In 1869, the British missionary Williamson recorded in his book "Travel in Northern China" that he saw the grand production of colored glaze in Boshan.
"I saw a haze of smoke shrouding the sky above Boshan, and people were nervously busy making glass. At that time, regardless of age, about seven out of ten men and women were engaged in glass manufacturing, and they were exported every year
More than 700,000 kilograms of glass products..."
The German missionary and geographer Richthofen and the British missionary Williamson both visited Boshan during the Tongzhi period.
They gave vivid descriptions of Boshan in "Diary of Traveling in China 1868-1872" and "Travel in Northern China" respectively.
Qilu Boshan's feeders are an important commodity in China's foreign trade. About 7,000 dan are exported through Jinan every year.
...Smart and intelligent craftsmen grinded the rocks produced nearby into fine pieces, then calcined them with potassium nitrate to make a material container.
The hills here are rich in quartz ore, lime (rock) and coal, which are important raw materials and fuels for making glass.
For thousands of years, the Chinese nation, which is good at making porcelain, has significantly lagged far behind Europe in making glass.
However, only in Boshan has it made achievements worthy of world recognition.
In the early 30th year of Guangxu, Zhou Fu, governor of Qilu, approved the proposal of the Qilu Provincial Agricultural, Industrial and Commercial Bureaus to establish Boshan Glass Company, and allocated 50,000 taels of treasury silver as official shares.
At this time, China's first glass company jointly run by government and businessmen was born.
The "History of Modern Chinese Handicraft Industry" article states: "Boshan is China's number one glass manufacturing place. The abundance of raw materials and fuels, as well as low wages, are the most important factors for its development. Since the European War, the temporary import of foreign goods has been eliminated.
, Boshan Glass has gained great reputation due to its demand. From Manchuria and Mongolia in the north to Southeast Asia in the south, almost everyone knows the name of Boshan Glass.”
The "Reedited Daily Encyclopedia" compiled and printed by the Commercial Press of the Republic of China records: "The organization of glass factories in our country began in the reign of Guangxu in the former Qing Dynasty, when there was the Shandong Boshan Glass Factory." This shows its great influence.
The initial sales methods of Boshan Liuli were mainly market trade and long-distance trafficking.
Later, with the increasing development of production, a store specializing in selling Boshan colored glaze—Liuhuozhuang—appeared, with a wider sales scope.
Historical records show that from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, Boshan established more than 100 material warehouses across the country.
These material warehouses are distributed in a network, with Boshan as the center, radiating across the country, truly realizing the "Liu" throughout the world.
Such a famous craft will naturally not remain unknown now.
After Chen Wenzhe learned a little about it, he discovered that Qilu is now also a major province in producing colored glaze.
It can be said that it is a thousand-year-old glass, a new type of "Internet celebrity"!
After the founding of New China, Boshan Glaze Industry also ushered in a spring of rapid development.
The original glaze workshop was reorganized and merged and became a state-owned factory.
Production equipment and manufacturing techniques are continuously improved, and product research and development are continuously expanded.
Large-scale colored glaze companies, represented by Boshan Art Glazed Factory, emerged at the historic moment and developed into the leader in the national colored glaze industry.
After more than half a century of accumulation and research and development, up to now, Boshan glazed products have dozens of categories, thousands of types, and nearly 10,000 colors.
His representative works, such as glazed bouquets, flower arrangements, ornaments and other thermoformed products, are unique in craftsmanship, miraculous and miraculous, and are amazing;
The products of glazed interior painting are exquisite and unique, and are called the "Qilu School" of interior painting art.
Nesting carvings and carvings with precious color materials "chicken fat yellow" and "chicken liver stone" are simple and dignified, and are well-known at home;
The lampwork products are exquisite, delicate and elegant, which are breathtaking.
Among them, the ones that are most familiar and recognized by the world are undoubtedly the glazed inner paintings and the precious cooking vessel "chicken fat yellow".
The technique of Boshan colored glaze interior painting was introduced from the capital city of Shenzhou.
According to legend, during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, Zhou Leyuan, a glass painter in the capital of Shenzhou, had superb interior painting skills, but kept them secret.
In order to keep it secret, an old man was even hired to look after the door. He would notify guests of incoming guests and wait until he had cleaned up all the painting tools before he could receive guests.
One day at noon, Wang Fenggao, a businessman from Xieshun Maozhuang in Boshan, went to Zhou Leyuan's house for business.
It happened that the old man guarding the door was dozing off. Wang Fenggao, who wanted to find out what was going on, took off his boots and tiptoed in.
Zhou Leyuan was in a panic and couldn't stop himself. Wang Fenggao spied on the secret of painting with internal bamboo brushes.
After Wang Fenggao returned to Boshan, he studied repeatedly and finally mastered the secret of interior painting skills, and passed it on to Bi Rongjiu, Sun Tanpu, Xue Xiangdu and others.
They continued to carry it forward and formed the distinctive Lu style interior painting.
Due to their proficient skills and unique styles, these few people formed an independent painting school in the interior painting art world, called the Qilu Painting School, which is as famous as the Shendu Painting School.
At that time, county magistrates, local squires, and even foreign businessmen would come to visit old painters with heavy sums of money and ask for paintings of snuff bottles.
Later, Bi Rongjiu passed the craftsmanship to Zhang Wentang and others, and Xue Xiangdu passed it on to his son Xue Jingwan.
The Anti-Japanese War broke out, and Boshan's inner painting was temporarily suspended.
Xue Jingwan and Zhang Wentang also went to the mountains to engage in ceramic painting in order to make a living.
After the founding of New China, the creation of Liuli inner paintings was restored and improved.
Boshan's precious cooking utensil "Chicken Oil Yellow" emerged in the early Ming Dynasty and became popular during the Qianlong period.
Because of its grace and splendor, it is revered as "Yu Huang" and "Huang Jade".
The characteristics of "Chicken Fat Yellow" are that it is "moist like jade, as solid as fat, sounds like a chime, and is as valuable as gold."
Due to the high production threshold and difficulty, it has always been reserved for the royal family and the palace, and private production is strictly prohibited.
Later, after social changes, the production process of "chicken fat yellow" was once lost.
In 1972, Boshan Art Liulichang finally brought "chicken fat yellow" back to the world after repeated trials.
At the beginning of the 21st century, after the Boshan Art Glass Factory went bankrupt, the “chicken oil yellow” development data and related physical objects were once again lost.
Brothers Sun Jimin and Sun Jijie, who were born in the Liuli family, invested in research and development based on ancient recipes and successfully restored the "Chicken Oil Yellow" firing technique, which is known as "Sun's Chicken Oil Yellow".
In recent years, based on the research results of his fathers, Sun Yunyi, the inheritor, has made further achievements after years of painstaking study and innovative creation.
They have continuously improved in terms of materials, processes, technology and device design, and have systematically improved the technology and formula of "chicken fat yellow".
This enabled the production of "chicken oil yellow" and the glass relief processing technology based on "chicken oil yellow" to be protected, inherited and developed.
The most important thing is to greatly improve the yield and the purity of product color.
Therefore, the "Sun's Chicken Butter Yellow" firing technique has been assessed as an intangible cultural heritage of Qilu Province, and its technology and formula have been approved as invention patents by the National Patent Office.
At this time, Chen Wenzhe felt a little emotional that his skills had inherited Sun's skills to a certain extent.
If it were produced unchanged, wouldn't it be a bit unethical to compete with the company founded by Sun?
However, with just a little understanding, Chen Wenzhe felt relieved.