Characterization of the sole and foot of blue and white porcelain of Yuan Dynasty

Ancient ceramic appreciation is called “important”, meaning that the identification of porcelain authenticity and age, looking at the basis of objects is very important, the so-called enough to satisfy its weight (a metaphor for porcelain authenticity and age) also.”The porcelain does not look at the bottom, the generation has no reason” said the meaning is similar.Indeed, the base of porcelain conveys a lot of information about the manufacture of porcelain in different times (including raw material information, clay preparation information, molding information, billet shaping information, glazing information, kiln use information, firing information, kiln flame information, out of the kiln box information, Postmortem repair information… And so on), also transmitted porcelain time information, spread information (unearthed or handed down) and so on, porcelain base is also a fake production “soft rib”, can “shape like”, and “god like” extremely difficult.Therefore, it is important to observe the base of porcelain to identify the authenticity and age of porcelain.

The base of Yuan Qing Hua has all the common character of ancient porcelain, as well as its own personality.That is, the bottom characteristics of the Yuanqing flower itself is not uniform.Earlier years also hand over part of the domestic blue-and-white porcelain, time rush, and did not leave a particularly deep impression, but as the subsequent collection of images to see the real.Therefore, most of the observation and understanding of the base of the Yuanqing flower is also obtained from the image data, and also in the Yuan Dynasty in the soil layer to collect the porcelain plate with the bottom.The base of the Yuanqing porcelain mentioned below is enough to be the main type.The selected pictures and materials are all collected early in the museum collection at home and abroad, if there are clear records or excavated sites, if there is no initial files or clear unearthed sites in recent years, although the famous national museums are not selected to ensure the real reliability of the materials discussed.

The Foot Characteristics of the Yuanqing Porcelain:

The size of the circle: large circle for the class foot.Cans are also big circles.Small dish and big bowl for small circle foot.Bottle type moderate, with the bottle body to the appropriate proportion.Arrange the size of the loop according to the type: large plate, large pot, bottle, small plate and large bowl.The former circle more than the latter.

2. Dig deep: The big bottle and jade pot spring bottle are deep circle feet.Small and medium-sized bottles for shallow circle foot.Cans are all shallow circles.The market is also shallow circle foot.A small dish has deep circles of feet instead.

3. Width and Narrow of Full Wall: Large Bottle is Narrow Wall.Small and medium-sized bottles for wide-foot wall.Can type is wide short foot wall more.The disk is narrow wall.

4. The shape of the foot: the large bottle is flat loach back (the idea that “loach back” began in the Qing Dynasty seems to be wrong).Small and medium-sized bottles for the two-sided oblique (that is, “slope on both sides”), individual for one-sided oblique (that is, the external wall is inclined inward, the internal wall is straight wall).The tanks are all inclined on both sides, but the slope is very small.The small circle foot’s dish and the big bowl are the flat cut foot.

5、Fetal color: Because of the different degree of soil, cleaning and flint red, the “visibility” of fetal color also varies. Obviously, the color of earth, flint red, rust, mould and other attachments should not be regarded as “tire color”. The so-called fetal color should refer to the true color of the porcelain body. In some cases, the exposed part of the porcelain is covered by kiln red (flint red), and in others, the earth is full and not cleaned (or only slightly cleaned, the earth color is still there). In this case, it is meaningless to identify the “tire color” because there is no way to identify it. The ideal condition for identifying fetal color is to observe the breakage of the utensils (even small pinches). Secondly, there are no kiln red and no soil Qin, who are “the true face”, and there are not many Yuan Dynasty blue and white flowers in this state. Next is the more thorough bottom cleaning. Overseas collections of Yuan Dynasty blue and white are generally cleaned up thoroughly, and sometimes flint red is worn off to see the true color of the fetus (this practice must be proportionate); many domestic collectors do not do any cleaning, such as Gao’an collections, many have no way to observe the color of the fetus at all. There are four kinds of embryo color of Yuanqing blue and white: translucent white (the best kind of embryo color, moist feeling); gray white (the most common kind). Say it is gray, this refers to a slightly gray tone, different from the Song porcelain “gray-white fetus”; Beige white (often with inconspicuous purple spots); ginger (thin and slightly loose fetus).

6. Fetal quality: Most of them have used binary formula (porcelain stone + kaolin), which has the characteristics of modern porcelain.The fetal quality is firm and exquisite, the porosity is very low, basically does not absorb water, the knock sound is thick and loud.Part is blue and white porcelain and egg white porcelain.There are also some ceramic tyres are not dense enough, relatively soft, and may be related to the firing temperature.Many porcelain tires have rust spots on their surfaces.Rust spots are hard, hard to remove, and very dark, dark brown.But there are also people who don’t see the rusts.It shows that there are more impurities (mainly iron molecular substances) in the ground, but if the use of high iron content pad, there may also be rust spots in the foot.The main difference is to observe whether the rust spots are caused by exudation of the matrix or by external adhesion.If the latter, rust spots are generally distributed in the foot (that is, with the washer, pad contact), the outer bottom of the central zone is rare; if the former, the distribution is not regular, the outer center is often visible.There is also a good reference for identification, that large rust spots often show a silver surface, a mica-like luster.

7. Spinning: Most of the work has been done, and no spinner is seen.There are also a few reservations, mostly sparse-spaced spiral lines, there is no Ming and Qing Dynasty in the dense spiral.The starting point is like a comma, crisp, or with a baby.The direction of rotation is left-handed.

8. Kiln red: Most don’t see kiln red, but there are a few.Much thick orange red, do not see later generations just have “loquat yellow”.

9, sand bottom and glaze bottom: Most of the blue and white porcelain is sand bottom, that is, the bottom of the tire does not glaze, but also have glaze bottom, such as Hebei Museum collection Yuan Dynasty blue and white lion ball figure eight edge jade pot spring bottle is glaze bottom (see Figure 319).

Glaze spot: There is a part of the sand bottom of the blue-and-white porcelain bottom of the glaze spot.The glaze spot is more or less, the size is different, the shape is irregular, presents the blue and white glaze color generally.Why do you specially add these not beautiful glaze spots? After observation, I found that the distribution of these glaze spots has a certain regularity: that is, often distributed in the circle foot inner wall root and the outer bottom edge of the junction, the outer bottom center area.Isn’t this the place where cracks often occur? Because of the problems of tire mud (such as the degree of curing is not enough), molding problems (such as uneven drawing), drying environment of porcelain billet (check the relevant data, Yuan Dynasty has not yet “drying pool” this kind of thing), so raw billet in the drying process cracking phenomenon when more common, These glaze spots are used to fill the cracks in the porcelain billet.There are few round glaze spots, many of them irregular in shape, which can confirm my conjecture.In addition these glaze spots are very thick, can also explain this truth.Some modern Yuanhua imitations also follow the pattern of glaze spots, but because the counterfeiters did not know the intention of the Yuan people to add glaze spots on the bottom of the device, or to sprinkle at will, in the unlikely place to produce a crack, there is no reason to say.Or distributes neatly, has the decoration meaning, did not know the ancients is in the need place (namely has the crack place) just adds the glaze spot, does not have the decoration intention, which has such neat distribution?

Photo 313 Britain’s Great Vide Chinese Art Foundation, Tibet Yuan Qing Hua cloud dragon pattern elephant ear bottle bottom

Figure 314 Japan Toyo Ceramics Art Gallery, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua peony pattern plum vase, bottom

Fig.315 the bottom of the flower vase with peony grain in the Yuan Dynasty in Gaoan City

Figure 316, Hebei Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Blue and white sea water, dragon pattern, plum vase, bottom

Fig.317 the bottom of the plums of the Qing-Hua cloud and dragon pattern in the Yuan Dynasty in Gaoan City

Fig.318 The bottom of the octagonal pot with pine, bamboo and plum grain in the Yuan Dynasty.

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Figure 319, Hebei Museum, the bottom of the spring vase with eight-edged jade jug in the Yuan Dynasty.

Figure 320 Japan Toyo Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua lotus pond fish algae pattern tank bottom

Figure 321, Shanghai Museum, at the bottom of the Yuan Dynasty blue and white peony pot

Fig.322 bottom of the top cover jar of the blue and white cloud and dragon pattern in the Yuan Dynasty in Gaoan City

Photo 323 Japan Toyo Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Blue and white, Yunlong, peony pattern, double ears pot bottom

Figure 324, Hebei Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Blue and white glaze, red open-cut tin bottom

Figure 325, Japan Dongyang Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua chrysanthemum peony pattern plate, bottom

Figure 326, French Jimei Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua Kirin, peony pattern, rhombus bottom of large plate.

Photo 327 Japan Toyo Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Blue and White, treasure and flower pattern plate, bottom

Figure 329, Japan, Dongyang Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua peony pattern plate bottom

Figure 329, Japan, Dongyang Ceramics Art Museum, Yuan Dynasty, Qinghua peony pattern plate bottom

Fig.331 The bottom of the pot of the green flower banana leaf in the Yuan Dynasty in Gaoan City