inscribed green bowl

[Rec]

Hi,
what is your opinion abouth these overglazed Chinese bowl. Bowl is round shaped and green color tone overall and inscribed. i can't capture the correct colors on the photo. maybe first photo has the most correct color.

[Stan]

Hi Rec, from these photo's, the unglazed bottom of the foot the porcelain looks very dense and the glaze is to shiny, it also looks like it could be printed, closeup photo's taken under natural light, like next to a window will improve your pictures, also a close up of the mark on the bottom, the pictures should be clear, not fussy, thanks.

[peterp]

This is a well-known type of modern Chinese bowl. Nothing conforms to antiques, it has a spurious Xuande mark and was probably printed or made with transfer.

[Rec]

Peter,
the surface of these bowl is crackled, there are tiny holes and bubbles; the surface is not smooth. The decoration inside of the bowl is in some area discolored (displayed for a very long time on period??), the mark shows bleeding problem. And the foot cut is nicely done.
Does these not aging signs?

[heavenguy]

Two options here:

1.- fake aging signs made to deceive people (but no traditional antique chinese design here)

2.- just simply a good new bowl done so horribly wrong that the kiln errors looks like age signs.

for me is the later but could be a combination of both...

[Rec]

Hi heavenguy
Its very difficult to understand why you so sure that these bowl could not be a genuine. what makes that the age signs couldn't be real in your opinion? Please share your knowledge with me. I'm trying to learn and these is the only reason why i questioning
Thanks a lot

[heavenguy]

Hi Rec,

I understand how you feel and I understand your questions. I consider myself as an amateur collector and picker. I also bought the guide from the website and a few books on the subject. I have seen tons and tons of images from reliable sources, and I have handle a few antiques myself but still I don't even know 1% of what it needs to be learned.

With Chinese porcelain antiques it's like a whole other world very different from European and even Asian antiques. If you want to get into this world you have to be patient and learn from your (expensive $$$) mistakes. Chinese antiques are more expensive this days, that the market its flooded with tons and tons of fakes that even experts get it wrong some times, and that's not even counting the vases that are there to honor old vases from past dynasties or simply new vases that are made to look old. (you are going to hear this story a lot, so get used to it.)

Just go to eBay and search for "chinese celadon antique calligraphy" and you will find similar bowls as yours with even better signs of aging and they are still fakes. They said that 99% of Chinese antiques on eBay are fakes and I agree with them.

But with Chinese antiques its like once you see a real one you have probably seen most or at least have the general sense on how they need to look and feel. from there you will start looking  at them differently. I was looking at a documentary on how they have a whole town in China where they make european paintings from famous European artists. There is an art gallery in town where the owner is the to go guy to purchase painting replicas. If he gets a new type of painting, the rest of the town starts making the same type of painting. They may vary a little bit in the type of strokes or size, or even techniques but at the end, they use the same type of materials, proportions and colors that for some reason they all look and feel the same. It's kind of like that with Chinese antiques. Only when you see and handle a few real ones its when you are going to start and see them differently and filter the fakes from the real ones. or at least not to purchase the real obvious fakes.

Sorry for the long text but here is my suggestion, look for reputable auction houses and look at the designs, the foot rims and the item in general. If there is a reputable antique house or gallery where they handle Chinese antiques, tell them if they can show it to you and try to handle the piece. Don't get discourage by this. In my opinion, your piece looks very very new. you can see how bright white the color of the foot rim is. The crackle effect is not an indication of age and simply the overall feel of the bowl just by looking at it doesn't seem right. when something looks very very new, don't buy them. although there is a lot of imperial wears that look very very new but the quality its just there, you know. You cannot deny quality when you see it.

I hope I helped a little and good luck to you.

[peterp]

Yes, I would opt for 2 too.

Not really a fake, it is too obvious that it is not antique.
Just the shape of the foot rim alone already tells us this is nothing traditional. The shape is wrong.

For those who depend too much on crackling as age signs. Natural and artificial ones, both are possible, although they look somewhat different.
With today's electric and gas-fired kilns they can just open the kiln door a bit early during the cooling phase to induce crackling.

[Rec]

Thank you both. I appreciate your input really much.