I was wondering through the city this morning and stumped into a flea market. A chinese "antiques" shop caught my attention and I made the "mistake" to step in. Now, dealing with chinese vendors in my city is an art in itself. (No offence intended to anybody around.) Apart from the fact that they never put any prices on the objects (especially in antique shops) you get that funny feeling that they establish the price by looking at the you, not at the object you´re holding in your hand asking for a price. Anyways, to make a long story short, I stopped in the front of the teaware shelf. After 30 minutes of looking at various items I settled for a set of six
hand painted porcelain teacups and a teapot.
The cups are very nice (one of them is broken I observed later, still the other five definitely worth the money ), but they are the subject of the second episode as I need to borrow a proper camera for decent pics.
The teapot , though, is pretty curious, and I wondered if any of you can help with some proper appreciation. It was actually the simplest of 20 pieces lying around , and maybe the only one showing signs of usage, the second criteria for which I chose it, first being the simple, non-ornamented looks. It had some bits of dried tea-leaves caught on the mesh inside and a lot of tea colored spots on the outside, especially under the spout, like showing a pouring drain . Also tea coloured around the lower part of the lid (from tea vapor I guess)
I am posting 5 pics, taken with a phone camera, please give an opinion about:
1. Is it by any chance "genuine" in any way?
2. What does the characters on the bottom mean? (hope I haven´t shot the image upside down
)3. Should I try to brew something in it ? (after proper cleaning and disinfection, of course) .
Thanks in advance for any comments/opinions.
