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March 28, 2024, 03:34:55 am
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Masters' Pieces - or Fakes?

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Author Topic: Masters' Pieces - or Fakes?  (Read 1621 times)
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wgeoff
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« on: March 02, 2014, 08:09:42 pm »

Now I’ve got my collection together, I’ve found five bottles ‘signed’ by masters from the Middle Period.
I realize fakes are common, so I don’t hold out much hope – but, you never know. An expert opinion would be useful.

The first has already appeared here, a Ye Benqi signed Ye Zhongsan

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,1930.0.html

The second Ye Zhongsan I have may be original since I bought it at a Sotheby’s Auction in around 2000. I attended to buy a piece of porcelain but was easily outbid, so when this bottle came up later, I bought it on the rebound, just to take something away. It was quite cheap (a lot cheaper than the porcelain) and it made me happy



The next two are signed Zhou Leyuan.
I don’t have any expectations about the first one, which is better called ‘after the style of Zhou Leyuan’, but it is well painted and the calligraphy is good so I don’t mind



The second one is more difficult. A crystal bottle, I’m not sure if the painting standard is up to the Zhou Leyuan's I have seen in textbooks but at worst, it’s a good copy.



The final one is a puzzle – a large bottle, very dirty inside, signed Ma Shaoxuan. I can’t believe this is original – amongst other things, I found it on the Portobello Road in London while I was just browsing


« Last Edit: March 02, 2014, 08:11:14 pm by wgeoff » Report Spam   Logged

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Steven
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« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2014, 09:35:58 pm »

Dear Geoff,

Thank you for sharing!

The first bottle looks really good! it should be from Ye Zhongsan, not his sons, the bottle  was painted 1911 when his oldest son Ye Bengzhen had not started yet, so a wonderful piece from Ye the elder, the only concern about the bottle is the painting condition is not so well, some painting lost due to the usage.

Unfortunately, the two Zhou leyuan signed bottles are all modern copies, altho all very well done, first of all, bottles are wrong, the shape of the first bottle is definitely wrong for middle period, the second one shape could be right, but the thick wall is wrong for middle period inside painting bottle, beside that, the painting are all done by brush instead of bamboo sticks from the middle period.
I actually like both painting on the two bottles, even they are not right. I suspect the two bottles can be painted by same artists, did you buy them at same time or same store?

The last one I will call it fake, nothing is right.

Cheers!

Steven
« Last Edit: March 02, 2014, 09:38:08 pm by Steven » Report Spam   Logged

wgeoff
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« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2014, 09:49:42 pm »

Thanks Steven, very much as I suspected.

Can anything be done to preserve the condition of the first bottle? Why is the blue colour relatively unstable compared to the others?

Like you, I like the painting in the second and third bottles even as a good modern copy. They may both have come from the same shop I used to frequent in Wangfujing, Beijing, but not bought at the same time.

The final one will be quietly forgotten.

Geoff
« Last Edit: March 02, 2014, 10:27:48 pm by wgeoff » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2014, 10:21:20 pm »

Dear Geoff,

Nothing need to be done for the bottle, just leave it as it was, overall the fish are all in good condition,while the painting of  water plant like Anacharis is faded out, and barely can be seen. but you can do nothing about it. the condition it totally acceptable for the bottle, I was trying to say it would be ideal if the condition is better.Smiley

Steven
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wgeoff
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« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2014, 10:44:50 pm »

Thanks Steven, great to have an expert's opinion.

Geoff
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« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2014, 11:27:09 pm »

I love the Ye bottle Geoff !!

I always enjoy seeing your bottles... Thank you for sharing !
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« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2014, 11:54:32 pm »

Geoff

I like the first one (very much!) and agree it is an original.  In addition, the 3rd one is a nice copy I would keep in my own collection.  The fourth one is one of hundreds I have seen over the years (1997 - 2010 on/off in China), and faked to look old.

Thanks for sharing! 
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Pat
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« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2014, 03:12:07 am »

Dear Geoff,
I thought that the main limit of this board was in my opinion that it is not possible to insert images within the text, but you prove that that is not true. How have you been able to insert the pictures within the text? And how have you been able to post more than 10 pictures within one single post?
Thank you very much in advance.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2014, 04:11:49 am »

Dear Geoff,
I thought that the main limit of this board was in my opinion that it is not possible to insert images within the text, but you prove that that is not true. How have you been able to insert the pictures within the text? And how have you been able to post more than 10 pictures within one single post?
Thank you very much in advance.
Kind regards
Giovanni


You need to use an outside photo hosting service like Photobucket, or FlickR...

Then you can copy and paste the image codes into the same body as the text..  As many as you like..

The image codes will look like this..

Code:

[img]http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee408/bottlesandstone/language.jpg[/img]

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« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2014, 04:25:03 am »

Geoff,

I am pretty darn sure your bottle came from the Ann Kreuger collection..

This from the Autumn 1982 ICSBS journal, fig 134..

I am looking very closely and every little detail appears to be a match.. Unusual as most of Ye Zhongsan fish paintings were done just a bit earlier.. 1902-1905.. Yours is the only one I have been able to find so far that is a bit later ..

« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 04:32:02 am by Bottle Guy » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2014, 06:16:04 am »

Dear George,
I understand now. Thank you very much.
Giovanni
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wgeoff
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« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2014, 04:41:41 pm »

Thanks for all these responses, particularly George for finding some background to my Ye Zhongsan bottle.

As I mentioned, I bought this bottle at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong in around 2000 but I've since lost the auction catalog and didn't know the background. I'm sure you are right George, this is the same bottle as appears in your photograph. I may now be able to find some more about that bottle.

On the question of posting photographs, as I've mentioned before, my main hobby is birdwatching for which I do a lot of photography and post my photos on the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society website. I was lucky that they use the same website software as you do on this website, so I knew how to post photos here. I have a personal website which I rent cheaply from Yahoo Small Businesses to put my bird photos (and now snuff bottles), and I can then post them directly into this website.

I try to keep the photos that I post small, maximum width of 320 pixels or whatever they are, so you can display two photos alongside on a normal computer screen. They are also very low resolution so they do not take up much space and are very fast to download. I have a free piece of software which allows me to cut out part of any photo and then change the resolution. If anyone wants a full size and resolution copy of one of my photographs, please email or message me and I will send you by email.

Geoff
« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 04:49:57 pm by wgeoff » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #12 on: March 04, 2014, 02:13:51 am »

Dear Geoff,
which software do you use for cutting and resizing pictures?
I do it this way: first I cut the picture by means of Windows Paint, then I resize the it by means of a very simple free program, Resizer.
Resizer is excelelnt, because is extremely simple, fast, and allow me to resize all the pictures of a folder at once. But what take considerable time is the cutting of the pictures through Paint, because there I have to cut two sides, then rotate the image, cut the other two sizes, rotate again and save it. It would be nice to have a simple program that allows me to crop the complete image at once. I hate, really hate to use such enormous softwares like Photoshop for doing such very simple task.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2014, 02:35:18 am »

Hi Giovanni

I use IrfanView - a free download.

Open your jpg photo in IrfanView and set the image at screen size (View - Display Options - Fit images to desktop)
Draw a rectangle around the section you wish to crop using your mouse pointer with your finger held down
Choose Edit - Crop selection and it will crop this section and give you the cropped image at screen size.
Then File - Save as to save the cropped image.

Very simple.

You can save at different resolutions (I use 90% Quality on the scale given for photos I intend to post here) to reduce the image space, you can't notice the difference on the screen but the file size is very much reduced.
You can also resize any jpg.

The only problem I have (and only since trying to read Peter's database) is that IrfanView does not seem to be able to read files with Chinese text in the title. There is probably a way around this but I haven't really looked for it yet.

Geoff
 
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 03:13:48 am by wgeoff » Report Spam   Logged

Peter Bentley 彭达理
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« Reply #14 on: March 04, 2014, 05:09:24 am »

Hi  All

Geoff  is  correct  :  IrfanView  cannot  read    jpgs   with  Chinese  characters  in the   file  name  Sad

But  if  you  use  Windows  there's a free   program embedded  in   Windows  called  "  MSN  Picture  Manager"

This    does   everything   you  need  :  cropping ,  compression,  re-sizing  -  everything  except   writing  onto a  jpg  and  for that  I  use  " MSN  Paint "  - also free   with  Windows.

My  whole   DB  was   created  using   MSN  Picture  Manager

Hope that's  helpful

Cheers
Peter



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« Reply #15 on: March 04, 2014, 06:52:00 am »

Thank you dear Geoff and Peter. I will try it.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #16 on: March 05, 2014, 03:09:07 pm »

Dear Geoff,
    I agree with Steven, about your bottles, and with George that it is from the Guo'an Collection (Ann and the late Carl Kreuger, originally from Sweden, but in their later years from just across the French border from Geneva).
   Just keep bottles from before 1980 out of the sun. They are best if kept in padded brocade boxes and taken out for viewing. That is how I do it, anyway. Light, and especially sunlight will damage and fade the paint.
Best,
 Joey
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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

wgeoff
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« Reply #17 on: March 05, 2014, 10:56:00 pm »

Thanks Joey.

It appears from the photo supplied by George that the fading of the background on the Ye Zhongsan bottle had already happened when that photo was taken (1982 or before?). I will keep it on display, although not in direct sunlight.

Geoff
« Last Edit: March 05, 2014, 11:03:07 pm by wgeoff » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #18 on: March 05, 2014, 11:19:27 pm »

I have  to   disagree   with  Joey   as a  physicist  re the  effect  of  sunlight

Glass  absorbs   nearly  all the damaging  UV   paint- fading   light ( otherwise   why  don't  we  all get  sun burned  indoors , those  of  us  who  live  in the   tropics  ? ! )

So    if  bottles  are  kept  in a   glass- door   cabinet (as  I do )   without   direct     sunlight   they  are  guaranteed  free  of   99%  of   UV  radiation

And  it's  such a  pity  to   keep  our  precious bottles  in  boxes  like   caged   rabbits ....

The   display  cabinets  my   dear  wife  built  for me   when we  moved   home    easily   houses   300  bottles  and  at a   squeeze  would  house   500  bottles.  And the  cabinets , including  internal  lighting  cost  only  about  US$ 2,000  ...  less than  I pay  these  days  for one  good  bottle

Cheers
Peter


* s home display ( super- compressed).jpg (40.67 KB, 448x336 - viewed 20 times.)
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« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2014, 12:53:44 am »

Peter,

your posted picture reminded me of the time spent in your home admiring your fixtures and  your treasures ! Thank you again for the privilege !

Inn Bok
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