Message #1674

[Pat - 查尚杰]

I have quite a few bottles from the mid teens to the late thirties, and yes they were once easier to obtain, although that has changed significantly already and prices going up.  I am always told (and seems to hold true), that after the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, IPB production dropped to a trickle and did not really get back into gear until mid-50s.  I only have a couple of bottles dated between 1937 and 1955, say.  The Shandong faction got things going again about that time (Zhang Wentang and early students),but good glass was scarce and expensive in early post-revolution days, so many examples of bottles are in cheaper lower quality grade glass.  This period is characterized by glass that is less transparent, and more opaque, so they would give the bottle a brown/sepia hue to make the painting stand out more.  Another characteristic of the 50s/60s is that a lot of those bottles were signed with known painter names but were not necessarily copies of existing works.  Not sure why exactly they did that, but it was clear they were NOT ZLY, MSX, Ding Erzhong, Bi Rongjiu type material or subjects..