Chinese Antique Porcelain brush pot

[Stan]

Hi Peter, this is another item from dealer who said the man that brought them in inherited them from his grandfather, I guess he brought in a lot of stuff, there is about 10 more items that are similar to this but I think this was the 2nd to the nicest one he had. This is a small brush square brush pot, it is interesting that the drawings are of painters and they show cylinder type brush pots, I was told that the smaller brush pots a quite rare, I don't know if that is true or not, but I do think that this could be early republic, although I am not sure when this style of Qianlong mark was used it could be later, please let me know what you think about age and the mark, it is all hand painted and hand drawn, the brush pot is 16.5 cm tall, I will post 15 photo's to view, thanks for your help.

[Stan]

Here are more photo's to view.

[Stan]

More photo's to view.

[Stan]

Here are the last set of photo's to view, thanks.

[peterp]

Beautiful painting.
Republic period style, but I could not tell if it is original or a later copy. It could well be early, but there is again the problem with the zhuanshu type mark. Normally, this type of painting seemed to have evolved at about the same time the later qianjiang painting style was still being used. At this time some well-known artists specialized on a few subjects. This type is one of these. You will have to find out who originally painted this. Please understand that with this type of porcelain the original design is related to individual artists rather than to common designs used for large scale productions in kilns.
This is already out of my comfort zone, as this requires knowledge of later Chinese porcelain, and individual artists. With the latter I mean these paintings or painting styles were created and associated by individual porcelain painters. This is a general development that happened from the end of the Qing dynasty far into the 20th century. To research such porcelain paintings it would be necessary to study specific painters or groups like the "Eight Friends of Zhushan" (www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/eight-friends.html) etc., many being famous for their specializations. Their works were widely copied by others, sometimes mentioning this in the item, sometimes not. The originals were from an era when individual artist's fame started getting stronger, as they became more creative than the classical kilns.

[peterp]

As mentioned, many of those porcelain painters' works were copied, not necessarily as fakes, but in the old fashion that later painters copied the works of their teachers and other masters. It is just more like painting, where you have to know the master's works, rather than relying on age signs. Many of these artists used newer materials, including chemical pigments, so that does not help either. You need to find who the original painters were, to make sure if this could have been made by them. Unfortunately, this one is not signed, like many of the works of the master painters, so there is always a possibility that it is later. You could try Watersilkdragon, where there is more information on later Chinese works.

[Stan]

Thanks Peter.