Posted 5 years ago
Josephadamo
(1 item)
Just trying to get some info on the significance. Picked it up at a garage sale but the engraving is interesting
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You hold it up correctly in the second photo and not in the third. As I recently found out, I can't post Chinese characters on here (they'll be turned into "?"s), so I'll use Jisho as an in-between:
https://jisho.org/search/%E5%B9%B4%E5%AE%A3%E5%A4%A7%E8%A3%BD%E5%BE%B7%E6%98%8E
If you enter these six symbols into a search engine, you'll find other such items with the same text. Perhaps it'll help you further; otherwise, I can look into it more tommorow.
Thank you, I appreciate your involvement in it's authenticity.
Alright, what I've found is this: This item is most likely from the 20th Century. It could be older, but the chances are much lower for that and I don't have the knowledge to tell either way.
The mark is the Xuande mark. It is read up-and-down right-to-left, though for the purposes of a translation left-to-right is easier. Consider each top and bottom symbol a set, then it goes [year-made] [Xuande] [Daming]; "Made in the years of the Xuande emperor of the Great Ming dynasty".
The Xuande emperor has a Wikipedia article, but in short, he was the fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty and lived in the 15th Century. His reign was peaceful and as an artist himself he protected and promoted the arts well, hence why the Xuande mark, originally meant to indicate art objects made under his rule, is associated with some of the finest Chinese antiques. Of course, as the centuries passed, forgeries were made using the mark either to deceive or to add prestige to an object that ought to have been good enough on its own. Those forgeries, of course, are now antique too. Then in the early 20th Century a huge influx of the mark being used came about, as far as I can tell less to deceive (or the influx wouldn't have stayed) and more because "that's how you do it". I think it might be similar to "engeltjestin" ("angel's tin") in the Netherlands, which refers to tin objects with an angel mark that used to signify quality, then stopped doing that (much like with the Xuande mark, the demands brought about by export play a role), and nobody actually reads the angel mark as being from the guild era or guaranteeing a specific alloy anymore. It's just something that sometimes is present on a tin object, with a vague understanding there's a story behind the mark.
Again, I cannot tell where in the history of the Xuande mark your piece fits. The second mark is interesting, but seems unreadable and doesn't have to signify anything. You were correct to let the mark catch your attention and it is something to keep an eye on. There are also more complex Xuande marks that, for instance, specify the year. Those have a very good chance of being old.