Despite their astronomical collection values and all our tender love for them, there is one thing that yixing teaware maybe always regret: unlike most famous Chinese ceramic art, yixing teaware had never been formally recognized as a worthy ceramic of the Imperial court.

Since Song dynasty, the Imperial court had kilns – called “Guan Yao” – that produced porcelains exclusively for their own use. They had imperial institutions that oversaw the productions of those porcelains, and selected only the perfect ones to send to the royal court, and the rest were smashed. This tradition extended from Song dynasty to Yuan Shi-Kai of early R.O.C. Call it fortunately or unfortunately, being extremely popular among upper class and literati, Yi-Xing was never selected as a site to set up imperial kilns.

But there is no doubt that even the Emperor liked to use yixing teaware. The paiting on the top-right corner, portrait of the Qiang-Long Emperor in his own leisure time by a royal court painter, clearly depicted the teaware used to serve him. And you can easily see a little yixing standing on top of the serving cart. Not clear enough? Click here to see how the Emperor of Qing Dynasty like to prepare for his own tea party!

Although without a formal imperial kiln, yixing teaware were carefully selected from Yi-Xing, and sent to the imperial court. Usually they were first decorated by painters and calligraphers of the royal court with low-firing glazes. After second low-temperature firing, they were presented to the imperial court. The two pieces, now in Palace Museum in Taiwan, were of KangXi Emperor of Qing dynasty.

But there is not denying that, because of this unfortunate faith, yixing wares were able to be widely enjoyed from the plebeians to the Emperors. And because of this, yixings wares were never confined and could receive unparalleled flux of ingenuity from different social classes that lead to such a huge wealth of creations.

Most importantly, because the art and tradition of yixing teaware were never exclusively controlled by imperial kilns, they are able to survive and evolve through the very turbulent modern Chinese history. As for other pampered imperial ceramics, some of their genuine craftsmanship were just died with the fallen of the Empire.

Unfortunately? Fortunately?

Guang

Last weekend I was in such a mood that I wanted to show/share a zhu ni pot that has been one of my top collections. We all heard of the “shrinkage lines” on zhu ni teapots, in even earlier zhu ni they sometimes also show “muscle lines” or “lobed lines”. Shrinkage lines are on the surface, but muscle lines are more prominent/bulged, like the teapot is showing off its muscles!

Usually a zhu ni teapot with such a clay character and together with detailed inspection on the workmanship on spout, handle, proportion, etc, you can have very high confident that it is at least late Qing and, with more lucks, mid-Qing.

So, I picked up this one, used a microfiber cloth to gently wipe it clean. Just when I was totally absorbed in its beauty… the lid suddenly flew out of the cloth and next thing I knew was this:

Anyway, so it decided to forever stay with me, and there is nothing bad about it. I took close-up pictures of it so we can all see the amazing texture of it. And, hopefully, you have learned from my lesson.

Guang