Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1616: Foreigners Don’t Know What’s Good

"Hi, Mr. Zhou, we meet again." The owner of the antique shop was an old man in a suit and tie with a white beard. When he saw the "kid" who had come two days ago coming again, he hurriedly came up to greet him happily.

"Hi, Old John, aren't you busy in the back today?" Zhou Zhi also greeted him with a smile.

Zhou Zhi is also a country bumpkin. He felt hesitant when he first attended such an occasion a few days ago. Unexpectedly, the same tricks he used when he went house hunting in his hometown worked just as well. Now he has become familiar with Old John.

The first time Zhou Zhi went looking for something in this store, he was attracted by a pair of "table lamps" placed at the door. The upper part of the lamps was an ordinary cylindrical lampshade, and the lower part was a porcelain vase. The porcelain vase was 40 cm high and more than 20 cm in diameter. When Zhou Zhi saw it for the first time, he was so scared that he could hardly believe his eyes.

A Qing Dynasty famille rose vase with green ground, flowers and plants, dragon and phoenix ears. It opens at first glance and is a product of the Qianlong period.

The pair of vases, which are 40 centimeters high, are extremely rare among the Qianlong dynasty’s enamel porcelains.

So Zhou Zhi squatted down at the door and carefully studied the "bases" of the pair of table lamps.

This is a pair of Qing Dynasty pink-glazed green-ground floral and plant dragon and phoenix ear vases. The shape of the vessels is regular and full, steady yet agile. They are generally in the shape of a large celestial globe vase, but with a pair of gold handles at the mouth of the vase.

Both bottles are slightly tall, with smooth lines, presenting a graceful curvaceous beauty.

The bottom of the bottle is pink, which sets off the turquoise green of the bottle, creating a unique color contrast.

The entire bottle is covered with exquisite patterns, with green as the main color, matched with pink flowers and golden grass dragon patterns, full of vitality.

The gold-painting process on the edge of the bottle mouth is delicate and gorgeous. The golden lines outline an elegant outline, echoing the green and pink of the bottle body, making the entire bottle mouth more exquisite.

The handle of one bottle is a pair of dragons, and the handle of the other bottle is a pair of phoenixes. The two pairs of handles are decorated with coral glaze and gold, which are lifelike, exquisite and luxurious, and constitute a major feature of the pair of bottles. They complement the flower, grass and dragon patterns on the bottle body, showing a harmonious and unified beauty.

The body of the vessel is painted with winding flowers, grass and dragon patterns, which is a model of fine painting. Every petal and every leaf seems to be infused with vitality, vivid and rhythmic.

The golden dragon pattern weaves between the flowers, which not only serves as a decoration, but also implies auspiciousness and wealth. This finely crafted pattern not only shows the ancient people's exquisite skills in art, but also reflects their yearning and pursuit for a better life, which is full of nobility.

The inscription on the bottom is red, "Made in the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty", indicating that the vase was made in the middle of the Qianlong period, a peak of Chinese porcelain craftsmanship.

As a pair of antique art collections, this pair of bottles is definitely a treasure in porcelain craftsmanship. With excellent craftsmanship and unique design, every detail is full of charm and stories, allowing people to appreciate it while also feeling the wisdom and ingenuity of the ancients.

If this pair of bottles were placed in Hong Kong or China, they would definitely attract much attention and be sought after in the collectors' circle, becoming the treasures coveted by many antique lovers. But here, they have become ordinary goods piled up at the door of the store.

What Zhou Zhi regretted most was that the former owner of the pair of vases, in order to show his unique taste, transformed the pair of precious large vases into two bedside lamps. In order to facilitate the wiring, a small hole was opened at the bottom of the porcelain, and with the wooden base with the hole, the pair of vases, which were very precious ornaments in ancient times, became modern practical objects! Zhou Zhi was so heartbroken that he almost cried, because the two small holes directly killed two-thirds of the value of the porcelain. According to the normal international market price, the pair of large vases, which were worth a million US dollars, are now worth less than three hundred thousand US dollars.

When Old John was called over and asked the price, the other party offered two hundred dollars. Zhou Zhi was so angry that he immediately gave back thirty dollars.

The price of two hundred dollars showed that the boss was a fool, and Zhou Zhi was angry, so he retaliated.

After that, the two sides began to negotiate, and gradually the price was negotiated to a level that both parties could accept, which was one hundred and thirty US dollars.

When Zhou Zhi took out two hundred dollars, Old John started to play tricks again, saying that he had not yet opened the store and could not make change, and asked Zhou Zhi to choose another piece of porcelain to pay off the debt.

After some searching, Zhou Zhi actually picked out a lot of good things from a pile of antique porcelain, especially two pieces of Kangxi glaze colorful flower pots, which Zhou Zhi couldn't put down.

These are things that can be distinguished at a glance. Kangxi Five-Color Porcelain is a category that is very characteristic of the times, and its biggest feature is that "the people are superior to the officials."

Yinliuzhai's Porcelain Talk says: "Both hard-color and blue-and-white porcelain are at their peak in Kangxi." Taoya records: "Kangxi's color painting skills are exquisite, and the best figures in the official kilns are farming and weaving. The rest of the dragons, phoenixes, and lotus are all in accordance with the rules and standards, and must be respectfully stopped, or they are not as good as the strange ones of the guest kilns. The guest kilns mostly painted monsters and old trees, and they dared to use their brushes freely."

This means that Kangxi's multicolored porcelain, "guest goods", that is, folk kilns, have much more freedom in creative themes and techniques than official kilns. Therefore, they are far more outstanding than official kilns in terms of "strangeness", that is, satisfying customers' psychology.

The floral themes of the Kangxi Dynasty also have obvious characteristics of the times. The themes on this pair of flower baskets are also a feature of the Kangxi Dynasty. The way of painting peonies is particularly peculiar. People like to paint two horns on the flowers that resemble animals, so it is also called "horned peony" and "double-horn peony".

As a product of folk kilns, the patterns are not deliberate depictions of natural phenomena, but are passed down from generation to generation, refining and summarizing the characteristics of a certain thing, ultimately expressing the theme concisely and achieving a good decorative effect.

The technical characteristics of this pattern are also one of the important means of identifying the authenticity. In order to deliberately pursue "exactly the same" as the original, the imitations often have slow and hesitant brushstrokes, which are not as fluent as the authentic craftsmen who rely entirely on muscle memory to create them naturally. The difference between the two may not be visible to the layman, but to people like Zhou Zhi who are used to playing with calligraphy, this is the huge difference between "writing" and "tracing".

Of course, after finding a bunch of things and using them to offset the sixty dollars, Old John was going to lose money again. A new round of bargaining began again, and finally the two of them negotiated the sale of seven pieces of porcelain, large and small, to four hundred dollars.

After making sure that Old John could still deliver the goods, Zhou Zhi gave Old John another address of An Siyuan's and asked for the previous two hundred dollars back, as he would be shopping elsewhere and might need the money, so he wrote Old John another check and added twenty dollars for shipping.

Seeing Zhou Zhi was able to take out his checkbook, Old John's eyes lit up and he said to Zhou Zhi, "I still have a lot of bottles of this style in my warehouse. Tomorrow is my inventory time. George, if you are interested, I can take you there."

Zhou Zhi's heart was beating wildly, but he looked calm: "I'm just taking a look. I may not have time tomorrow. What time are you leaving? If it's too early, forget it."

"Not too early, not too early. If you're interested, I can wait for you. How about nine o'clock? Or... ten o'clock?"