Yancai Glazed Monkey Teapot

tipton444 · Mar 31, 2019, 01:13:41

Hello all,

I recently acquired this neat monkey teapot, and I'm trying to figure out if it is old or not. It has a nice sancai glaze, some light wear on the base, and it has the red wax seal present. Does having the wax seal automatically mean that the piece is not antique? I saw a similar sancai animal teapot asking a ton of money. Could it be from the early 1900's?

peterp · Mar 31, 2019, 08:34:27

Not very old, in my view. Perhaps a few decades. Seems to have been made using a mould.

The wax seal does only mean that an item can be exported. Sometimes an antique item that is of little value also can have it. Some wax seals are fake. I cannot see a character that shows the location. Do not know if this is normal.

tipton444 · Mar 31, 2019, 23:54:45

Thanks again for the info! Why would they be faking the red seals if the majority of them denote that the item is not antique? I know they can terribly misrepresent pieces and some antiques do slip through, but are the con artists trying to catch people that think an item might be 80 years old as opposed to 100?

How long have they been using this system of the wax seals? I guess if a piece got the seal in the 1950's and the item was from the 1880's and still not a 100 years old yet at the time, then today it would be a valuable antique with the seal on it. So in those cases there are still plenty of antiques with the wax seals on them. Is that correct?

Thanks a lot Peter

Stan · Apr 01, 2019, 04:49:53

This was made in a modern mould, you can see the seam on the bottom, wax seals are easy to fake all that you need is wax and a seal, I don't know if this is a fake or not not the reason for faking is to make it look older than it really is, or to make someone think that it is Authentic because it has a Chinese Seal but with moulds like these it could have been made anywhere.

tipton444 · Apr 05, 2019, 00:37:58

I've been finding quite a few of these old ewers and water droppers with very similar characteristics and thought I'd share. This duck was listed as biscuit glazed famille verte and the seller attributed it to 17th/18th century and probably Kangxi period, and it sold for $565 at auction. Notice how it has the same line through the bottom like a mould. This seller is pretty reputable, his ebay name is 77pudd if anyone is familiar, so I'm curious if they were using some kind of moulds back then or there was something in the process of making it that created a line through the middle like with mine? Thanks for the help Stan

Stan · Apr 05, 2019, 03:05:32

No Kangxi did not have moulds like these, these are from kits you can buy and make your own pottery, a long time ago a neighbor of mine used to fire her own items and paint them, there are literally Thousands of moulds to choose from, this was 30 years ago, so I'm sure that they have gotten better since then.

peterp · Apr 05, 2019, 07:58:43

Regarding wax seals and their relation to export, please see https://www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/buying-antique-porcelain.html
That were the rules some years ago, though. The wax seals say nothing about authenticity or age, they just are some sort of export permission. And the rules about export used by China seem to be too flexible. They could bend them in their favor anytime, it seems.

Any antiques of the 19th century with wax seals I have seen (without knowing whether the seal was original) were either very common, relative crude, or in a bad condition.
To me it is just the same as with the marks, labels or any Chinese authenticity certificates. They cannot be relied on.

tipton444 · Apr 05, 2019, 23:56:38

Thanks for the info Peter and Stan, definitely good to know. I am definitely learning the wax seals are not to be relied on.