Large blue and white temple jars

[Stan]

Hi Peter, I have here a very large temple jar, I have a pair of them, I bought them from a lady that bought an estate in England and these came out of the estate, she said that the owner bought them in 1920 around in that period, the only thing that I do not like is all the rust spots, there are more than what I like to see, Im thinking these could be late Qing but could be early 20th century, they are porcelain and very heavily potted and stand 111.7 cm tall, please let me know what you think, I will post 8 photo's, thanks.

[Stan]

Here are the rest of the photo's to view, thanks again.

[peterp]

Hi Stan,

I'm afraid you might be right with what you suspect. Especially when looking at the last picture. That does not look quite natural to me. Did you note that despite the spots being plenty on the outside, there apparently are none on the inside.
The color of the bottom and underside of the lid is also odd. Did you try scrubbing the brown color off? Normally, porcelain does not get this color, especially not in areas that are not touched, like the inside of the lid.

[Stan]

Thanks for the reply Peter, this is how it looked when I bought it, I have not tried to clean the surface yet but it is dirty, I did wash the top of the lid, it had a layer of grease on top of both lids, I have seen that before on old pieces that were close to a kitchen or stove, the rust spots appear to be in the glaze, not the porcelain, how ever there are rust spots in the porcelain also, nothing like the glaze though, were they making vases like this in the early 20th century?

[peterp]

...making vases like this in the early 20th century

That is one of the other points I took into consideration, but did not mention. I know of no such jars made in the early 20th century, but in the last few decades they seem to have been making anything, any quality, new looking, or fake antique looking. Of course there are also those difficult to discern fakes. The shape is also a bit off the traditional temple jar shape - thinner and taller.

I wish you could see the jade market here (they also sell "antiques"). Apparently they had lots of genuine wares, before China closed the doors to antique exports, but now there are almost none. But the fakes or new items sometimes are of very good workmanship, better than the real antiques. It is an eye opener seeing this, each time I see this it reminds me what they do make and CAN make.

[Stan]

I agree, the shape is a bit unusual, I figured the reason for that is the size, if they had tried to keep to the traditional shape this would have added about 1/3 more weight, putting the vase at 150 pounds, I believe that was the reason for it being thinner and taller, the decoration is very good, if it is later, the dragon, the clouds, the waves and the flames are very traditional and the blue color looks good with the depth and bubbles in the glaze.
Examining the vase more closely, especially the rust spots, they were added, it looks like they put something, some kind of material in the porcelain before painting it and then firing it to give it the appearance of age, so then we are looking at something that is 2nd half of the 20th century and what the lady was told is not correct, thanks Peter, next time I will look closer at the inside for rust spots, when I bought them, I had my doubts of the age she gave, but I could not pass up the price I paid even if they are from the 60's, thanks again for all your expertise.

[Stan]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that on the bottom there is shatter and ring marks.

[peterp]

I noted that. There is lots of items out there now with both chatter marks and spiral rings. Many are vases brush pots or jars...I have doubts about their authenticity, but did not find yet proof that this is normal or abnormal. Basically, there should be no chatter marks after the 18th century, however.