Chapter 1625 I missed it and made a fortune
Take out all the things. Clothes and medals are not very valuable. Although the books are not very understandable, there are many illustrations in the German books that should be related to military camps and marches. There are a lot of graphics related to the array advancement. There are many Chinese in Japanese books. You can generally understand the titles of the books, namely "Showa Internal Affairs", "Infantry Instructions", and "Battle·Array·Training".
After browsing briefly, I found that I am a soldier, but I didn’t find anything of value. These books seemed to be just ordinary reading materials. The content was quite similar to the militia training drill Zhou Zhi had seen at Marshal Fang’s house. Somewhat similar.
If there is something in this box that matches the four scrolls, it should probably be in these small boxes.
The small box is made of rosewood, maintaining the original color of the wood grain. With a push of Zhou Zhi’s thumb, the panel of the box retreats along the grooves on both sides, revealing the thickness of the bottom and four walls. Felt, and a small thing wrapped in yellow silk in the middle.
He took out the Huang Ling package and opened it. Inside was a small and exquisite cup.
The cup is slightly larger than a wine glass, and the wall is very thin, even worthy of the exaggerated praise - "glazed but without embryo".
This is a small piece of porcelain with Dou Cai. The so-called Dou Cai refers to a technique of painting porcelain.
Similar to the multicolored porcelain that Zhou Zhi received from Old John a few days ago, this porcelain also uses blue and white to draw the outline of the pattern on the body, then applies a transparent glaze, and then fires it at high temperature, and then tops the glaze. It is filled with various color materials, baked in a low-temperature color oven, and finally shaped.
The gorgeous blue flowers under the glaze, which are close to the carcass, shine through the white glaze with charming brilliance, and complement each other and compete with the brilliant paintings on the glaze. This kind of combination The technique of painting on the upper glaze and under the glaze and then piecing them together to complete the picture is called "fighting color" or "doucai".
Because it is a small and exquisite product, the height of this small cup is even less than five centimeters, and the fetal bone is so thin that it is transparent. The outer wall is outlined with blue and white lines, painted with colorful grape patterns, and the middle is filled with greenish goose yellow and purple like ripe grapes, making it look delicate and translucent.
It was this touch of lavender that allowed Zhou Zhi to confirm the identity of the cup. Zhou Zhi took a breath and turned the cup over. Sure enough, there was a six-character style written in fine regular script on the bottom of the cup - Daming. Chenghua annual system.
This is a horseshoe cup. According to legend, in order to express his compassion and love to his beloved Concubine Wan Gui, Chenghua Emperor Zhu Jianshen ordered the craftsmen in Jingdezhen to make various small and exquisite Doucai cups for her. For viewing, these small cups are divided into several types according to their patterns. The most familiar one is the Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup that was auctioned by Sotheby's for a sky-high price of HK$280 million.
In fact, the accurate classification of this sentence should be Chenghua/Doucai/Chicken/Crock Cup. The chicken is the pattern, and the Crock Cup was one of the dozens of popular styles of cups at that time, because It is named after its shape and proportions like a small vat.
Chenghua Doucai Grape Pattern Horseshoe Cup
In 2014, a Chenghua color fighting chicken cup was sold at Sotheby's in Hong Kong for a sky-high price of HK$280 million. For a time, the "chicken cup" became a household name, and various replicas and derivatives of the "chicken cup" It also became popular. Only then did the rare treasures Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup and Sanqiu Cup come into being that have been handed down to this day. In the porcelain exhibition hall of the Capital Museum, there is also a pair of Chenghua doucai cups on display. The patterns of these small cups are different from the Chenghua doucai chicken cup and Sanqiu cup. They are called because they are painted with grape patterns. It is "Chenghua Doucai Grape Pattern Cup".
The shape of the horseshoe cup is an inverted trapezoid when viewed from the side, with a smaller circle foot at the bottom. When turned upside down, it looks like a horseshoe, hence the name, so the one on Zhou Zhi’s hand has its full name. It should be the Mingcheng Hua Dou Cai grape pattern horseshoe cup.
Chenghua's small cups have exquisite and beautiful patterns, and their themes are close to "folk". For example, this cup has grapes, mulberries, and bamboo as its main patterns; in addition, there is a type of chicken; and another type, It is the "three themes", namely bergamot, peach and pomegranate, which means more blessings, more life and more children.
The most obvious feature of Chenghua artifacts, and also the most difficult feature for later imitators to restore, is the "colorful purple".
In fact, "姹子" was not originally meant to mean "bright purples and reds", but "poor purple", which was originally used to describe a life that was "unsatisfactory". The famous connoisseur Mr. Sun Yingzhou described it this way: "It is a color defect caused by differences during firing, so it is called poor purple. It can be said with certainty that any finished product with poor purple color is definitely authentic."
Mr. Geng Baochang, the master of porcelain appraisal in Rongbaozhai, said: "As for the unique purple color, it has a color like hematite and a dry and dull surface. In the past, some people didn't know much about this color and would wash it every time. Mistaking it for dirt and scraping it, it damaged the glaze. As a special basis for identifying Chenghua doucai, the color can often be used to make a conclusion. All subsequent imitators are far behind. ”
The color of this grape cup is relatively simple, mainly light green, yellow and purple. Because of this, the ‘purple’ feature is on this small cup. It has also been perfectly reflected. The original color defects have now become bonus points and features, allowing Zhou Zhi to recognize them at a glance.
Because this color is so special, the purple used in Chenghua is actually the color of metal manganese ions. Because this color had just come out at that time, craftsmen often did not have perfect control over it.
According to subsequent scientific diagnosis, it was found that if the amount of mineral material used exceeds 'saturation', the purple after firing will lose its color. Therefore, in order to make up for the shortcomings of this "matte purple" in the painting, after painting the purple, the craftsmen will also apply bright glaze on appropriate parts to cover up the flaws.
However, a coincidence happened. The bright glaze used by Chenghua was originally not too pure and was a bit bluish. This processing technology created a blue and purple luster that better reflected the texture of the grapes when they are ripe.
During the firing process, the bright glaze also merged and flowed with the purple underneath, causing the grapes on the picture to form a pattern similar to the way when the grapes in traditional Chinese painting are painted with purple first and then on. Blue, and then applied with water to achieve a smudged effect.
After this change, "Cha Zi" transformed into a real "Sha Zi", and got the noble title of "Yipin Zi".
What’s even more funny is that when the glaze technology further matured, after the craftsmen discovered the stable purple glaze, they naturally abandoned this troublesome method of painting purple.
A few dynasties later, when people's aesthetics changed again and they once again discovered the beauty of "violet" in Chenghua doucai, they found that this craft had been completely lost.
The three dynasties of the Qing Dynasty exhausted manpower and material resources, but they were unable to restore it, not even close to it. The imitation of the "brilliant purple" on Ming Chenghua doucai porcelain has become the ultimate problem in the history of Chinese porcelain antiques.
Of course, there are many shapes and patterns in Chenghua Doucai, and not every utensil has "violet". The craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty were also very dissatisfied with the time-consuming and labor-intensive purple color that was not necessarily successful. The willingness to fire has resulted in Chenghua porcelain with a "purple" color becoming more and more rare and extremely precious.
Zhou Zhi knew that there was a pair of cups like this in the Capital Museum, which came from the tomb of Hesheli.
Hesheli was a little girl who died at the age of seven. The reason why she was buried with such a precious body was because she was the granddaughter of Sony, an important official in the early Qing Dynasty, the daughter of Suo'etu, and the cousin of Queen Xiaocheng. , not ordinary people.
Turning the small cup in his hand, Zhou Zhi whistled: "This leak is worth picking up..."
(End of this chapter)