The glaze color is slightly green, the enamel is plump and moist like gelatin, and it feels like a baby's skin when you touch it.
This is a unique style of Chenghua official kiln wares, and this glaze color is one of the important features for identifying Chenghua porcelain of the Ming Dynasty.
The yellow glaze ware of the Chenghua official kiln doucai ware also has different textures. The yellow glaze ware has a white, fine, dry texture, and the enamel is plump.
Chen Wenzhe saw this very clearly, because when looking at porcelain, he first looks at the base.
As the saying goes, look at the skin of jade and the bottom of porcelain!
To identify porcelain, you must look at the base of the porcelain!
The identification of soles and feet is extremely important in the identification process.
Especially for authenticity and dating, it is a very important basis!
In the process of identifying porcelain, you can identify it through its charm, shape, glaze, painting, style, hair color, etc.
But the identification of the soles is the most important, which is one of the reasons why counterfeiters often need new soles.
When looking at the soles of the feet, first look at the flint red. The rusty black spots in the flint red look moisturizing, natural and not drying.
This feature can be seen as colorful light under a 40x magnification or under sunlight.
The second step is to look at the tire repair knife marks. Ancient tire repair knives mostly used bamboo knives, while modern tire repairs mostly use hacksaw blades.
After repairing a bamboo knife, the knife mark will be in the form of thin filaments, while after repairing a modern saw blade, the knife mark will be thick lines (distance between 2 and 3 mm).
This difference is obvious at first glance.
After the bamboo knife is repaired, the knife mark is left in the shape of filaments.
One of the main reasons for identifying the bottom foot is that there is no glaze here, which will expose the fetal bones.
Observe the aging of the fetal bones and the natural wear and tear of the exposed areas. The wear of the fakes is relatively smooth and not as natural as the genuine ones.
Generally speaking, authentic ancient ceramics have exposed fetal bones and appear relatively dry.
The imitation products are different, appearing smooth or greasy.
Of course, we cannot speak absolutely. Some ancient ceramics are very delicate and smooth when exposed, but they are still slightly dry compared to imitations.
Then there is the phenomenon of sticky sand, which are unique features on the soles.
Observe the phenomenon of sand sticking. For example, artifacts from before the Ming Dynasty often have varying degrees of sand sticking.
In the kilns built by officials and civilians of the Qing Dynasty, there was also sand on the inside of the feet where the glaze accumulated.
However, imitation products rarely do this. There is also a small amount of sand on the counterfeit products, but they do not appear aged and dry like the genuine products.
Because the firing process is higher than in ancient times, the glaze is not applied so thickly, which will not cause glaze accumulation.
In addition, due to reasons such as mold injection and being too regular, there is very little sand sticking.
Throughout each period, the porcelain soles have their own special features, so you can also observe the texture of the exposed tire marks.
For example, the foot of a vase in the Southern Song Dynasty has a swirling pattern of circles.
Yuan utensils also often have spin marks and chicken heart spots.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were many radial jumping knife marks and less spinning marks. Only the previous dynasties contained relics of the Yuan Dynasty.
In most of the folk kilns of the Qing Dynasty, the traces of the spinning can be seen through the glaze layer.
There are almost no traces of the official kiln, but imitations often cannot do this, either to the left or to the right.
Observe the soles and feet. If they are old and natural, without mud, dust, or other artificial objects that cannot be washed away, and there are no traces of being reburned for old age, then it is almost genuine.
At the very least, this foot is genuine.
Of course, there are many key points in identifying the sole, such as the inward angle.
Regarding the inward folding angle, it is the angle between the bottom surface and the foot wall.
There is glaze accumulation in this angle, which means that there is more glaze accumulation during glazing.
After too much, it will take on a greenish color.
This was a common problem before the mid-Ming Dynasty, and current imitations have also noticed this problem.
However, there are two differences between the imitation glaze and the genuine glaze.
First, it is not aspic blue but bluish green. Even if it is close to aspic blue, it is still greenish.
Second, the shrimp blue line in the Ming Dynasty was a bit narrow, while the later imitations were wider.
Of course, these are minor problems and can be avoided.
After all, the technology is not that difficult. As long as you know it, you can imitate all of them.
If there is one thing that cannot be avoided when imitating a piece of porcelain, it must be the fetal bone texture.
The fetal bones (bottoms) were coarser in pre-Hongwu times, most of the fetuses were white with a hint of gray, and there were small pores in the fetal bones.
After Yongle, the fetal bones were relatively thinner and whiter than before.
During this period, no matter what the quality of the fetus is, it never looks stiff.
It has a natural feeling of ripeness, which makes people feel that the thickness of the tire is not dry, the presence or absence of oxides is natural, and the texture of the tire is moist and not astringent, and it does not feel heavy or prickly.
There are also differences in the appearance of fetal bones and fetal soil from ancient porcelain bodies.
Observed from the texture of the tire, there are signs of mechanical mud removal, mud training and rapid aging.
The color, age, materials, etc. of the fetal bones (foot) and the exposed areas inside and outside the object should be consistent, and the feeling should be natural.
If there are no problems with these, then the most important thing is the payment or engraving.
Except for daily porcelain on the dining table, in ancient times, other porcelain was generally not engraved.
However, some ancient ancestral halls use porcelain. If there is no ancestral hall name, it will be engraved to prevent someone from taking it home for private use.
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These deposits and engravings have now become a very important method of identification.
For imitations, it becomes an unavoidable problem.
Chen Wenzhe has studied the inscriptions of the Ming Dynasty, but that was about what inscriptions to keep, not how to keep them, that is, how to write them and how to engrave them!
The identification and imitation of this are more troublesome.
In fact, when appraising a piece of porcelain, you don't need to look at these things first.
If there is a problem elsewhere, then there is a problem with the entire piece of porcelain, and there is no need to identify it from the most difficult part.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe first looked at the base of the Sanqiu cup in his hand, and now he looked at the method of cutting the feet.
These are small details, but if you don't know and can't grasp them, they will be big flaws.