My system is not decent

Chapter 1817 Full of mercury, bright white through the ages

Few bronze mirrors were unearthed intact, and most of them were broken or missing.

The counterfeiter welds the broken parts into a whole, and the defect is repaired with copper rust.

Where the mirror surface is not smooth and has patina, it is a filling.

It can be said that there are antique mirrors in all dynasties, so there are many types of imitation mirrors.

Of course, the types of imitation mirrors in different eras are different. Even if it is the same type of mirror, imitation in different eras has different emphases.

It's just that the earlier the dynasty, the more controversial it is whether there are antique mirrors.

For example, imitation mirrors in the Tang Dynasty were very controversial. There are still different opinions on whether there were imitation mirrors in the Tang Dynasty.

There are also imitation mirrors in the Song Dynasty. Some people think that the Song Dynasty did not imitate the Han mirror, and some people think that the Song Dynasty has imitated the Han mirror.

But it is mainly an imitation of Tang mirrors, so there were imitation mirrors in the Song Dynasty.

Later, according to the information seen, the Song Dynasty had indeed imitated the bronze mirrors of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

Then there are imitation Han mirrors, such as sunlight mirrors, Zhaoming mirrors, Qingbai mirrors, portrait mirrors, regular mirrors, and dragon and tiger mirrors.

In addition, there are nebula mirrors, four-breasted "homely and rich" mirrors, regular mirrors, four-beast mirrors, and innocent mirrors in imitation Han mirrors.

There were also many imitation mirrors in the Jin Dynasty. The Jin Dynasty mainly imitated the patterns of Han, Tang and Song mirrors.

Among the mirrors imitating the Tang Dynasty, the mirrors of sea animals and grapes are the most.

Among the mirrors imitating the Song Dynasty, there are flower mirrors, eight trigrams mirrors, and Huzhou Wu mirrors.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China, there were also a lot of imitation mirrors. During this period, the fashion of antiques was very popular, and the courts and folks all imitated them, and mirrors in all periods were imitated.

Judging from the types of imitation mirrors in each of the above eras, there are inscription mirrors, rule mirrors, portrait mirrors, and dragon and tiger mirrors in the Han Dynasty such as Sunlight and Zhaoming.

Sea beast grape mirrors, auspicious beast mirrors, and flower and bird mirrors from the Tang Dynasty.

Huzhou mirrors and Bagua mirrors of the Song Dynasty were important types of mirrors imitated by later generations.

Among them, the sunlight and Zhaoming mirror of the Han Dynasty have been imitated in almost all dynasties.

After clarifying the imitation mirrors of each era, there is no doubt that the key areas for identifying imitation mirrors have been drawn.

Bronze mirrors in different eras have different characteristics and are all influenced by politics, economy, ideology, culture and customs at that time.

It is generally believed that although the imitation mirror has the characteristics of a real mirror, it is not a product of that era after all, and it must more or less reveal some characteristics of the era in which the imitation mirror was located.

The characteristics of imitation mirrors in different periods are still different.

For example, the quality of copper is different. Since the Song Dynasty is a period of important changes in the composition of copper mirror alloys in my country, the tin content has decreased significantly, the lead content has increased, and the proportion of zinc has also increased.

Therefore, the copper quality and color will change.

This should be an important aspect to distinguish between antique mirrors and real mirrors.

Song imitation mirrors are not as good as Han and Tang mirrors in texture.

Song imitation is relatively soft, brass, yellow and red.

Gold imitation mirrors are generally slightly yellower than copper imitation Song mirrors.

Although the imperial imitation mirrors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties were made of brass, the imitation mirrors of the Ming Dynasty shone white in the yellow, and the imitation mirrors of the Qing Dynasty shone yellow in the yellow.

Then there is the difference in appearance, because the change in the composition of the alloy brings about the difference in texture and color, which will inevitably affect the quality of the bronze mirror.

Song and Jin letter mirrors are rough in copper, with fuzzy decorations and rough lines, making them appear dull.

The imitation mirrors of Ming and Qing Dynasties are far less refined than Han and Tang mirrors, and they are also as Wang as Song mirrors. This is related to the greatly reduced tin content and greatly increased zinc content of Sun Moon Ming and Qing imitation mirrors.

Of course, Ming and Qing imitation mirrors are also very good, and this is the same at any time.

The most important thing is that the shape is different. Although the bronze mirrors are generally not large, the area of ​​the mirror back is small.

But in this small world, craftsmen of different ages have refurbished and changed in various aspects such as decorations, inscriptions, shapes, bands dividing decorations, edges, buttons, and button seats.

Comparing the characteristics of various parts in different eras and grasping even small changes is an important aspect to distinguish real mirrors from imitation mirrors.

Just to name a few examples: Song mirrors imitate the shape of water chestnut and sunflower in Tang Dynasty. In Tang Dynasty, these mirrors were all in-out shape, but in Song Dynasty, there were more six-out shapes.

In Jin Dynasty imitation mirrors, no matter which dynasty they are imitating, if there are engraved characters and pictures inspected by the government, they can be easily identified.

Ming and Qing imitation mirrors have straight edges, clear edges and corners, and the buttons are quite different.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were mostly silver ingot buttons. The tops of the Ming and Qing buttons were flat and much larger than the imitation mirrors of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and inscriptions were mostly cast on the flat tops.

In addition to these differences, there are different additions.

When using the original mirror copy to imitate the mold making, the craftsman at that time added some decorations and inscriptions.

Generally speaking, although the added patterns and inscriptions are very random in content and form, there are no very clear rules.

However, judging from the added content of many imitation mirrors, the majority of them added inscriptions.

Most of these added inscriptions are the names of mirror-casting workshops, shops and craftsmen, and very few should be the names of users of bronze mirrors.

Judging from the location of the added inscriptions, there are roughly several different situations, depending on the decoration content of the original mirror.

The original mirror has only patterns and no inscriptions, and the added inscriptions are mostly in one or two places of the pattern, suppressing a part of the original pattern.

The inner area of ​​the original mirror is decorated with decorations and the outer area is inscriptions, and some of the added pictures and texts are placed inside the decorations.

The original mirror has no ornamentation but only inscriptions. If it is a single-circle mirror with inscriptions, the additional inscriptions will be added to the original inscription circle.

If it is inscriptions in the second circle, the additional inscriptions are generally added to the inscriptions in the outer circle.

According to rough statistics, the added inscriptions include: Gong, Chen, Sun, Da, Cao, Li, Lu, Zhao, Ma, etc.

Others include Qi Jia, Cao Pu, Kong Ji, Lu Zao, Ma Qing, Lu Jia Zao, Zhang Jia Zao, Li Taishan Zao, Li Pu Bronze, pretending to be Li Jing is really a pig and dog, Qi Jia's replacement of bronze, Xie Shaotang's replacement of bronze, etc. .

Some of these added contents are extremely obvious, while others are more subtle.

Originally, the mirror is a flat surface with a small area, which can be seen at a glance.

But sometimes due to the complex and blurred decoration, no deep attention was paid, and some important descriptions also made mistakes, and the imitation mirrors that were added later were designated as mirrors of the original era.

Since there are so many imitated bronze mirrors, and there are imitations in all ages, the identification of bronze mirrors is a very important issue.

To distinguish the authenticity of bronze mirrors, one should first fully understand the bronze mirrors of each era from the aspects of the nature, decoration, and content of the bronze mirrors.

The ancient bronze mirrors passed down to today are all unearthed cultural relics.

The so-called unearthed cultural relics do not refer to the exiled places in the war and chaos, but are generally the sacrificial objects in the tomb.

In ancient times, mercury was used in burials, so the bronze mirrors unearthed today must have been stained by mercury.

However, due to the quality of copper and the strength of mercury, its mercury color is also different.

There are silver ones and lead ones.The texture of the bronze mirror is crystal clear, and it was first stained with mercury. After a long time, the back of the mirror is full of mercury, and it is bright white through the ages. It is called silver back;

If it is first polluted by blood and water, and then invaded by mercury, its copper is complex, and its color is like lead, and the color stagnates over time, which is called lead back;

There is also a pile of half mercury and half green cinnabar, first rotted by flesh and blood, which turns green after half a day, and half clean, which is stained with mercury, so the back of a mirror is mixed with two colors.

(End of this chapter)