TeaChat

Hello,

I thought we needed an antique tea and tea ware topic, so here it is.

I will start the ball rolling with a Song Dynasty (960-1279) cup. It has what is known as a turtle shell glaze. In the Song Dynasty powdered tea was the fashion. A brick of tea would be roasted over an open flame and then ground into a powder, which was whisked into a froth. Tea preparing competitions were popular at this time and the amount of froth and how long it took to dissipate were primarily what was judged.

Beautiful IPT. This looks to be in really excellent condition. Even has a drippy! Great period info as well!

Looking forward to seeing many more from you and other members of TeaChat.

Depending on how this goes, I might "sticky" the topic.

Thank you Chip. It has a sister cup, which is an alcohol cup although it is the size of what we would now use as a gongfu teacup. They were both excavated from the same kiln site and have the same glaze. The alcohol cup is not in nearly as good of shape. It was definitely a factory error and was thrown on the garbage pile. It was not broken, but there appear to be craters, like it had a blow out or something, which were filled in with some epoxy type filler. I wish they had not done it, but there is not much I can do about it.

I'd post a lot more pics if teachat doesn't have these silly size restrictions

MarshalN wrote:I'd post a lot more pics if teachat doesn't have these silly size restrictions

If you mean file size, then use a photo hosting site to post the photos, as there are no restrictions there.

IPT wrote:Thank you Chip. It has a sister cup, which is an alcohol cup although it is the size of what we would now use as a gongfu teacup. They were both excavated from the same kiln site and have the same glaze. The alcohol cup is not in nearly as good of shape. It was definitely a factory error and was thrown on the garbage pile. It was not broken, but there appear to be craters, like it had a blow out or something, which were filled in with some epoxy type filler. I wish they had not done it, but there is not much I can do about it.

Yeah, not a particularly nice repair. But interesting nevertheless.

I have often seen a lot of badly repaired, very old pieces on ebay, likely from excavated kiln sites like yours. They almost looked like they had a pile of pieces from umpteen cups which were pieced together terribly to make one or two cups.

AdamMY wrote:

MarshalN wrote:I'd post a lot more pics if teachat doesn't have these silly size restrictions

If you mean file size, then use a photo hosting site to post the photos, as there are no restrictions there.

I do use a hosting site, and if the size of the hosted pic is too large, teachat still rejects it

TeaChat has a size limit of 640 pixels wide for photohosted pics. Though I usually personally prefer 500.

Any larger than 640 and many members have to scroll left to right to view the entire photo.

Attachments have a size limit as well, though I cannot remember exactly what we have it set to currently. I think smaller than 640 because there are other problems that arise when trying to view larger attachments.

If you feel this warrants a seperate topic, I can split this topic accordingly. But I do not want to clutter up the beautiful "antique road show" further.

Wow, what a beautiful glaze! That broken cup would seem to be a prime candidate for a 'golden repair'...!

Drax wrote:Wow, what a beautiful glaze! That broken cup would seem to be a prime candidate for a 'golden repair'...!

You know what, I had not thought of that! Fantastic idea Drax! Thank you. Even though the "repair" is ugly, I wanted it because it matched the glaze of the tea bowl.

The reason you see a lot of ugly repairs, or tea ware from digs with scars, is because they were the rejects throw in the garbage heap. The cups were fired in stacks with little legs (do not know the correct term) to seperate them. If one of the little legs gave out, the two cups would touch each other and become glued together. A lot of times people, when they dig them out, grind away one of the two cups and sell the remaining cup. It is very common to see, but sometimes it is the only way to get an example of a rare glaze, or tea bowl.

IPT wrote:The cups were fired in stacks with little legs (do not know the correct term) to seperate them.

Most wood firing American potters call that stuff "wadding".

best,

...........john

or perhaps saggers - pieces can deform and then stick to the saggers, which are the supports to hold multiple pieces in tight company when being stacked in the kiln

JBaymore wrote:Most wood firing American potters call that stuff "wadding".

best,

...........john

Oh right! Wadding! That was the word I was looking for. Thank you John.

Love this thread and the whole idea of it! Thanks for starting it, IPT!

(I'll be back with pics of my first antique teabowl purchase soon)

Drax wrote:Wow, what a beautiful glaze! That broken cup would seem to be a prime candidate for a 'golden repair'...!

I guess I'm still a noob in some aspects. What is a "golden" repair?