golden ear

Chapter 136
"My collection here can be roughly divided into four parts, which are numbered and organized in ABCD. Category A is Gaogu, from the Neolithic Age to Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties; category B is blue and white porcelain, from Yuan blue and white to Ming and Qing blue and white porcelain, among which Yuan blue and white There are 27 pieces, and there are many blue and white porcelains in Ming Dynasty, mainly from Yongle and Xuande, all the way to Chenghua; Type C is Ming and Qing colored porcelain; Type D is Ming single-color glazed porcelain. All add up to only a few hundred pieces .”

"The collection of Tianmin Building focuses on the official kilns of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The official kilns of the Ming Dynasty were very bad after they arrived in Wanli. Many official kilns stopped firing or were fired by private kilns. There are basically none, and many things that say "Apocalypse year system" are very rough, so we stopped accepting them after we went to Wanli in the past."

Ge Lao enthusiastically introduced the collection and asked Wu Tianyuan to study it. He was also curious about the level of such a young master that Ye Lao talked about.
"Here are some official kilns from the Three Dynasties of the Qing Dynasty in my collection. There are blue and white porcelain and colored porcelain. You can always take a look."

Wu Tianyuan took out his own photos and communicated with Ge Lao. It is a rare opportunity to meet great collectors, which will greatly improve his own aesthetics in the future.

"This?"

Ge Lao was surprised: "Although you only have six pieces, each of them is the most representative official kiln! You have a good eye!"

Ge Lao looked at Wu Tianyuan with admiration. Collecting money is one aspect, but personal vision and aesthetics are more important.Looking at Wu Tianyuan's collection, one can know his own connotation and self-cultivation, and each piece is a heavy weapon among heavy weapons.

"The reason why we chose blue and white porcelain from the Yuan and Ming Dynasties was also because Hong Kong generally liked this kind of porcelain at that time. There were actually not many things in Tianminlou at that time. When we held the first exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1987, we only exhibited There are 163 pieces, some of which are borrowed from other collectors.”

Ge Lao said with a smile: "Now I buy more or less every year, and go to every auction, but basically I just check for omissions. I only buy but not sell, and my financial resources are limited. I can't compete with those who can easily pay hundreds of millions. Compared with rich people, we still lack a lot of things, such as some things that we didn’t realize were so important in this period, and now we are slowly supplementing them.”

"I have a collection of Ming Chenghua blue and white palace bowls with floral patterns inside and outside. There are patterns on the inside and outside. The last time I took a picture, it cost more than 1 million Hong Kong dollars. Of course, I bought this one early. It's not that expensive, but it's not cheap either. "

Ge Lao carefully took out a small bowl and put it on the table for Wu Tianyuan to study.

"This bowl is much finer than ordinary ones. Patterns like it are not uncommon, but many others are directly painted flat, and its leaves and flowers have a white edge. There are few things like this in the world. A piece, let alone as fine and complete as mine. This is recognized as the more important one here."

"There is also a Yongle blue-and-white sixteen-child bowl. Some people think that this piece may be the best among all blue-and-white porcelain. There was once an RB expert who had been making antiques for three generations. He said that blue-and-white porcelain can do this. never seen it."

"After all, painting figures and flower patterns are completely different things. This thing depicts sixteen children playing games. Using children as decorations has existed since the Song Dynasty, but most of them are one or two. There are sixteen children doing various It used to be said that games were only available after Xuande, but in fact Yongle had them, but they were rare, and this one was the earliest in Yongle.”

Wu Tianyuan took advantage of this rare opportunity to absorb as much energy as possible from the Ming Dynasty, and then communicated with Ge Lao, constantly learning from the great collector.

"It's not impossible for a good thing to suddenly appear in the auction market now, but we must consider what happened? For example, in the 1930s or earlier, it was exhibited in some important exhibitions, or it was published in a certain book. It has already been recorded, so no one has anything to say about it. Like our Sixteen Sons of Yongle, it has been written in several books."

"There is another situation. Although it has never been shown, its spread experience is relatively reliable. For example, some French ancestors participated in the Eight-Nation Allied Forces and went to the Forbidden City. You can believe what he brought out. Others are It's completely made up, and the story is vivid, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

"These stories must be carefully verified, and they must be believed if there is such a thing, even if it is recorded in the book. Now there are people who tamper with the book, so we must be very careful. If there is no such source, I think it is right The dating of cultural relics must be based on four aspects: [-]. Reliable literature records; [-]. Physical specimens unearthed from tombs with exact dates; [-]. Ancient ruins; [-]. Kiln sites. Even if only one or two of these four aspects are reliable , you can end up falling."

"The collectors in the past and the current collectors have a different mentality and starting point. People who have extra money and see what they like and buy it for themselves are called "players" in Hong Kong in the past. Those who buy and sell are called "experts."

"Experts and players are very different. Experts think about how much I can sell this thing after I buy it. Players think about what is fun and they like it. Now there is a kind of "speculators", they are more powerful than experts, They are all local tyrants, they used to speculate in stocks and real estate, and now they speculate in antiques.”

Ge Laochang sighed: "For collectors, there are only two possibilities for selling things: one is that the business fails and has to be sold. There are many such examples. The other is that the person you like is gone, and no one below takes over. If you want to separate, it is most convenient to sell these things for money. For real collectors, these things are chosen from thousands of people, and they are reluctant to part with any one.”

Zhai Jianmin said with a smile: "Many people ask me what is the secret of appraisal? I said that there is no secret to appraisal, just to look more, and to look carefully, to see it clearly."

"It's like getting to know a person. If you just look at photos, or listen to people's introductions, and describe them, it's useless! You have to get in touch with him directly, and everyone has a relationship. After a while, no matter how others pretend to be him, it's useless." If you don’t pretend, you’ll know it’s wrong when you look at it. This is the most important thing. In Hong Kong, there is a very good condition, that is, there are hundreds of things for you to see at the auction every year. Whether you buy it or not, you can get it Look, there is a chance to get started."

Ge Lao laughed and said: "Of course, many old gentlemen often come to Tianmin Building. For example, ceramic experts Mr. Geng Baochang and Mr. Feng Xianming have a good relationship with me. Mr. Geng is 12 years older than me, and he is 92 now, but he sees things basically. I don’t wear glasses, and I seldom use a magnifying glass to look at it. I just touch it with my hands, look at the shape, bottom feet, feel the edge of the mouth, and knock the sound. I can accurately tell the kiln mouth and age. I have never had this ability. learn."

"Mr. Chen Yujie, who passed away the year before last, is completely different. He and Mr. Qiu Yanzhi are brothers. He can read things very carefully. He can watch a thing for several hours, over and over again, and he has his own determination to see things. Tricky, don’t tell others, sometimes tell me, after listening to them, I will carefully record it, and then figure it out by myself.”

"Some friends from JDZ or other porcelain kilns will tell me some knowledge about porcelain making technology, which is also very helpful to me. So I often say that I often have people coming here, and teachers often come to my door."

Ge Lao looked at Wu Tianyuan and sighed: "Although you are young, you have a really good memory. After reading so many things, you can tell their origins and descriptions casually! This is the most powerful person I have ever met. See I have put in a lot of hard work in normal times!"

Wu Tianyuan was a little embarrassed, it really wasn't because he memorized it by rote, there was no way, it was all said by Porcelain himself!
"We see that treasures are mainly museums, but it's not easy. The Forbidden City has the most rules for taking things. The number of people is strictly limited, and the level is also stricter. There is a set of rules. Once, we went to more than ten people from Hong Kong, and they were cured. I watched things with me for a long time. After sitting for a long time, I took a Kangxi, a Yongzheng and a Qianlong, just three."

"At that time, Xu Zhantang became angry, saying that who doesn't have such a large pile of things and has to travel so far to look at it? He was so angry. Mr. Geng sat next to him, blushing so much that he couldn't save face, but he couldn't help it. Wait until the next day Let's go, he patted me on the shoulder and told me to wait for him at Donghuamen with my father the next day."

"When we went the next day, we saw a Yongle pressed hand cup, a Hongwu underglaze red plum bottle with a lid, and a Chenghua Doucai. Mr. Geng said, let us have a good time. Only then did we know, There are rules in the Forbidden City, if there are more than a certain number of people, the first-grade products cannot be taken out, there were too many people yesterday, and the director can't do anything about it."

This is a reminder from Wu Tianyuan, if there is a chance to deal with the Forbidden City in the future, it is best to have fewer people!
Zhai Jianmin added: "Handling is very important. You hold a lot, and you can feel it as soon as you get it in your hand. For example, Kangxi's things give you a particularly heavy feeling, because their structure is very tight and strong. .If you hold it lightly, it's suspicious."

Wu Tianyuan nodded and said: "The sound of porcelain is the same. If the temperature is high, the sound will be crisp and sharp; if the temperature is low, the sound will be lower. So Mr. Geng can judge it when he picks it up. It is probably because he has seen too much. You don't need to go into the details."

"I think this is much more advanced than looking at the details. It is not easy to do this. I have never learned this. Especially for some things in folk kilns, I rarely touch them, so when I look at folk kilns Dumbfounded, I can’t even tell the exact time.”

The three of them chatted until the evening, and they chatted happily after dinner. Mr. Ge admired Wu Tianyuan very much, and asked him to come here to sit and sit when he was free, and to visit the Tianyuan Museum next time.

(End of this chapter)