Ancient sword fighting show

During a recent tour to Henan in late March 2015, I visited a them park which was built following the details as depicted in the painting Along A River in Qinming painted during the Song dynasty.

There were many shows performed in the park, shows such as Cock Fighting, battle ships attacking the song capital, man spitting fire and ancient swordsmanship. Of all these shows, I found the ancient sword fighting show very interesting and exciting. You can see swordsmen fighting each other on horses, what you would see in ancient war where generals fighting each other.

Yue Fei was a famous general during the Song dynasty. He defended the dynasty by fighting off the invaders from the north. During that time, two of the Song emperors were captured by the enemies, he went all the way to rescue them. Unfortunately, he was called back by the new Song emperor who executed Yue Fei without any reason.

Here is the show that featured Yue Fei in his early days where he entered the fighting aerna where the winner could get a post in the army. Unfortunately his opponent was a prince, a relative of the emperor. He killed the prince and was about to be punish by the organizer, someone rescued him. Eventually he was taken in as a commander in the army and later became a general who won many wars with the invaders.

 

Just when he was about to fight into the enemies' capital to rescue the captured emperors, the new emperor of Song (the captured emperor's son) had to send 12 decrees to order him to retreat. When he finally returned to the capital, he was imprisoned and later executed (no reason was given for his execution). I believed he was executed as the new emperor was worried that if he did rescued the emperors, the young ruler would have to give up his throne.

If you want to know more abut Yei Fei, please visit this site:

         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Fei

Along a river in autumn

 Along a River in autumn ( 清明上河图) is a painting by a Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145). It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, from the Northern Song period.

The painting depicts various scenes that revealed the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city, and offer glimpses of period clothing and architecture.

The scroll is 25.5 centimetres (10.0 inches) in height and 5.25 meters (5.74 yards) long. In its length there are 814 humans, 28 boats, 60 animals, 30 buildings, 20 vehicles, 8 sedan chairs, and 170 trees. The countryside and the densely populated city are the two main sections in the picture, with the river meandering through the entire length.

One of the scene in the painting

Visit my other blog for a detailed description of the scenes depicted by the artist on the life of people that live during the Northern Song dynasty some one thousand years ago.

        http://alansyb232.blogspot.sg/
                                          

A tiger painting

I have a porcelain painting of a tiger besides a tree.

 

This painting was done by a famous artist in Jindezhen in the early days. His name is Pi YanMing and he is well known for painting tigers. I bought this painting in the early 90s when I spotted it in an antique shop in Chinatown. In those days, these paintings were not in collectors' radar. This was because mainstream artists' works were not that expensive. Art works by artists like Wu Guanchong, Fu Baosi, Fan Zen, Li Keran, etc were selling by couple of thousands. Today, these artists' works can fetch millions in auctions. Back then no body was interested to put his money to invest in porcelain paintings.
As people get more affluent, porcelain paintings also become collectors' items. These porcelain works often appear in auctions with some rare and excellent pieces fetching hundreds of millions in auctions.

Pot among pots

The other day when browsing for some Chinese crafts on display during this festive lunar new year season, I stumbled upon something special. There was this pot among many pots that were on display on an exhibition site. All the other pots looked very ordinary and most people could differentiate them as new fakes with big name like Gu Jingzhou crafted at the back. The colour on the pots looked like a layer of shoe shine being applied on them.

However, there was this pot stood out by itself among all the trash pots. Although its colour looked (a deep brownish hue) similar to others, there was a different kind of class that made it shone like no other pots. At once I realized that this must be an old pot (made from old zisha clay), made some fifty years ago. I checked with the trader who displayed all these ware on a make-shift tent. To my surprise, the price he quoted was not high. However I did not buy the pot immediately.

The trader was from China. He brought in a lot of Chinese crafts like vases, figurines and many other auspicious  objects people would buy during the new year season. He would displayed them on make-shift tent during this festive season as he reckoned business would be good. A lot of residents from this region would buy vases from him to celebrate the new year. Some would buy figurines of goats to usher in the new year. Others would be buying paintings and flowers. Yet there would be those who hang around looking for something special if not valuable to buy.Usually when the new year was around the corner, the trader would have to sell off his ware at a huge discount as he did not want to take them back to China.

Just before the lunar new year began, I visited the exhibition site again and the pot was still there. It seemed that no one recognized that it was indeed an old pot. So nobody bothered to ask the price. The trader found that no one liked the pot, he sold it to me at a discounted price.

 

I took the pot home, cleaned it up and soaked it in hot boiling water. The engraving on the pot revealed that it was probably made during the republic era. It was indeed a good pot as water came out smoothly from its spout without any spillage.

There was a saying in the collectors' circle, opportunity belongs to those who come prepared. This means if you know your stuff, you can pick up good things in the midst of thrash.

Chicken cup for drinking tea

The world most expensive tea cup, the Chenghua Toicai Chicken Cup, was auctioned last year in Hong Kong for a record 36 millions USD. Guess what, the owner of this cup used it to sip Chinese tea. Actually, the Ming Emperor, emperor of the Chenghua reign, made the cup for wine drinking. This cup is more common referred to as the chicken cup.

 

A rich businessman from China successfully bought this chicken cup during an auction in Hong Kong last April after paying a hefty 280 millions HKD for it. He was reported to have signed 24 times using his black gold credit card. When asked if he would use it to drink tea, he said it would disrespectful for him to do so as this cup was the emperor's favorite cup to drink wine.

Sipping tea with a 280 million HKD cup

 

However, not long after he owned the chicken cup, he was seen sipping tea from it. He broke his promise. So what is so special about the chicken cup?

It is one of 20 such cups remaining in the world. Most of them are in museums with only 3 in private collections. Emperor Chenghua (Ming dynasty) married his care taker (maid in the imperial court) who was 17 years his senior after he succeeded his father as emperor. He made her concubine (Concubine Wan) and loved her a lot. The emperor had a weak personality and most of the time he would seek advice from Concubine Wan on state affairs. As she loved simple things, especially porcelain ware with light glaze and simple décor. The emperor ordered the imperial kiln to make fine porcelains using light glaze and simple designs like chicken (mother hen with some chicks searching for grains on the ground). This chicken cups ad been used by the emperor to drink wine with concubine Wan. Incidentally palace records had shown down the chicken cups were worth hundred thousand qian (ancient Chinese currency) even during the Wanli reign (later part of the Ming dynasty). The chicken cups and other porcelains made during this era is collectively known as the famous Chenghua ware that worth hundreds of millions of dollars in auction markets.

Less than 20 of chicken cups in the world

 

The Chenghua ware was unique in a way. The thin chicken cups were made from very fine superb Kaoliang clay from Jingdezheng. It was difficult to make the chicken cups as most of them would either broke or distorted during the firing process. Hence there are so few of such cups in existence today. Moreover the type of clay used for the cup was already depleted during the Ming dynasty. No matter how good you are in faking the design, you are not going get this clay to make the cup. The wall of the cup is so thin that if you shine the torch light through it, you would seen fine yellowish hue (with a trace of pink) through it.

This is how the Chenghua ware was made. The potter would use blue and whit glaze to draw the outline of the drawing on the ware. It was then sent to the kiln to fire the ware at a high temperature of 1200 degrees. Then the potter would use different glaze to fill up the rest of the picture. The fully coloured ware was then fired again at a lower temperature of several hundreds degrees. Hence this type of ware is also called Toucai meaning glazes compete against each other, the outline which was underglazed and the picture which was overglazed.

 

Another set of  Chenghua cups depicting grapes

Chenghua jar

 

Red agate

My collection of red agate beads.

This type of agate is generally found in the mountainous region in Yunnan of China. The agate had been used by the imperial court in ancient China as a material for stone carvings. Over hundreds of years of mining, the resources of red agate has depleted significantly. This causes the price of this agate escalated steeply recently.

Intricate carvings jewelry items of red agate have become collectors' new darlings.

Amber beads

Amber is fossilized tree resin formed million of years ago. It has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects such as necklaces and beads for bracelets and pendants.

Valuable amber embedded in coal deposit in China

Translucent amber in yellowish hue

Insides trapped inside amber

My collection of amber beads.