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Subject:yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Wed, Aug 12, 2015 IP: 45.37.132.219

These marks are on the bottom of a pair of lamps that i spotted cleaning a house. I took out the cord, hardware, and plastic base, to show these marks. Also revealed was the rim with a meander pattern all around. I really love these things! Just want to know more about them.

I've discovered via google image searching that the second character looks a lot like 慶, translating as celebrate or congratulations.

Any help with the rest would be great. Thank you.





Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: Bill H Thu, Aug 13, 2015

I can assure you that most serious collectors in the forum are anxious to know more about your lamps too. Please post complete pictures of them.

Thanking you in advance,

Bill H.

Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: Alex Thu, Aug 13, 2015

I believe the mark is the one in the attached link.
Here's an exceprt from Gotheborg on the mark

Mark: Yong Qing Chang Chun Cerebrating Forever Endless Spring. Dayazhai - Grand Elegant Court. Copy of porcelain made for the Empress Dowager Cixi, this bowl probably from the Guangxu period.
http://gotheborg.com/marks/20thcenturychina.shtml

URL Title :Mark on porcelain


Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Fri, Aug 14, 2015

Dayazhai it definitely is! Thank you. A whole new subset of chinese porcelain to explore.

Here are more pictures (terrible quality i know). Love the red meander patterned ring. Im convinced it's at least not a fake. The base shows some wear indicative of at least 50 years, though its hard to tell how long base of the lamp has been there. Could be a reproduction from the Republic period?





Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: Bill H Sun, Aug 16, 2015

The Dayazhai porcelains are said to have been related to Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday celebration in 1894. None of the examples shown in my best reference, the 1987 Weishaupt Collection catalog titled "From the Dragon's Treasure", have any borders like what is shown here. Through the haze in your image, the scepter-head design around the top rim appears to be sunken within a thick glaze. If this is not an optical illusion, then it is a characteristic of some late 20th century transfer-decorated wares from Macao and Hong Kong.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Tue, Aug 18, 2015

Here are much better photos.

They certainly look better than transfer designs. And the wear on the base indicates more than a few years i would think.








Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: Michael O Wed, Aug 19, 2015

Dayazhai would have been written in Chinese from right to left as in 齋雅大

Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Thu, Aug 20, 2015

Indeed it is on one vase. Apparently the mirrored style was popular sometime Aaron's the Republic.

Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Fri, Aug 21, 2015

Which is of course *around* the Republic.

Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: snap Sat, Aug 22, 2015

Mirrored inscriptions on pair of vases have never been "popular style" in China.

Inscriptions written left-to-right began middle 20th century in China, but not just as decoration in pair.

Your pieces would have been made late 20th century or later.



Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: ethan Tue, Dec 08, 2015

For the record and those interested in this style, these just sold for $1800 at auction: https://www.lelandlittle.com/auctions/74.3/184/

yeehaw!



Subject:Re: yellow brush pot-- 4 character mark in red
Posted By: Bill H Thu, Dec 10, 2015

With regard snap’s comments, above, Tony Allen illustrates a yellow Dayazhai jar in his latest book, "Allen's Antique Chinese Porcelain - The Detection of Fakes". Its Dayazhai mark is written from left to right in the Western style, which he cites as evidence that it was part of a symmetrical pair (the other having its mark written from right to left). Characteristics of the glaze suggested to him a date of manufacture in the 1930's or 40's.

A non-dynastic dating does not mean that such made-for-export Republic pieces will not sell well to Mainland China buyers who are intent on repatriating items that were denied them as bourgeois for half a century. However, the catalog "From the Dragon's Treasure", written by Gunhild Avitabile in 1987 for the Georg Weishaupt collection, calls Dayazhai wares "The most important porcelains in the collection...". Avitabile adds, "Two types of decoration are known: flowers and insects on a lemon-yellow ground; wisteria and birds on a turquoise ground." Thus your yellow-ground pattern with birds seems to have been recognized at that time as not original to those said to have been made for Cixi’s birthday in 1874.

The final Weishaupt catalog, "The Great Fortune", edited by Georg Weishaupt himself, appeared in 2002 and contained a section on Dayazhai with a commentary by Ronald W. Longsdorf, another noted collector and researcher of late Qing ceramics, including Dayazhai wares. Longsdorf updates and expands on Avitabile, noting that several services of Dayazhai porcelain were reordered during the Guangxu period, and new patterns derived from the old ones were introduced. In the Republic period, the innovation continued, and fakes, which had begun appearing toward the end of the Qing dynasty, began deteriorating in quality. As Longsdorf puts it: "The porcelain is less dense, the enamel colours and colour combinations more garish and less balanced..." and a loss of feeling in the painting. However, some of the imitations were better than others.

According to Longsdorf, pairs of vases produced during the Guangxu period had the Dayazhai mark to the left of the oval seal on one vase and to the right of it on the other. "However, in the Republic epoch, as it became more extreme, not only the position of the characters in relation to the seal mark is reversed, but their order as well...". In this context, he cites an illustration of a vase identical to the one of yours with Dayazhai to the right of the seal, which piece he calls "definitely Republic ware...". Longsdorf adds here that "The popularity of Dayazhai porcelain persisted and there are in fact pieces being made today [circa 2002] copying the original patterns."

Along with the few individuals who might have gotten a palace gift of Dayazhai porcelain, Longsdorf mentions a brisk trade that developed in these wares, some of which were looted by Western forces responding to the Boxer Rebellion in 1901 and other pieces which dealers bought from corrupt palace eunuchs in the waning days of Qing rule. The original patterns were recognized at the time as rare and valuable. This makes me think that hardly anyone would have made a lamp out of any of the patterns made during the late Qing period.

These scholarly observations do not necessarily mean that the auction house you cite below was out to deceive anyone, only that like other regional and smaller auctioneers, they probably lack the in-house resources to research their lots thoroughly or to go looking for the help of a forum like ours. But they can't be let off the hook entirely I suppose, because Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, almost next door to them, have some of the more knowledgeable dealers in Asian antiques in that part of the USA.

Best regards,

Bill H.


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