This jar has a thin body, a straight mouth, a short neck, round shoulders, a bulging belly, an introverted lower part, and a hollowed-out foot.
The height is about 12 cm, the diameter is about 5 cm, and the foot diameter is 7 cm.
In addition, there is also a porcelain cover covering the mouth of the jar.
What's strange is that at first glance, this jar looks like colored porcelain, but on closer inspection it has the characteristics of blue and white porcelain.
It turned out to be a colorful pot, which is very rare.
"Tianzi jar?" Shen Yu asked the middle-aged man in an uncertain tone.
The middle-aged man nodded: "It is indeed a Tianzi jar, but it's hard to say if it's not a Chenghuadoucai Tianzi jar. I won't hide it from you, little brother. I have also visited several stores for this jar, and they all count as modern handicrafts. Price.
"Others were even more irritating. When I took out this jar, they kicked me out without even looking at it. They called me a charlatan. I was so angry that I almost vomited blood.
"What do they know? According to the oral tradition passed down by the elders in the family and the records in the family notebook, this jar was collected by my great-grandfather. Counting me, it has been passed down to seven generations. How can it be a modern handicraft?"< /p>
By the end of the sentence, the middle-aged man's face turned red with anger.
Shen Yu was really afraid that he would accidentally drop the jar in anger, so he quickly comforted him: "Calm down, there are only one Mingcheng Huatian jar, and there are probably no more than twenty in the world, so I don't blame them."< /p>
"Put this jar on this table." Shen Yu stood up and pulled out a small mahogany square table in the corner, and then said to the middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man carefully placed the jar on the mahogany table as instructed, then took a step back and made a "please watch" gesture to Shen Yu.
Shen Yu nodded to express his gratitude, and then turned his eyes to the jar in front of him.
The body of this jar is white and the enamel is shiny.
The colors used are extremely complicated, oil red, bright red like blood, cockscomb red, red like cockscomb.
Apricot yellow resembles yellow with reddish color.
Sun green, with some green like young leaves.
Pine green, green with a hint of cyan, grape purple, blue, etc.
But one thing is that the combination of so many colors is very natural, mixed but not chaotic, and perfectly coordinated to form a colorful but fresh and elegant beautiful porcelain.
Its patterns are decorated with sea water, banana leaves, melon vines, lotus petals, and creepers.
The most conspicuous part of the jar body is painted with a Kui dragon, with its body in a spiral shape, looking back and roaring in the rough sea water.
Kui Long is described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas as follows: "There is Liupo Mountain in the East China Sea, seven thousand miles into the sea. There is a beast on it, shaped like an ox, with a pale body and no horns, and one leg. When it goes in and out of the water, there will be wind and rain, and its light is like the sun and the moon. , its sound was like thunder, and its name was Kui. The Yellow Emperor obtained it, used its skin as a drum, and used the bones of thunder beasts as prongs. The sound could be heard for five hundred miles, so as to frighten the world.
Of course, the Kui dragon on this Tianzi jar is different. It is not a simple style, but an elephant trunk, two feet, and no scales. It looks a bit cute but not very majestic.
On the other side, there is a dragon with steep horns, deep eyes, a wide nose, and sharp beards and dense scales. The majestic dragon appears and disappears in the clouds and mist.
This dragon has antlers like a deer, a head like a camel, eyes like ghosts, a neck like a snake, a belly like a mirage, scales like a fish, claws like an eagle, palms like a tiger, and ears like an ox. It looks like a dragon.
Yinglong is the real dragon in myths and legends, and can also be called Zulong, Huanglong and Tianlong.
Yinglong is the highest-level existence among dragons.
Seeing this, Shen Yu finally understood, and he didn't blame others for misunderstanding. There are no two different dragons in the more than ten Chenghua Doucai Tianzi jars that are known now. Those with two dragons are all of the same kind. For example, two Yinglong or two Chilong.
This should be the first time that Kui Long and Ying Long appeared on the same jar at the same time. No wonder people just popped it out without even looking at it.
"Don't stand there. Is this jar passed down from your ancestors?" Shen Yu asked the middle-aged man in a kind manner.
The middle-aged man nodded, "Yes, it was indeed passed down after my great-grandfather bought it. The family record book records that this ancestor was a fifth-rank prefect in the Qianlong Dynasty. When he left office, a friend gave him a number. pieces of porcelain.
"But that ancestor later asked someone to send him three hundred taels of tattooed silver, which was regarded as a purchase. Among them was this Doucai Tianzi jar."
Shen Yu nodded and said nothing. He asked just as a show. Apart from himself, only God knows whether what the other party said is true or false...
Of course, it is true that there are no logical loopholes in what the old tea connoisseur in front of me said.
Shen Yu has encountered everyone when he opened a shop and did business. Sometimes there will be stories like his great-grandfather purchased a piece of Yongzheng blue and white porcelain during the Kangxi period. It is full of loopholes and it is difficult to justify what he said.
"You can pour the tea yourself. If you are hungry and there are biscuits and bread under the coffee table, you can rest your stomach first. I will have to take a closer look at this jar."
The middle-aged man said hurriedly: "Thank you, little brother, I'm having breakfast."
Doucai, also known as doucai, was created during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty. It is a porcelain craft that combines underglaze blue and white with overglaze color.
The production method is roughly to use blue and white as the material to outline the pattern you want to fire on the formed carcass, then cover it with a layer of transparent glaze and bake it in the kiln at high temperature.
After it comes out of the oven, it is only a semi-finished product. It still needs to be filled with various color materials in the outlined outline, then put into the furnace and fired at a low temperature for a second time.
Doucai originated during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, but matured during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty. Doucai during this period was most highly praised by collectors, so when talking about doucai, it is mostly "Chenghua doucai".
But what is very interesting is that the word doucai did not exist in the Ming Dynasty.
There is no such word in all the materials of the Ming Dynasty. Most of them refer to Chenghua Wucai, or blue and white decorated with five colors.
The word doucai first appeared in "Nanyao Notes" during the Yongzong and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty. This is a Qing Dynasty note book introducing various porcelains in the porcelain capital. The author is anonymous.
It is mentioned for the first time that "the four dynasties of Chenghua, Zhengde, Jiajing and Wanli had three types of colored porcelain: Doucai, Wucai and Filling.
"First use green material to draw the half-body of flowers and birds on the porcelain body, then reuse the color material to make the whole body, which is called doucai.
"The double-hook flower and bird figures made of green material are put into the color furnace and filled with five colors, which is called color filling.
"With five colors, plain porcelain is painted purely with colored materials."
It can be seen from this that filling color is also a type of fighting color, but five colors are purely overglaze colors.
"Can I get my hands on this jar?" Shen Yu asked aloud.
The middle-aged man smiled and said: "Of course, how can you tell whether the porcelain is genuine or fake without getting your hands on it? You can just look at it, little brother."
Shen Yu rinsed the sweat stains on his hands with water, wiped his hands with a dry towel, and then returned to the Tianzi jar.
He first took off the porcelain lid of the jar and took a look inside the jar to confirm if there were any other foreign objects in the jar. If there was a gold ingot, iron block, stone or something inside, and it cracked from the inside, This is troublesome.
Although the chance of this is very small, it does not happen in the antique industry.
Shen Yu repeatedly confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the jar and that there was no damage to the jar before he picked up the jar with both hands.
No wonder Shen Yu was so careful, the Tian Zi Jar was too precious to be careless at all.
Chenghua Doucai does not have any big tools. To put it bluntly, this jar is not as tall as a mobile phone. Shen Yu can hold it with one hand, but in the antique shop, it is a rule to look at porcelain with both hands. Let alone a jar, even holding a small wine glass requires two hands. Hand.
There is no rule without rules. You have to follow the rules when eating in an antique shop. Shen Yu knows this very well.
After picking up the jar, Shen Yu didn't look anywhere else. He first looked at the bottom of the jar.
At this time, the middle-aged man's pupils shrank slightly.