Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1305 Fei Guan’s lucky draw

Why is the coarse one more expensive than the fine one? Because the rough ones are the Ming Dynasty Zigang plates from the same period as Lu Zigang, and there may even be genuine Lu Zigang in them; while the two plates at the back are the famous "Qianlong Gong" from the Qing Dynasty.

According to legend, Lu Zigang came from a scholarly family in the late Ming Dynasty. Due to his family's decline or emotional frustration, he came to Hengshan, Suzhou alone to learn how to carve jade.

The area around Xinguo Yujia Village, Hengtang Town, Hengshan was a gathering place for jade carving and crystal glasses making. Lu Zigang set up his own business after his graduation. Later, in order to take over the work of the imperial supervisor who went to Suzhou Prefecture, he moved the workshop to Changmen Neihuang. The stone tower head at the south entrance of Zhuxiang is at the west entrance of Wuai Lane where Suzhou Weaving Bureau is located.

He quickly gained a reputation. According to the "Mudu Town Chronicles": "In addition to jade, his carvings include bamboo, wood, stone, and even inlays (jades and treasures), all involved, and all have achieved success."

The jade carvings are made from carefully selected materials, most of which are sapphire and some of which are white jade. The carver is known as the "Wuzhong Unique Skill". He is extremely good at raising convex patterns, hollowing out carvings, and carving negative lines. He is especially good at the technique of flat surface reduction, which can show an artistic effect similar to bas-relief.

The works imitate the Han Dynasty in many shapes and take the method from the Song Dynasty. They are quite ancient and have the artistic characteristics of empty, floating and detailed. The works are all stamped with seals, with Yang or Yin characters, and their names are "Zigang", "Zigang made" or "Lu Zigang made". This is true even if they are tributes to the emperor. Therefore, the jades made are known as Known as "Zigang Jade", people at the time compared it with Tang Bohu's paintings of ladies.

The Forbidden City has his representative works such as jade narcissus hairpin, sapphire teapot with baby playing patterns, sapphire square box with landscape and figure patterns, sapphire tablets and other items. Zhou Zhi also saw many of them with Mr. Wang.

By the Qing Dynasty, the jade craftsmen's family in Zhuanzhuxiang, Suzhou, with the most accomplished surnames such as Guo, Yao, and Gu, all enshrined them as the founders of their industry and worshiped them.

Various houses imitated Lu Zigang's works one after another, just like later imitation porcelain, and also left "Zigang" and other "sustenance money". By the time of Qianlong's reign, Zigang was no longer a personal name, but evolved into a brand, especially Refers to the works of a family of jade workers in Zhuanzhu Lane, Suzhou.

Zigang jade has almost become synonymous with "Su Gong".

In the 10th year of Xianfeng's reign, when the Taiping Army captured Suzhou City, Shantang Street and Zhuanzhu Lane were burned down by the war.

The people were displaced, and hundreds of thousands of people in Suzhou fled. Most of Suzhou's jade workers moved to Shanghai. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, a jade office was established in Shanghai. Shanghai began to become the main production area of ​​Su Gong's jade carvings in the late Qing Dynasty.

This is why there are so many jade carvings from the Ming and Qing dynasties collected by cultural relics stores in Shanghai.

The circulation of jade in the country is not yet banned. Those that circulate in an orderly manner can still be bought and sold in cultural relics stores. These jade articles were collected from the private sector in the early years. There are tens of thousands of pieces in this warehouse.

"This box was chosen for the exhibition held by the head office a year ago. I remember that Shudu Gongmei sent it to the exhibition this year..." Luo Qianhe introduced as he opened the box.

"Shu Capital sent the newly identified Qiong Kiln porcelain this year." Zhou Zhi said: "The inventory of Shu University's Gongmei Shopping Mall was re-inventory, and some of the carved white-glazed wares, flower-glazed wares, and celadon-glazed porcelain were selected. come out."

"The earliest batch of porcelain was regarded as porcelain from Xing Kiln, Wuchang Kiln and Ezhou Liangzihu Kiln." Zhou Zhi said: "But with the new progress of archaeological discoveries in recent years and the new development of modern scientific analysis technology, we It was found that the soil and glaze of these porcelains actually came from Shu, and the craftsmanship is of the same lineage as the porcelain kilns in Dayi." "Therefore, these porcelains have recently been re-identified as Dayi Qiongzhou kilns that began to develop in the Tang Dynasty. For porcelain, a white porcelain lotus leaf skimming plate collected by the Shu University Museum is used as the standard dating device."

"Since 1992, the History Department of Shu University and the Dayi Cultural Management Office have discovered two kiln sites of the Sui and Tang Dynasties at the transportation company site in the northern section of Donghaogou in the county. Shortly afterwards, another kiln site was discovered at the Grain Bureau Flour Mill outside the west gate of the county. It is located at the kiln site of Sui and Tang Dynasties."

“The artifacts unearthed at that time include a total of forty-nine pieces of white porcelain bowls, white porcelain cups, white underglaze green porcelain flat mouth bowls, etc., as well as seventeen complete pieces of celadon bowls, celadon goblets, celadon pourers, etc., as well as Countless broken vessels and pieces of porcelain.”

"This series of archaeological discoveries is consistent with the one excavated in the soil of Dongguanchang in Dayi by Mr. Yang Xiaogu, a cultural relics and archaeological expert in the 1950s and 1960s. The inscription is 'Tianbao of the Tang Dynasty, June 4, Tang'an County, Jinyuan County De The white porcelain hanging glaze kiln king statue with twenty-seven characters in Yongchang kiln in Xinli, as well as the fragments of milky-white stamped plates unearthed in Huaiyuan Town, Chongzhou, and the fragments of pink and white plain pottery unearthed in Pucun, Guanxian County, are all from the same circulation sequence. .”

"Mr. Yang Xiaogu found records about Yongchang kiln in the ancient notes, which coincided with the words on the statue of the kiln king. In the Tang Dynasty, Dayi established a county, which was originally named 'Jinyuan County', which is also consistent with the archaeological excavation results of Dongguanchang. Fit.”

"In the past two years, a new kiln site was discovered at the Dayi Park Dam construction site, and a large number of damaged ceramics from the Sui and Tang Dynasties were unearthed. Among them, there are more than 90 porcelain bowls, ear cups, goblets, amphora, tie jars, and hammers. There are many bowls and pottery covers, and many blue and white porcelain bowls recorded as 'Made in the Jiajing Year of the Ming Dynasty', small octagonal white porcelain bowls, blue and white colored bowls, etc. were unearthed in West Street, Jinyuan Town."

"So far, more than ten types of vessels, such as bowls, pots, cups, saucers, and bowls, have been sorted out from the entrance of the Qiongzhou kiln; various glaze colors have been found: white, green, beige, white-yellow, blue and white; the fetal bones are red The complete lineage from the Sui Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty proves that this kiln mouth, like other kiln mouths, has been passed down in an orderly manner."

“One of the most prominent features of this kiln entrance is its white glaze during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, which used white ash burned from ox bones, mixed with white clay, and used as cosmetic clay to brush around the utensils. After firing, the pottery with a white surface was fired. Hanging glaze makes the porcelain white or light blue-white or light yellow-white. The glaze is thick and the glaze is as white as jade. The characteristics are still very obvious."

"How do you know so clearly?" The Qiong Kiln porcelain sent by Gongmei to the exhibition this time caused a small sensation in the industry. In Fei Guan's words, it was "beating a dog with a meat bun" and was targeted by the National Expo. Things that have been lost can generally not be returned home.

However, the specific details of the discovery were not clear to Luo Qianhe, who was also in the system, but Zhou Zhi was able to explain it clearly, which surprised Luo Qianhe.

"Because I'm pretty good at appraising porcelain, and I'm also a Shu student. There are a lot of Qiong kiln porcelain in the Shu University Museum. All of them have archaeological records and clear dates. They are very good teaching materials." Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "So I I have far more opportunities to come into contact with them than others, and with my previous experience in appraising porcelain, I have participated in the appraisal of the batch of porcelain and fragments unearthed by Shu University and the Dayi Cultural Management Office in the past two years."

“I’ve seen a lot of fine porcelain, but I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. Later, as I deepened my research on Qiong kiln porcelain, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that fine porcelain was better. It had previously been identified as being from the Xing kiln of the Five Dynasties, the Wuchang kiln of the Song Dynasty, or even the Yue kiln. Porcelain is actually more like Qiongzhou kiln."

"So I went to find Manager Fei, rummaged through the Mingqian porcelain in the Gongmei warehouse, and found all the local porcelain from the Qiongzhou Kiln inside."

"It turns out that the batch of high-quality products that Shudu Gongmei presented to the exhibition all relied on my eyesight." Luo Qianhe praised: "I got a lot of luck from this!"

"Before the Ming Dynasty, there was no distinction between the government and the people," Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "The firing level of Qiongzhou kiln in the past dynasties was not very high. It was just a bone clay makeup clay that was somewhat unique. How come Brother Fei got the lottery?"

(End of this chapter)