Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries

I have an old Cinnabar plate which has a metal mark on the back side. I would like to know what it says.

It says 'Made during the Qianlong reign of the great Qing dynasty' (da qing qian long nian zhi). The Qianlong emperor ruled from 1736-1795, but before you start planning retirement on auction proceeds from the plate, you might want to have it professionally authenticated. But before you do that, you might wish to show some of the folks in this forum a picture or two of the piece for opinions on whether spending money on a pro is warranted, a course which the odds probably don't favor heavily.

Good luck,

Bill H.

It is most likely a Qianlong mark (1736 - 95)
But the strange thing here is that most part is in Zhuanshu script only one (the one on the right upper side )is in regular Kaishu
script.

Gr. Mart

it means "made in Qing Dynasty ,Qianlong"1711－1799 year

Hi Tim.

Your piece may be marked Qianlog, but it is actually a mid 19th C to early 20th C made for export example. I have a few similarly marked pieces.

Authentic period Qianlong marked pieces do not use metal plates. If they are marked, the marks are almost always scratched into a highly polished black lacquer base and filled with gold powder. Additionally, Imperial pieces were often marked with four additional characters describing the piece.

If you find any dealers listing one of these metal plate pieces as "period", they are either ignorant or lying.

Cheers

Doug

Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |