Official/Different Yixing Show Off Topic!

[Teaism]

That's right my family is from The Netherlands.

Does anyone on this forum know if an expert on Chinese ceramics is active here?

You are very lucky to inherit such old pieces from your relative.

Historically, many porcelain and Yixing pots went into Netherlands.
But few years ago and they still do now, some vendors from Netherlands are selling a lot of fake and reproduction yixing pots and ceramics especially Kangxi and Batavia ceramics.

This is according to my expert friend and also many of my friends who have bought from Netherlands online. The whole community of collectors are laughing at those who bought and when they show off their "treasures" and then found out that they got cheated with new reproductions. This group is raising awareness of such malpractice now.

But I must add that the reproductions are quite well done because they probably have some real piece to copy from, but some details still don't tally and can be spotted by expert. I have personally seen some of these reproductions from collectors.

There is a lot of fakes out there and those who are lucky like you who inherited them is really great especially when you learned how to appreciate it. Apart for good inheritance like yours, I sincerely urge the rest of the Teachatters to be very careful when procuring any old pieces, Yixing or even worst, porcelain which can be fake very easily.

Cheers!

[Have Some Tea]

-cut-

Hi Teaism,

Thanks for your historical view on the production and market tendencies of Yixing. I guess it's in our nature to desire, deceive and distrust.
Yixing is a completely new dimension for me but I understand were the skeptic opinions are coming from.

Till now I only had little information from relatives passed on with the pot. By showing it's form on this forum it evoked a whole new dimension in it's existence. Admired, questioned, suspected... identified as a brewing device for delightful plant material called tea.

It speaks through it's elegant form and nothing else is needed. No date, no value will change it's appearance, it will be as it is. Maybe some day she will unveil her history, till then I will search for a matching tea so it can reveal it's true essence in delight.

With all the knowledge and tasting experience... this seems to be the right place to ask suggestions for a great tea paring. Till now my preferred choice of tea was Japanese Sencha, Gyokuro, etc.

I'm clueless about Chinese tea. Please help this elegant old Yixing pot find a tea mate. Oolong, Pu-erh... what kind, what brand?

Many thanks!
Have some tea

Antique Yixing Teapot 19th CE x1.jpg (17.36 KiB) Viewed 2051 times

[Teaism]

Yes, sometimes a forgotten family treasures lead to many mysteries. My grandaunty gave me a pot which was bought by her in China in 50s. The cover was broken and taped together. Until today, I still have no clue about that pot. I will meeting a Yixing pot expert next week, a consultant for Yixing pots auction in many auction houses. He is coming to my house for tea. I hope he can help to enlighten me on that pot.

Online photos are very difficult to be used for evualuation for any pot as most expert still need to see the and feel the physical pot. That is how many of my friends got cheated by the vendors in Netherlands. The photos looks real but the physical piece i s another thing.

For your pot, first you should clean it. Soak it in water for a few days to for it to settle down before slowly introducing it to hotter and hotter water. You can brew any tea with it, but try to keep to the same type of tea if possible.

I am just curious on how many pots have you inherited.

Also, have you seen any of these pots on sale in Netherlands at present moment?
Cheers!

[Drax]

Nobody has mentioned anything about the characters on the side of the pot. The only ones that I recognize off the bat are at the far right (浮, or "float") and the one just to the lower left (一, or "one").

Oddly enough, the character in the center bottom looks Japanese (お), but I don't know if there's a hanzi equivalent.

It's likely a poem fragment or a sutra....

[chrl42]

During ROC~the CR, carving Caoshu (草書) style on Yixings was very popular, but I doubt they used Japanese characters

[Have Some Tea]

I am just curious on how many pots have you inherited.

Also, have you seen any of these pots on sale in Netherlands at present moment?

Hi Teaism,

Thanks for the cleaning instructions.
To answer your questions... I inherited several asian peices like an Ikebana vase and Chinese laquerware. From the teapots i got this is the only one that's interesting enough to investigate.

In the Netherlands I haven't seen any pots like this and on the internet I only came across this model made by Zhu Kexin. (Thanks to chrl42 who mentioned the artist).

Flat persimmon model by Zhu Kexin:
http://www.sybowuguan.com/zsen/html/pro ... asp?id=357

[Have Some Tea]

Nobody has mentioned anything about the characters on the side of the pot.

Hi Drax,

Thanks for pointing that out. I almost gave up on the quest since it's hard to determine age and artist based on the pictures. But she clearly reveals some of her identity through the calligraphy on the side.

Is there someone on this forum skillful enough to translate this text/poem?
It would make my day!

Many thanks,
Have some tea

[kyarazen]

Hi Teaism,

Thanks for the cleaning instructions.
To answer your questions... I inherited several asian peices like an Ikebana vase and Chinese laquerware. From the teapots i got this is the only one that's interesting enough to investigate.

In the Netherlands I haven't seen any pots like this and on the internet I only came across this model made by Zhu Kexin. (Thanks to chrl42 who mentioned the artist).

Flat persimmon model by Zhu Kexin:
http://www.sybowuguan.com/zsen/html/pro ... asp?id=357

there's a lot of information on the internet, just that its not in english..
you can search for 柿子 宜兴 or 文革 柿子 壶 or 民国 柿子 壶 under google images for a nice array of fruits.

[kyarazen]

Hi Drax,

Thanks for pointing that out. I almost gave up on the quest since it's hard to determine age and artist based on the pictures. But she clearly reveals some of her identity through the calligraphy on the side.

Is there someone on this forum skillful enough to translate this text/poem?
It would make my day!

Many thanks,
Have some tea

i suppose there aren't many native chinese reader/writers around here, further more knowing chinese does not guarantee that you can read the "grass" script

reading from the right its just 浮云一朵 which translates like (a floating/fleeting cloud). on the right the calligraphy has taken a little bit of a japanese "grassy" style so it doesnt rememble anything chinese, except the 2nd word on the left resembling the chinese word for oil (油)

[kyarazen]

you mind if i repost your image somewhere else to ask if anyone's able to read the inscription and also the era?

[chrl42]

Oddly enough, the character in the center bottom looks Japanese (お), but I don't know if there's a hanzi equivalent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana#History indicates,

Hiragana characters' shapes were derived from the Chinese cursive script (sōsho)

so it looks like Hiragana came from the grass-style, not vice versa

[Drax]

so it looks like Hiragana came from the grass-style, not vice versa

Odd, I never made a claim one way or the other... I said that it looked like a Japanese character, and that I didn't know which Chinese character it came from.

In any case, if the chart is to be believed (and I'm not sure it is -- the middle/red ones are the cursive script, the bottom ones are the Japanese kana) it would be 於, a pretty generic prepositional character.

By the way, I've read this tidbit on the cursive script name before.... it's a rather curious claim:

The character 書 (shū) means script in this context, and the character 草 (cǎo) means quick, rough or sloppy. Thus, the name of this script is literally "rough script" or "sloppy script". The same character 草 (cǎo) appears in this sense in the noun "rough draft" (草稿, cǎogǎo), and the verb "to draft [a document or plan]" (草擬, cǎonǐ). The other, indirectly related, meaning of the character 草 (cǎo) is grass, which has led to the mistranslation "grass script".

[MarshalN]

I can't make the name of the writer (looks like X生), but it's 浮雲一朵碧可油

As for the age of the pot, I don't think this is a 70s pot. To me it does look a bit earlier - the writing is very fine, and the work too. I've seen ball filters on earlier pots, although only on the bigger ones.

[kyarazen]

I can't make the name of the writer (looks like X生), but it's 浮雲一朵碧可油

As for the age of the pot, I don't think this is a 70s pot. To me it does look a bit earlier - the writing is very fine, and the work too. I've seen ball filters on earlier pots, although only on the bigger ones.

范大生?!....

[MarshalN]

It's normally the case that calligrapher and potter are not the same person