Yellow pot

Pablo82 · Mar 17, 2018, 07:03:44

Hallo Peter and members,

I'd like to know your expert opinion on this chinese pot.
Diameter cm 21

Thank you in advance.
Pablo

Pablo82 · Mar 17, 2018, 07:05:48

More

peterp · Mar 17, 2018, 11:55:15

This is late Qing dynasty; perhaps Guangxu reign. This is one part of a stacked box with the lid. Usually there would be four or five tiers of such boxes with a lid on top. A handle may be attached to the lugs, or a string passed through them.

Pablo82 · Mar 17, 2018, 14:44:48

Thank you Peter!
Would you suggest to restore the lid?

peterp · Mar 17, 2018, 15:53:11

Maybe better not. That is not a complete item anyway, with the other boxes missing. BTW, there are collectors who are interested in items with antique repairs.

Pablo82 · Mar 17, 2018, 16:16:29

Thank you very much Peter!

Stan · Mar 22, 2018, 23:55:47

I would like to point out that the staples are modern, not old, the old staples were straight, the modern staples have this tapering to each side, this practice was done to deceive, with out a hands on inspection I would question the age just based the modern staples.

peterp · Mar 23, 2018, 07:55:50

It is not as simple as that, I'm afraid. There are at least three different shapes, the length/size of the staples is sometimes different according to the location. And, these repairs are still being made by a few craftsmen, both in mainland China and Taiwan. Older staple repairs may loosen and then new staples may have to be be refit. Some prefer this over removal and the use of modern glue, because of the ungainly holes visible afterwards.
Many staples are now machine made, but probably not those used for replacing staples in older reparis.
I would not think this repair would be used for age faking the current item. For one, the knob shows that it is at the best early 20th century, and as a stack box it is incomplete anyway.

Some examples of staple repairs, old and new:
tinyurl.com/y7ffhg6b
tinyurl.com/y9xu7omr

Stan · Mar 23, 2018, 14:00:24

I had no idea that people still use staples for repairs especially when there are so many better ways to repair porcelain these days, the glues are ten times better than they were a 100 years ago.

peterp · Mar 23, 2018, 15:21:15

That is getting in again. Apart from the fact that some collectors cherish the staples as a part of the history of an item, in China there is now a trend towards modern creations using staples, and they are costly.

Stan · Mar 23, 2018, 23:32:17

I am still a little skeptical of the age on this piece, the decoration with 4 bats on the top lid and 4 on the sides of the dish, 4 is not a good number as you have taught me in the past, it would either be 1, 2, 3, or sets of 5 bats, and the foot rim on the bottom in jpg 6899 shows a 3 section footing, Im probably wrong but do they make the stacked boxes with this type of footing?.
Also I have seen similar decorations with the yellow ground and scrolling vines coming out of China quite often, the gold is easy to rub off. there are just to many things on this for me, the staples were just one of them, but thank you Peter for the information on the staples, I will look at them differently now on.

Pablo82 · Mar 24, 2018, 07:05:21

Very interesting the analysis an the links.
Thank you very much.

peterp · Mar 24, 2018, 12:46:10

Stan, you don think the gilt is not rubbed off? Look at the character on the knob, the gilt inside the red lines is virtually gone, the holder lugs and others are also abraded.
Yes, this foot is normal. Basically there are two types of stacking boxes. With one all boxes are interchangeable, the other has a special base for the lowest one, as we see here. This means, here the boxes between the bottom box and lid are missing.
You are right about the number four, but it is not as bad as being impractical. The whole decoration is four quarters repeating the same decoration. If it were just bats painted separately, as a group, not incorporated in something else, I'm sure it would be five.It is not only because four is bad omen that there are usually five. It isbecause "five bats" in Chinese reads "wufu", and "wufu" is auspicious, a word play with other characters that also read "wufu. See tinyurl.com/y7wx4453
So you still can see four of them, depending on the decoration but not if they are painted alone, or if they are painted as a separate group flying somewhere.

peterp · Mar 24, 2018, 12:47:38

I would rather have a problem with the interior decoration. Not sure if that is of the same period. Usually there is nothing painted inside the boxes.

Stan · Mar 24, 2018, 13:06:34

Thanks Peter for the good explanation.