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Huge 3 piece jar

by Kathy Clark
(Hartselle, Alabama)

I just bought this piece at an auction and was wondering if it is Chinese. This piece is 22 inches tall overall. It is in 3 pieces. It has a different handpainted scene on each side and some are raised or textures.

Comments for Huge 3 piece jar

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Sep 05, 2010
 thanks Peter
by: Anonymous

Thank you again Peter. They didn't really say it was a recent piece, but I did and the were quoting my statement. I have no idea why they thought it was green. It is totally white with green painting on it.

Thank you so much for trying to help. This is a tough one.
Sep 02, 2010
 jar
by: peter

Kathy,
It did not occur to me at all that these might be Asian characters, because the Chinese characters were pictorialized to a degree that it could be any symbol, even Egyptian hieroglyphs.
But, as you mention that it indeed looks as if it were depicting Chinese characters.
However, I have some different view regard the character difference. Korean originally used a number of Chinese characteres mixed with the Hangul alphabet, but now is using Chinese characters mainly in names, only. The characters used were mostly written the same way as in China, as far as I know.
As to the upper round part of the Xing character, it shows the actual, older form, which would have been a circle with a point in the center, depicting the sun I believe. Either China, Japan or Korea could write the character like this. I don't think this is enough of evidence that it is from Korea. The round characters in the Hangul alphabet have no connection to this. It does not looke like Hangul.
The other question is why the upper character should mean "Tian" (=heaven)? This character would have two horizontal strokes in normal writing, and there would be a horizontal stroke at the very top. It could not have something protruding as this would make it look like the character "fu". The character "Da" (=big), which has only one horizontal stroke is much more likely, if it is Chinese.

Anyway, I assume they did agree with it that it is a recent piece?
I'm not sure what you mean with green glaze, it looks white to me in the pictures. Green glazes (celadon) would have been developed first in China, although it may be more prominent in contemporary Korean porcelain than in China. It is much greener, however.
Sep 02, 2010
 Tian Xing
by: Kathy

Peter this is the comment I got from the Asian forum.

"The mark on your piece of contemporary-looking porcelain might be read in Chinese Mandarin as 'Tian Xing' ('star' or 'heavenly body'), but I believe the item may be Korean. This is based on a nuance found in Korean script, which factor I believe may be responsible for the top of the 'xing' character being formed as a circle instead of a square as it is in China. That opaque green glaze also is associated with Korean ceramics I think."

However the green isn't glaze, it is hand painted color. What to do you think?

Thanks
kathy
Jul 30, 2010
 thanks Peter
by: Anonymous

I was wondering if anyone else out there in the forum has ever seen anything similiar to this vase. I can find nothing.

thank Peter for all you do.
Jul 28, 2010
 vase
by: peter

Hi Kathy,
Never seen such a vase. Although the painting content seems to hint to Asia, my first impression was that its shape and overall appearance is European.
The mark is a bit out of the ordinary too.
However, it is unlikely that this is Chinese.

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