Message #1677

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  Pat

Wow  !  That's  real  pure  gold  history. Never  heard that before  in such detail. Where  did you  get that from?

Zhang  Wen Tang  is   off  my  DB radar  screen  completely.  No record  whatsoever   ( unless  it's an alternativ  english spelling  :  check  your  copy  of   my    DB in case there's a  match somewhere)

Is that  because  he belongs to the  late  Middle  School ?

 I would be interested to    research this  period  in the  longer term , but  only out  of  academic  interest  , not to collect seriously

BTW:  there's a  comment  by Max  below  about the  need  to  FEEL   an  artefact . This  echoes  something  Ian Hardy once  wrote to  me   about  Zhou Leyuan bottles  :  he    said   he needs to  FEEL them  to know  if they are  real  or  not  (something  about the   quality / density  of the glass)

I reckon  I'm pretty much  au fair  with anything painted  post  2000, but   even so   I could  be fooled  by a  poor  quality  photo *  . And  anyway, anything painted  post  2000 can be  checked with the  artist  , so ... SO  WHAT  ?

*  One  modern  artist  I greatly  admire  is  Sun  Honglin who  suddenly  developed a  completely new  style  about  2  years  ago  which I am collecting  voraciously , as also  are   a    few other  top Chinese  collectors .  In     4.2010  I  visited  Sun Hong Lin's   home and  saw    a new series  in partly-painted   form, and agreed to   buy  3  of them   " as then  seen"  .  Cost was    US$2K  / bottle   "friendship  price"    approx   .     Sun Honglin's  parting words  were  " my style  is  unique - no-one can    copy it ".   And  I believed  him,  never  having ever   EVER  seen a  bottle  painted  like  his .  Imagine    therfore my  shock  when   10 minutes  later  I walked  in to  Wang Xisan's  Hengshui  Museun  shop  further  down the   street  and  there  in the   student  artist    section  was   a bottle  that  I would  have  sworn was painted  by Sun Honglin  if  the  signature  has  been  his . It  was  in fact painted  by a  student  artist  of  Wang Xisan  , copying  Sun Honglin, and I bought  for  only US$40  just to teach myself a  lesson  

Cheers  Peter

PS :  This Forum  is  really  turning up   some  amazing  interactions and  info.  We  may not  always   agree and  from  time to time  maybe  we  must  agree to   differ, but  MAN  !    do  we  learn  a lot   more  by  open interaction  !