Su Ma Li Qing: Yuan Ming blue and white porcelain collectors are so identified

Su Ma Li QinɡIt is also called Su Ni Ma Qing, Su Bo Ni Qing, Su Ni Bo Qing and so on.For short, “Su materials.”

The Yuan Qing Hua Xiao He month under the pursuit of Hanxin Tumei bottle

The Yuan Qing Hua Xiao He month under the pursuit of Hanxin Tumei bottle

A Basic Understanding of Green Material

It is very important to identify or identify the blue-and-white porcelain and blue-and-white materials in every period of history in China.According to the data, the first use of oxidized drill as colorant decoration, used to say that the earliest appeared in the Near East, but in fact, China’s Tang Dynasty has begun to use.China’s blue-and-white porcelain was first made in the Tang Dynasty and was found in Yangzhou in the mid-1970s.Cizhou kiln in the north of Song Dynasty also fired blue-and-white porcelain.In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Qinghua used home-made blue-and-white cobalt materials. In the early Yuan Dynasty, green-flower cobalt materials were still used in China. In the middle and late Yuan Dynasty, with the expansion of territory area and foreign trade, the Islamic population in the Yuan Dynasty increased continuously, and the needs of the Mongolian aristocracy themselves. The blue-green flower colored by the hemp has come into being.

Now the consensus among scholars at home and abroad is that in the middle and later period of Yuan Dynasty, the blue-and-white porcelain was used by Su Maleqing, Ming Yongle and Xuande, as well as Su Maleqing in the early period of Chenghua.In the later period of Chenghua, we mainly used Potang Green, also known as Equal Green, which was produced in present-day Leping County, Jiangxi Province.Elegance was the characteristic of blue-and-white porcelain in this period, which was quite different from Su Ma Li-qing in the early Ming Dynasty.Zhengde dynasty with equal green, pebbles green, back to the green, so Zhengde’s blue and white “mixed” phenomenon.

Zheng De Qing Hua Pan

In the green flowers of Zhengde Dynasty, except for the lighter varieties, the greyish ones with grays in the thick ones are probably pebbles.Stone green, also known as” stone green “.Produced in Ruizhou (now Jiangxi Shanggao), the mid-Ming Dynasty blue-and-white kiln porcelain multi-use this material description decoration.”Hui Qing” has appeared in the Zhengde Dynasty, according to “peek out of the sky” records: “Hui Qing, out of foreign countries”.The early years of Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli all used Hui Qing.

In the middle and late period of Wanli, Tianqi and Chongzhen used Zhejiang materials produced in Quzhou, Xinzhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua.Since then, Jingdezhen Qinghua completely domestic materials._ The official website of the central view and treasure identification

The Development of Green Material and the Origin of Su Ma Li-qing

After the inventory of cobalt blue-and-white porcelain, we can know that in the history of the development of blue-and-white porcelain, China has three times imported green materials from abroad, in addition to the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Yongle, Xuande period used in the Su Ma Lianqing, there is the Zhengde period’s recycling material, They each occupy a very important position in the development history of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.

For the “Su Ma Liqing” records, the earliest in the Wanli 17 years (1589) before Wang Shimao “see the sky outside the ride”: “Song Dynasty kiln, with Ruzhou as the first, and the Beijing master set his own official kiln next. I was set in Foliang County Jingdezhen, Yongle, Xuande between, Inner House burning made, so far is expensive. At that time to whip the eyes, sweet white for often, to Su Ma separate from the green decoration, with bright red as the treasure. “The book in Wanli 19 years (1591) Huang Yizheng” things green beads” is said: “Xuan Yao’s green, is the Su Bo mud green.”Here, “Su Ma Li” and “Su Bo Ni” are obvious foreign words, so it is imported green materials, this is no dispute.

The origin of the name “Su Ma Li Qing” comes from a variety of ways: one is said to be Sumatra’s Su Ni and Penang’s Bo Qing synthesis, but the “Su Ni” and “Bo Qing” is exactly what, who is not clear; the second is; the Persian translation of the term sulimane. Or the translation of the word samawi in Persian; that’s probably the closest explanation.The third, in the “Ming Shi Lu” record called “quick to come Buman”, Su Nu Ma, is also homophonic; There is also a view that Su Ma from Somalia brought back, so called “Somali Green”.

Generally speaking, Su Maleqing was brought back from his trip to the West Ocean by Zheng He.So far, after many years of research and research by experts in the field of ancient ceramics at home and abroad, I agree that “Su Nieboqing was imported from Southeast Asia for Zheng He’s voyage in the early Ming Dynasty”.So where is the exact origin of “Su Ma Li Qing” material? Over the years, the world of ancient ceramics at home and abroad has said that there is no one-size-fits-all.I’m afraid the first person to answer this question was Mr. Hobson of England. The man who introduced to the West the idiom of Chinese antiques, such as” orange peel “and” brown eyes, “has so far been hailed by Westerners as the classic book of the Bible on porcelain,” Ming Dynasty Porcelain “, and has proposed a place called” Balchastan, “which is the eastern part of ancient Persia and Pakistan An area at the junction of Keestan.But he did not provide a basis for those claims; “cobalt ore from the Middle East,” he says, was used by “China Ceramics,” or which country or region it was imported from; or it was said that the cobalt was produced in the village of Kamsha, in Iran’s Kasan Mountains, “he said. The villagers thought it was a man named Sulaiman who discovered the cobalt and named it after it.I think there is some truth to this statement.Because it is based on precious historical records, that is, the Persian potter Able, Kassem wrote in 1301 of the documentary paper, the paper made a very detailed description of the various metals under the glaze or glaze will produce the color, and so on, not only, There are also detailed records of where all kinds of raw materials come from.”Blue, as the craftsmen call it, is derived from the village of Kamsha, on a hill around the city of Kashan,” one of the translations said.

How to Know Su Maleqing

Of course, we do not need to spend more time and energy to study the origin of the Suma Leqing, more care is how to know Suma Leqing is the most important.

In the history of Jingdezhen, there were four periods, one was the late Yuan Dynasty, the other was the period of Hongwu, the third was the period of Ming Yongle and Zhengde, and the fourth was the period of Ming orthodoxy, Jingtai and Tianshun.Because of the different firing process and the different temperature and reducing atmosphere, there are obvious differences in the color state of Su Maleqing in each historical period.Among them, especially in the Ming Yongle and Xuande period of the blue-and-white porcelain is the largest and most representative.Yongxuan period is the peak of blue-and-white porcelain production, there are so-called “all the best, blue-and-white the most expensive” statement.

Minghong-wu blue and white flowers entwined branch chrysanthemum pattern pot

The history of Chinese ceramics (printed by China Silicate Society and Cultural Relics Publishing House in 2006) introduces that the rich color of green flowers is the main common feature of Yongle and Xuande period.The green material used in this period was” Su Ma Li Qing “, which had lower manganese content and higher iron content.Because contain manganese low, can reduce the purple in blue, red tone, in the proper temperature, can be fired like sapphire blue bright color.However, because of the high iron content, black spots often appear in the blue and white part.This naturally formed black spot, and the rich blue and blue, but also into a fun, is regarded as the impossibility of imitating the eternal, propagation of the blue and white porcelain “successful work.”

iron rust

The artistic effect of the typical Su Ma Li Qing produces, thick bright, faint, the material color melts in the glaze, as if deep in the embryo bone, especially in the thick color place appears the rust-like silver black crystal spot, has tin light color under certain light, and presents the triangle crystal, the hand caresses the glaze surface to be uneven, The decoration painted with this kind of blue material has the ink-and-wash flavor of Chinese painting.

The Colour of Yongxuan Su Majianqing

In Yongle and Xuande period, the color characteristics of Su Maleqing had three typical cases.The utility model relates to a color indigo, which is colorful, rich, clear and transparent, and has dark and thick crystal spots in the texture of the lines or in the agglomerate of the blue material, and is deep and deep in the fetal bones at the thick or concentrated place, and can feel uneven in the side view of the light or in the touch of the hand.The other kind of hair color blue in purple, and even obvious violet color, light place shows star-like spot fainting; concentrated place crystal spot spots into pieces, black blue color, contrast is very obvious, faint very serious.Dusk, refers to the liquid on paper to spread out or infiltrate the situation, that is, the saying “Yin.”Blue and white porcelain painting will also occur in the same situation.Scattering is one of the basic characteristics of Su Ma Li-qing, no matter which period of Su Ma-Li-Qing, more or less always with fainting, especially in Yongle period.

Ming Yongle Qinghua Salt Water River Yarn Tripod Furnace

Ming Yongle Qinghua Salt Water River Yarn Tripod Furnace

The third case of Su Ma Li Qing is also typical color, with the Forbidden City’s Ming Yongle blue-and-white sea water river cliff pattern tripod furnace is the most representative.Its main hair color characteristics are: blue hair color, crystal bright, as if set under the glaze sapphire, shining, and showing a clear violet color; condensing place has obvious dense black crystal patches, spots, faint serious situation.Scatter and crystal spot, is the hard green material caused by the crystal spot is actually the spot in the green material is a granular rust, this rust spot formed naturally under the glaze, that is, high iron caused by.Scatter and crystal spot, originally is a kind of burn-in defect, but after being rendered by the literati, form an aesthetic pursuit, is the beauty of deficiency.For hundreds of years, Yongxuan porcelain has been the crown prince of blue-and-white porcelain, with collections and researchers proud of its possession.

The above is the three colors of Su Ma Li Qing, is still a modern imitation can not copy.

Su mai-qing has rough, fine and uniform; the method of coloring is concentrated and light.Green material rough, with a thick material, the ink is muddy but solemn; blue material fine, with a thin material, it is light and elegant color, no crystal spot phenomenon.

Mingxuande blue-and-white croaker with algal striations

Mingxuande blue-and-white croaker with algal striations

The Influence of Su Ma Li Qing

The coloration of Su Majiqing is more complicated. If you look at the real objects of this period, you will find the difference.The above is to Su Maleqing some superficial understanding.In short, through the knowledge and research of Su Maleqing, we can know that the introduction of Su Maleqing has played a great role in promoting the development of blue-and-white porcelain in China.Su Ma Li-qing made the Yuan Qing flower, and Su Ma-Li made the blue-and-white porcelain of Yongle and Xuande the crown of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.