Chinese Damaged Ceramics

But many pieces are broken when they are found.

Chinese damaged ceramics.

The history of kintsugi. This is an old trick that dealers and collectors use to find damage hiding in plain sight don t overlook chips on the base of porcelain pieces though. A guide to buying chinese ceramics by leila de vos european head of chinese works of art at christie s. You can feel for chips in porcelain in the same way that you run your finger along the glass to look for sharp edges.

Chinese porcelain broken and damaged frequently people will come across a piece of chinese or japanese porcelain that s been tucked away and forgotten or found while in the process of settling a family member s estate. The first pottery was made during the palaeolithic era. There are a number of things to look for when starting to collect chinese ceramics. They may even find numerous pieces around a house along with the usual bric a brac and inevitably some is damaged.

Large numbers of chinese ceramics are offered around the world at reputable auction houses which unlike museums allow potential buyers to handle them so make the most of. Rim chips on porcelain pieces are usually the easiest to notice. With a long history china boasts a rich trove of ancient porcelain. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles to hand built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns to the sophisticated chinese porcelain wares made for.

There is no quicker way to learn than to handle as many pieces as possible. Kintsugi or kintsukori dates back to the 15th century when according to legend shogun ashikaga yoshimasa broke his favorite chawan a chinese ceramic tea bowl and sent it back to china for repair it was returned and fixed but bound by ugly metal staples. Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of chinese art and ceramics globally. This inspired him to find an elegant way to amend the ceramic and as a result kintsugi was born.

Chinese potters have copied chinese ceramics for hundreds of years both out of reverence for an earlier period and to fool buyers so beware. The buying trends of collectors for chinese ceramics have noticeably changed over the last fifteen years.