As you may already know if you have been following me over the years, I have a passion for archeology and ancient antiques. Today I went to a small market area here in Taiwan and found a person selling antiques from China. Often antiques are snuck out of China and sold in other countries which value them more. I found something uniquely odd, rare and breathtaking…two small blue-green vases.
At first I admired them for a few seconds, thought naw…couldn’t be. Then I noticed the cracking effects, the size was right…they even had numerous flaws…I thought no…I saw such things in the Taipei museum, so…couldn’t possible be real. But then I looked at the bottom…and saw the sesame seed marks from the ancient kilms of Song Ru. Most of the surviving pieces of Song Ru are small, blue/green often with a crackling ice effect (not from aging). Song Ru kilms made special pieces most often used for the Chinese Royalty, but also lesser pieces made it to the masses. Song Ru began in the year 900 until about 1200. Some have sold for hundreds of dollars, others have sold for tens of millions.
Anyways, I purchased two small vases for less than it costs to fill up my car tank with gas at $60 US for the pair.
One vase measures 11.5cm by 7.5cm, has three sesame seed marks (metal prongs from Song Ru kilm) Its greenish blue is like that of a duck egg and its surface is flawed, aged, with a few tiny holes from the glaze in the kilm. Also I noticed the outside surface has a crystallization…which only comes from minerals in water…which tells me this was buried underground and may have come from an old grave a thousand years ago, but excavated no long ago. Its surface is a little rough, not smooth, but a little bit bumpy.
The second vase is more beautiful and measures 10cm tall by 8cm wide. This vase doesnt show any signs of crystallization, and looks well cared for, but has a few glaze bubble marks. Its surface is of higher quality…meaning it has the rare and highly desired crackled ice glaze effect which was made on purpose…and is not from aging. The bottom of the vase has 5 sesame seed marks from the Song Ru kilm holder…metal pins which held the vases while cooking. But best of all this one has a label that I have only seen on Song Ru in the Taipei National Museum…which says Northern Song Dynasty…which means they moved to kilms North in 1,100-1,200 year because of war. The label on mine is more correct for the period and age than most I seen on the internet…replicas do exist, however I do not believe these to to be fake, I believe they have a high probability of being real.
So…that was my day today, then had some tea with the family at a restaurant and went home, because it was 93F degrees outside.
Fake pieces are often flawless, made to be more eye appealing, more salable and more beautiful. The clay or pottery clay or ceramic is more pure, where Song Ru will have uneven thicknesses from side to side and when broken, air bubbles and impurities can be seen from the ancient methods used to crate the clay and materials. Fakes will not have these things.
There are ways to test the mineral content to see if it matches other Song Ru pieces…I may have that done later which is done in the UK. But for now…Just happy to look at them on my shelf. 😃
Scott C. Waring – Taiwan
