In this fast advancing technology age, I feel I am compelled to write something on a subject that is of the utmost interest to many ceramic collectors. It is about the means by which we can tell if a Yuan and an early Ming Blue and White is real and genuine, and that it is not a fake. I’ll tell you how modern technology makes a major impact on this subject later on.
As a collector, regardless of your field of interest, you have to go through two main stages, in sequence, before you can be regarded as a true expert. Take for example, you are a collector of Blue and White ceramics of the Yuan and early Ming period. The first stage is to learn to recognize what is real and genuine. This is very difficult. Many a time, you need the help of friends who have the experience. You also need to have resources. Where can you find the real stuff? Museum pieces are not for you to study—to hold them in your hands and examine them with a magnifying glass carefully. The best way to do that is to own them, or, short of that, to have a wealthy and resourceful friend who would allow you to play around with his treasured collection. There, you can do whatever you want with all those pieces. Over time, over a very long period of time, you gradually learn to know the subject really well, provided that you have the good luck of having experienced collectors who are willing to guide you. You can now confidently say to yourself, whenever you see a Yongle Blue & White, for example, you know, with full confidence, that it is genuine and of the period.
Are you an expert? It all depends on the definition of an expert. This is the second stage that you meed to go through. And this is even more difficult than getting through the first stage; it is almost impossible.
I can tell you this: you might think that you are an expert, and in many instances, you really are. But, are you considered an expert by other professionals, other experts? I am afraid that the answer will not be in the affirmative. You are not.
The litmus test is this: Get one of the best pieces that you have, a piece that you have no doubt that is real, and show it to a professional appraiser in a big auction house. Ask him if the piece is right? If you are naive enough and think that the expert will agree with you, you will be terribly wrong. The default answer is always in the negative. No, this is a fake. On hearing this, your emotion is mixed. Your confidence is shattered. You are angry.
You have good reasons to be angry. You are sure that it is genuine. Every feature that an expert will look at is consistent with a genuine one. Your good friend, a collector who has much more experience than you have, agrees that the ware is genuine. Not only that, a ware in the Old Palace museum is almost identical with yours. We all know that potters in the old time, when they made a piece of a particular shape and pattern, most of the time, they would make many more. In most instances, when a piece is rare, it is because the other pieces did not survive. That is the only reason why they are rare.Your piece, you are sure, too, that, when a double blind test is done, that is to say, when your piece is placed in front of the professional, together with the museum piece, without the expert’s knowing which is which, he will not be able to differentiate. And yet, now, yours is a fake. How can you not be angry? Furthermore, you know very well that the double blind test is only wishful thinking, in practice, it is not going to happen. And you have no venue to fight back. How frustrating.
Unhappy circumstances like this are very common among collectors of every area of collection. It is happening everyday. I would go so far as to say that the expression ‘very common’ is a gross under statement—it is happening in the overwhelming majority of cases. Whatever you collect, in the eyes of those experts, it is always a fake. Why is that? You may want to ask. This, in fact, is a very complicated problem. But, I’ll try to explain the reasons to you, all the while, keeping the examples I use to Blue and White ceramics of the Yuan and early Ming periods.
The central problem facing evaluation is that it is not an art, nor is it a science. There is no such institute as The Institute for the Study of Evaluation of Ceramics, or Center for the Advanced Studies of Ceramic Evaluation. As such, experts in this field never have the chance to attend formal lectures on Evaluation of Ceramics. There is not even formal textbooks on the subject. Experts learn their trade in some very traditional way. It is through apprenticeship, or in some cases, they are simply self-taught.
We all know the drawbacks of apprenticeship. The apprentice is at the mercy of the master. Even if the master is good, he might not tell the pupil everything. If the master is not good, the pupil is very much on his own; he needs to figure out things by himself. That is why, we have always tied secrecy to the practice of apprenticeship. In this modern era, when a good piece of early Ming B & W is linked to big money, evaluation of these ceramics is even more secretive, and the practice of apprenticeship as a means of learning is, in these instances, far from ideal. If we are to look at things this way, it is easy to understand why experts have gaps in their knowledge. This gap of knowledge is present in every expert. The only difference is that, in some the gap is wide, whereas in others, it is smaller. And they all know it.
This gap of knowledge has its ramifications. One of these is the psychological impact, and it affects the experts’ confidence. True, these experts appear to be outwardly very confident, but deep in their heart, knowing what they don’t know, they are not very sure of themselves, and they are easily influenced by myths. And in ceramics, myths abound. I can just cite you a few examples. One of the reasons experts commonly employ to reject your very treasured piece is that it is a fake, it is a reproduction. They would go on to tell you that forgers are very skillful people, they can reproduce an item that is so similar to the real thing that it is difficult, almost impossible for any expert to tell. And yours is one of these. Over time, such excuse becomes a myth; over time, the myth becomes the truth, though we all know that in many instances, we are over-estimating the skill of the forgers. But the hard fact here is that right now truth and myth have sort of merged together, and it is difficult to tell which is which.
This brings us to the issue of provenance. Nowadays, it is important that a piece of art, a piece of B & W has to have provenance. If it is previously owned by some big-name collectors, it will be assumed that the piece is authentic and real. These collectors can do no wrong. Their collection would be taken as genuine. And our expert will bear no responsibly when they express the same opinion about that particular piece. But is this the correct attitude? I would say, if the appraiser is confident about himself, it should be the other way around. He should make his own call, and provenances are but supportive evidence of his call. Many a time, there should be no provenances needed.
Another widely believed myth concerns Ru wares. We are told that Ru wares are rare, and that there are fewer than 100 pieces in existence. Most of these are in museums, or in the hands of big-name collectors, so we are told. If by chance you get hold of a Ru ware from somewhere, experts would, occasionally, ask, in a mean tone, if you know that all Ru ware in existence have been accounted for. And the conversation stops right there. But a thinking head would know that that is pure nonsense.
Similar arguments are also used when we talk about Yongle Blue & Whites. We are told that of all the Yongle B & Ws, only three wares in existence are marked with the four characters—Yongle Nin Zhi. They are all small cups, and people call them cups that press against your palm. They are all in the Old Palace Museum of Peking. Any other cups that look exactly the same are products of very skilled forgers. Or, for that matter, any B & W that bears the mark is a fake. One of the reasons why the experts are so adamant about this is that they have never seen any other genuine Yongle B & W bearing such a mark. And that is all the proof they need to hold their opinion and position.
When people are taking up such a position, they do have a point. After all, Chinese ceramics are from China. It is only logical that the important wares are now all in China, except for some wares that belong to a number of important foreign collections. A good example would be the Percival David Collection. He acquired many items in his collection in China when he was physically there. Many other major collections tell the same story. Many experts in China have accesses to these collections and it is not too arrogant for them to make the claim that they have seen all that are worth seeing. When none of these collections has a single item of Yongle B & W that bears the mark, is that not proof enough?
In making an argument this way, unfortunately, there is a snag, a pitfall. Percival David may be a giant amongst collectors of Chinese Ceramics, but one thing most of us have overlooked is that there are many other lesser Percival Davids outside China, and though their collections may be much much smaller in scale, nevertheless, they can be extremely important. It is note-worthy that some of these collectors might have started collecting Chinese ceramics 400 years earlier than Percival David, in or around the mid 1500s. I say this for a good reason.
History about the first westerners in China is sketchy. There is no official record as to when China saw its first westerner. But history says that by 1557, Portugal had already had a permanent settlement in Macau. That means that by that year, there were already enough foreigners in China for the establishment of such a settlement. How far inland did these foreigners go, we do not know. Some must have. The point that I want to make is that westerners are often interested in the culture of a foreign land, and they tend to collect artifacts of that culture. When they go back home, they would bring their collection, however small it may be, with them. What kind of artifact did these foreigners find interesting? I would have to say that ceramics would probably be their first choice, which had already been popular in the west for decades prior to that. And we also have to remember that year 1557 is more than 100 years after the end of the reign of Xuande.
Many ceramic lovers believe that the B & W made in the Yongle and Xuande periods are the best that we have seen in the history of ceramics. The blue coloration of these wares, made from imported blue dye pigments, is pure joy to look at. Emperors Yongle and Xuande must have known that too. So, these B & Ws were often chosen as gifts to high officials of the land and to prominent dignitaries of foreign countries. To those who received these gifts, they knew these were treasures. However, after a long time, a hundred years or a lot longer, the descendants, who might not be prominent anymore due to changes in the political environment and their finances, would decide to sell these wares. They might not even realize the true value of these wares, and would sell them to anyone who was willing to pay a good price.
In the latter half of the Ming Dynasty, the country was very weak, and the people were poor. It is similarly true with the Qing Dynasty, except for the reign of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. For money, these commoners would sell anything that they had. By contrast, westerners who came to China were richer. They could easily afford to buy good ceramic wares and other beautiful artifacts. Sometimes, when they had the good luck to stumble upon some uniquely beautiful pieces, they would have them too. And the not-too-well-to-do people in China would gladly have the deal done. That is why, in the few hundred years that follow the establishment of a permanent settlement in Macau, a great number of beautiful ceramics would go with their new owners to Europe and, after Mayflower, to America. Many of these collectors were very small scale collectors, far smaller than Percival David. But together, they constituted a huge number, and their combined collection made Percival David’s minuscule and tiny. They also had the advantage of picking up the best pieces well ahead of Percival David.
This perhaps can account for the huge number of outstanding Yongle and Xuande B & W, among others, found in America today. Now, most of the owners of these wares are not Chinese, and they have no idea how beautiful some of these wares are, and they would part with them for any amount of money. Unfortunate, I would say. But it is fortunate for those Chinese collectors who come across them and know what they are. It is worthy of note that some of these uniquely beautiful pieces, when they were made, the potters must have made quite a number. But those that remained in China did not have the good luck to survive the hundreds of years of political turmoils, and they are now all gone. That is why, in America, perhaps in other places around the world, there are uniquely beautiful ceramic wares that experts in China have never seen, and would never dream of seeing.
Some of these pieces, had Percival David seen it, must have impressed him so much that he wanted to put them on a special pedestal. It is regrettable that many of these outstanding pieces are wandering in America, and the rest of the world, unrecognized. Even if a most beautiful piece is seen by an expert, for reasons that I have explained, it would be rejected summarily. Should things happen this way? No, it shouldn’t. But looking at the problem from another angle, I would say this is the only natural development of this whole thing, particularly when big money is involved. Nothing can reverse this natural development when the whole business still remains secretive, un-scientific and without any standard as to what is right and what is wrong.
I have given this problem a lot of thought, and I have come to the conclusion that setting up a standard in this modern technology age is the solution to this problem that has been bothering us for as long as we can remember. To make this standard valid, we must have some very specific features of the wares that we can document, and that the documentation has to be clear and easily understood by whoever is interested in the topic. The documentation has to be simple so that everyone can document his own wares. What is more, it needs to be easily accessible so that everyone interested in the topic can share, compare and discuss all that we have documented. Not all ceramics will fit into this tight criteria of a standard. In fact, the only ceramic that can fulfill the criteria is the Blue and White made in the late Yuan and the Yongle and Xuande periods.
There is just one reason why B & Ws of those period can fit into the criteria and that a valid standard can be established. It is the blue dye pigment potters used then. It is an imported dye that shows very specific features when the blue color of the motif is carefully examined under your eyes, and preferably, under a magnifying glass. We know the dye was imported, but we do not know where. Nor do we know the ingredients of the dye. All that we know is that there was no more import of the dye after the reign of Xuande, and potters had to use other blue dye pigments after that. But these dye pigments do not have the specific features of the dye they have replaced, and no potter has since able to get hold of a dye that has those specific features. This very fact makes the dye, what I call the Sumali Blue dye, singularly unique. Critics in the past understand all these, and they want to document these features so that every ceramic lover understands and recognizes them. But this is where difficulties arise, and they finally fail to accomplish what they want. Why?
In the old days, all documentations have to be done with writings and words. This is the only venue open to them. They have no way to supplement their writing with illustrations to show their point. They can only use words. But words have their limitations. When it comes to description of many of the specifics that the Sumali Blue has, words fall short of what is demanded of them, and they fail. They not only fail, but many a time, they create confusion. You will understand what I am trying to say when I show you photos of these features, and you will understand why people used to say that a photo is worth more than a thousand words. In short, the documentation of these very specific, and very peculiar features is only possible with photos and macro-photos. There, these features can be accurately and precisely recorded. And the reader, once he sees that, will know exactly what you mean.
The important issue here is that documentation with a camera is so easy in this digital age. A digital camera would allow you to take as many photos as you like, blow them up at will and do not cost much. You can capture the very varied features in just one ware with hundreds and hundreds of photos. This is something that cannot be done prior to this digital age. It is so simple that everybody can do it. What is more important is that these photos can be posted on the web, so that they are accessible to anyone, and would be shared, compared, and discussed among ceramic ware lovers. If a lot of people are taking part in it, the true face of these specific features will soon be revealed, and to identify a real and genuine B & W in the late Yuan and early Ming periods will be in accordance with these features, without provenances and experts playing a significant part.
Here, I will, in a series of articles, show you with a lot of photos of how these features would look like. You will note that though the Sumali Blue dye has many faces, they do have certain patterns to follow as regard to dripping and flare, plaques or what people used to call heap and pile or rusty iron mark, as translated directly from Chinese, and the bubbles. In broad terms, these are the specific features of the Sumali Blue that we should focus. They are all important, and we should always look at these features as a whole, even though in some Xuande B & W, the plaques are almost absent. In the event that a B & W has all these features, there should be no doubt that they belong to the Yuan or early Ming periods. In the absence of these typical features, whatever the mark may say, if there is a mark at all, you know that you are dealing with a fake. This is the reason why you should know exactly how these features, and their variations, may look like. This is the only way to master the evaluation with confidence the B & Ws of those periods.
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