guangxu period vase

[williamh]

Hello, I don't know what to look for to find if this vase is a old or new. I'm hoping someone can help. Thxs

[williamh]

mmm

[peterp]

This is a qianjiang style decoration. The cyclical year given is 1936. Might about be right considering shape and decoration.

[williamh]

Hi peter, a member or another forum told me the date was Bing Zi and this could be 1876 as well as 1936. He told me it was more likely 1876 rather than 1936. Can you confirm this vase is authentic? I'm asking you this favour because I value your opinion a lot. Thanks

[DavidC]

Faces of the figures look more like 1930's to me. Shading around trees and decoration look also like republic. Its too precise. I would wait for Peter's confirmation though. He really has seen tons of this stuff. Best wishes. D

[peterp]

The colors used in Qianjiang's early period (up to the 1880s at least) were generally light, especially the faces, and those remaining today are often very faint. The faint colors were due to different painting materials used in the earlier times, which did not display well on porcelain.
The painter given is Wang zhao-mu, who indeed painted from mid-Guangxu to early republic, according to some booklet. He would not have been around in the 1936s.

But there is another problem I have. The way the hut is painted. I have been trying to pinpoint the time for such a painting style of huts, but have been unable to find it. I doubt it is from the early Qianjiang period, because there are very few items remaining. Qianjiang took really off in the Tongzhi and Guangxu reigns. The vase shape is unusual to say the least, talking of the neck and side decoration.

There is a small character right before the name of the painter which is illegible as it is written badly, but I suspect it is the character ?, which means 'copy, imitation'. This would fit the overall picture of a decoration done in the early republic, a time in which early Qianjiang was not in use anymore, and an item condition which would be too good for one made sixty years earlier.
It most likely means "copy of Wang Zhao-mu", that is the painter tells the reader that it was made after or in style of Wang's work. Copying of earlier masters was frequent, especially with those wares, and they often mentioned that in the text.

So, if it should be 60 years earlier, it could really be Wang's work, but the circumstantial evidence seems to tell us that it is later. You need to do some research work, if you want to prove otherwise.  :-)