Here you can find the Rob Michiels link. https://www.rm-auctions.com/nl/aziatische-kunst-feb-2020/16834-een-chinees-blauw-wit-bassin-met-figuren-in-een-landschap-wanli?q=wanli&c=

@ShangrilaAntique

Hi Freek, 

It was just my opinion. As I clearly stated this type of ware is not in the realm of my interest. It rests with republican period masters.

I have viewed your items for sale on numerous times and have always enjoyed your listings. 

Are you suggesting that the style, weathering, glaze and the way the figures are depicted on porcelain have nothing to do with whether an item is period or not? How do you determine if an item is genuine or a later attribute/other. 

Or are you suggesting that I am an idiot who has no understanding what's so ever do with Chinese antiques? 

For the record I never said your item was a fake. Just that I had some issues with..... Your inference not mine. 

Nobody is perfect. Mistakes can be made even by seasoned reputable auction houses/dealers. Especially when the subject matter is different or highly unusual. 

Mark 

@imperialfinegems Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply. Of course i am not suggesting you are an idiot. It is just that i am cautioning that the kind of statements you make can sound very plausible to someone that does not have a lot of expertise, while someone that does have that expertise is in the position to himself again question those remarks. So it is helpfull for those who already have some substantial level of knowlegde to point them to "weird" things. But those without that knowlegde take such remarks as very convincing.

What i meant is that weathering is a very dangerous way to determine porcelains age. Of course it can play a role in the whole thing but it is something that is notoriously hard to see on pictures and in itself does not prove anything. Glaze and painting style do play a role in determining age (for example with the book of Tommy Eklof on facial features which has taken years and years of collecting pictures and making assesments by lots of people. By my knowlegde no such study was ever made of the way rocks are painted and arms are painted. So in my opinion these kind of things have to be taken very carefully when using to determine if something is from a given period or not.

It is not tha i do not agree that arm is painted weirdly, but it is just that i would urge not to draw conclusion from such things. While it migth be true that the painter would probably have is arm cut of for such bad painting (just kidding) during the Kangxi period the Transitional period has it very own dynamics at play.

Best wishes from Amsterdam

Freek

For weird arms take a look at this

https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-large-blue-and-white-kraak-dish-6195836-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=6195836&sid=6ccce2ea-9909-4a51-a583-e39f7c4d3e6b

The arm on the christies example is weird but not totally unknown. But I have never ever seen two right arms and hands. Perhaps if you have I would love to see another.

Mark 

I do not see two right arms. I see somebody pointing behind him with a left arm. Although a bit awkwardly painted.

Oh well my pair of old trained eyes versus younger trained eye. Very subjective I guess. 

You do have some very nice items currently on offer. I do like the PROC pair of 1950-1960 vases. Reasonably well painted copy of Master He Xuren.

Mark 

Dear Freek,

It is good if you to come on here and defend your piece but I respectfully disagree with you and stick to my opinion.

It is not about commerce and I’m not one to give an opinion in order to gain favour.

Vic

Dear Freek,

I am appreciating seeing your replay in very civil manner, thank you.

First at all I would say that I feel very unease in discussing these things in detail, because we are on a public Forum, open to anyone. That is the reason why I generally am not going in detail while commenting.

Also, I may use not properly the word “fake”. I know many does distinction between ‘copy” and “fake”, but in my approach I call anyway a copy as fake, because in my mentality or something is different, or if it is copying then is a false thing.

Another point that I would like to premise, is that I never discuss the glaze (unless it is really evident that it is completely off) nor the type of blue (again, unless it is as said before) because these features are not surely judged by pictures. A picture can’t give back the texture of the glaze, nor the real tone of the blue, which changes dramatically if the picture is just a bit over or under exposed.

I mainly rely on the painting style, that must satisfy at first glance the analysis made by our eye, based on the experience accumulated, which we are sometime not even be in conditions to explain in detail.

Saying that, back to your piece. The pictures of Rob Michiel’ site are even more revealing to me. As a side note, they are proving what I said about the not reliability of the blue tone, which looks much better in those pictures.  

I don’t know if Mark was referring to the left arm of the kneeling figure. If yes, that is a correctly drawn left arm to me. If it were a right arm, the thumb should be before and not after the other fingers.

A first general comment. By saying that the decoration was overcrowded, I didn’t mean that it has too many elements. What I mean is that it has too many elements that has nothing to do each other.

I mean that a feature that often betray the faker is that he doesn’t have the right culture about the item; he is putting there whatever thing that he himself thinks that it is attracting. If there were more space available, I would expect that he could have drawn also a bat, for example. I am referring to some details, like that deer alone, etc.

If we look at the first picture attached, the red arrows there are showing the direction of the blue shades of the mountains. You can see that they are skewed, in a not natural way. They should “flow” from the mountains.

The whole back, base, foot, grits, decoration, as seen in the second picture, is not convincing to me.

And I agree that the rocks, the houses, the leaf border, are not drawn in the correct manner.

I believe that the details seen in the further pictures are so different from a Chinese “hand”, that, if somebody had shown them alone to me, in my ignorance about Japanese ware I would not exclude that they could belong from a Japanese piece.  

But I must also say that you have the piece in your hands and hence that you are in much better conditions to form an opinion.

Let me also add, in your defense, that I found that Christie’s plate horrible, and would probably think the same about it, if shown to me.

Regards,

Giovanni

Hi Freek, 

As with Giovanni, I was also interested to read your reply and thank you for it’s civil manner ...

A slight correction, a detailed study of the drawing and execution of faces, figure postures, mountains and rocks, trees and there differing leafs, and various plants used on such wares, primarily base on pieces from the Butler Family Collection and a few pieces from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, was presented at a lecture by Ni Yibin to the Oriental Ceramic Society, London on 5th November 2014 and subsequently printed in Voll 79, 2014-15 - images attached for reference ... 

An excellent lecture, which I was fortunate to attend ...

Before it was unfortunately divided between family members, I was incredible fortunate to view and handle the Butler Family Collection on several occasions ... 

You are quite right in stating that surface wear is, sometimes, rather difficult for images to capture, but any piece from this period should display some signs of age/wear, usually to the glaze surfaces, and I would argue that such, or the absence of, does indeed prove something ..?! 

Glaze tones, foot-rings and base finished all play a part in assessing, but it is painting style - stroke directions, how shadings are applied, motif combinations and overall compositions - that is the most critical factor ... 

As stated, such late pieces are not really my area, but due to several issues appertaining to the central and exterior decoration, as Giovanni clearly indicates, it would need to be seen/handled before any definitive conclusion reach ...

I would also agree, however, that you can hold the piece and are therefore in a rather more favourable position to asses such ... 

Stuart 

Dear all,

Thanks for the elaborate replies. First of all i want to say something about:

"My Uncle Jim said that you could steal more with a briefcase than you could with a gun, and fraud is rampant among,well, you know what I mean.

Vic"

I know that is a popular thing to portray antique dealers as white collar crooks and of course there might be some but i want to stress that i have nothing to win by selling fake pieces. It hurts my good name and i know Rob Michiels to be cut out of a similar kind of wood. That being said it might still be possible a fake slips in. But I do have a aversion against people that automatically assume we are all crooks.

I decide to make a movie of the piece. The pictures from Rob Michiels do not at all show the true colour. In fact they are horrible.

I think it is very important to note that we are here looking at an unusual piece, something that does not appear a lot. So a weird shape. The centre medaillion is rather small around 16cm in diameter and the persepective we are looking at is a lake shore with  mountains on the other side. There are figures on this side. Although the perspective might be odd it is not unusual for the period to load things upon each other. Neither is it unusual to paint lots and lots of small things on the boarder "to make it Appealing" to the west. I am adding pictures from the fantastic new book Jingdezhen to the World. That i would advice everyone to buy before it is out of print.

Below the link to the movie

Dear Freek,

Please tell us the history of the piece,where it came from,how long ago etc. 

Personally,I do not intend to comment on another piece regarding authenticity,doubts etc.

It really is a waste of energy.

Vic

Dear Freek,

Please tell us the history of the piece,where it came from,how long ago etc. 

Personally,I do not intend to comment on another piece regarding authenticity,doubts etc.

It really is a waste of energy.

Vic

Dear Vic,

Would you have cared to read my posts you would have seen that i posted a link to the auction of Rob Michiels were i bought in februari.

Best wishes from Amsterdam,

Freek

Dear All,

I did some more research and here are some interesting things 1st of all i accidently stumbled on a plate fromn our collection for the Japanese marker. Around 1620-1644  that happens to have more or less the exact same cobalt. Again hard to picture, but you can take my word for it.