How to tell the true teapot from the false teapot?

Identification of ordinary commodity teapot

The general commodity purple sand pottery I refer to refers to the commodity purple sand pottery quoted in 200 yuan within RMB (origin price, RMB, the same below).

People buy purple clay pottery, usually purple clay teapots. The most concerned thing is whether the teapot can really rot overnight. Is it really purple sand? Second, what is the quality of the teapot?

Zisha teapot has both practical value and artistic value since it came out. Today, under the impact of commodity tide, a large number of commercial purple sand products have appeared. As a handicraft, its output and technology must not be counted. For ordinary commodity pots, we can only give priority to application, and then consider plastic arts. As for the fine work, 1000 yuan or more is the best, including other handicrafts. It is out of the question. The first question is really ridiculous for pot makers, because they care about how fine the workmanship is, and the more realistic the workmanship is, the more expensive it is, while the clay is the same as the workmanship, because the price of the clay is very different. It is hard to imagine that a pot with poor workmanship can use five or six yuan a kilogram of good mud. In order to meet his technological requirements, the pot maker will not use unrefined five or six cents a kilogram of nail mud. But for consumers who are completely amateurs, they are most concerned about two basic entry problems: mud and workmanship.

Let's talk about mud first.

First of all, I want to make it clear that purple mud is not necessarily purple. Milky white is called "mass mud"; Dark green is called "green mud"; Of course, there are purple ones called "purple mud"; There is also a kind of vermilion mud, which has poor performance and air permeability, but it has its special value because of its special molding technology. Some time ago, "Dahongpao", "Pear Skin Cinnabar" and "Biliupi Cinnabar" popular in Taiwan Province Province belong to this category.

The biggest feature of purple sand pottery is the wonderful combination of good air permeability and non-leakage characteristics after being made into containers, which is attributed to the unique properties of purple sand mud. Purple sand is pottery, but unlike other pottery, it does not need glazing after being made into containers, which is also the premise of ensuring good air permeability. We know that the clay of purple sand can not be used once it is mined, but it has to go through many processes such as refining, elutriation and sieving. Therefore, a good clay must be uniform in texture and color, which is reflected in the fact that the finished product has well-proportioned particles, pure color and no impurities. For example, uneven black spots and white spots are not good clay. Refining and elutriation is the premise of ensuring pure color. Before refining, it must be crushed, and some impurities such as iron, limestone and basalt must be removed after refining and elutriation. Iron turns into black ferroferric oxide after firing, and black spots appear on the pot body; Limestone turns into lime after firing, and white spots appear on the pot, which expands when it meets water, causing small pieces of the pot to peel off, commonly known as "bursting", which seriously affects the quality of the teapot. The hateful thing is that this phenomenon is not easy to detect when buying, and it is often annoying to let a cup of tea swell slowly when going home. Basalt and other impurities have spots and irregular particles on the finished product due to different shrinkage and color. One thing to note here is that sometimes, in order to achieve a certain effect, the producer will artificially add some pieces, particles or powder of raw mud or cooked pottery with the same or different color as the raw mud to achieve different artistic effects. Raw mud mixed with raw mud of another different color will produce another color. If the mixing is uneven, it will produce the magical effect of running water and flying clouds. There are obvious differences between two or more colors, which are not sloppy but integrated and imaginative. This is the "wringing mud" initiated by Lv Yaochen, a contemporary master. Because of the different shrinkage rates of different colors of mud, it is not easy to make the two colors closely combined, and the colors can not be mixed together, sometimes it takes many experiments to succeed. If the cooked pottery is evenly mixed with raw mud during production, it will be the same as other green bodies after sintering. Once sintered, the shrinkage rate of cooked pottery is different from that of raw mud (the shrinkage rate of raw mud is about 20%, while that of vermicelli is as high as 30%, and the cooked pottery basically does not shrink or shrinks very little), so that uniform particles appear on the surface of the finished product, which looks like orange peel, pomegranate peel and pear peel. This technique is especially used in Zhu mud products, because Zhu mud has a particularly large shrinkage rate and is often easily deformed after firing. Adding cooked pottery can reduce shrinkage and improve yield. I believe that friends should understand what the above words "pear-skin cinnabar" and "green willow-skin cinnabar" mean when they see this.

Generally speaking, a real pot made of purple sand mud should be pure in color, with uniform particles and no impurities. Even if it is a pot with "ground mud" and "granular skin", every color should be very pure. That dirty color full of impurities and burrs must not be good mud. Without good mud, the technical level must be poor. To be exact, the craft value of purple sand pottery (or price, in Marx's theory, price and value are completely different concepts) is completely determined by its craft level. A little more popular is working.

So how do you distinguish between good and bad workmanship? Pots are all made by people, and it takes a lot of time to make a good pot. For example, there are two pots in front of you now, one of which took a man a whole day to make, and the other only took him half an hour. According to the working hours of eight hours a day, he can make more than a dozen pots a day. It is conceivable that a dozen pots a day must be very rough. In fact, the output of a pot of more than ten yuan can reach two or two per day. Similarly, in order to reduce costs, it is impossible for him to use good mud. Painting, like painting, is not only an "image", but also a bearing and charm, so is the teapot. When you work to a certain extent, you can do whatever you want without much promotion. The key is how to express one's thoughts and styles with works, so that the works have their own bearing and charm. This is the value difference of 1000 yuan. These discussions are very complicated, but fortunately, our scope is not here, just click.

So what is the actual situation of workmanship quality? This has to start with the craft of casserole. So far, the production of purple sand teapot is still in the manual stage. In mass production, at most, some molds are used to cover the barrel, lid, lid drop, mouth fixing and handle, while the bottom, mouth edge, mouth hollowing, mouth and handle installation and position, and the cooperation between lid and pot body must be mastered manually. Generally, commercial pots are basically made by applying molds, so we choose the style we like.

1, installation process.

In appearance, from the side of the pot, the upper end faces of the spout, spout and handle should be flush; Seen from above, the spout and the handle should be in the same straight line, not skewed, and live in the middle of the pot body. The end faces of the mouth and cover should be smooth and free from ups and downs, and the fit should be close, without traces of sandpaper or file polishing.

There should be no cracks and peeling all over the body. If there is, it is also defective, and the price is at least one third lower. Pay special attention to the place where the spout, handle and dripping water are embedded with the pot body and lid. In addition, the bottom of the pot, the edge of the spout, the edge of the lid and the decorations of the flower goods are also inlaid, and there can be no cracks. There are many cracks in the pot, so be careful. Mouth, mouth, cover and other end faces may peel and be easy to hit.

2. Handicraft.

Seams should be natural and smooth, and there are no traces of manual repair. The lines should be straight and clear, not sloppily, the images of flowers and objects should be realistic and textured as far as possible, and the traces of tool decoration should be as few as possible. We should measure a good pot with the whole mechanical processing specification, and its processing accuracy should be the same as that of the pot made in 500 yuan. The non-modeling fluctuation of glossy surface per cm is not more than 0.65438±0mm, the assembly accuracy error is not more than 65438±0mm, and the fit gap between the bottle mouth and the lid is about 0.5 mm. If the lid is symmetrical, the lid should fit well in all symmetrical directions. It should be noted here that in order to cooperate well, there can be no traces of sandpaper and file polishing.

3. fire.

In the process of firing, uneven firepower and high and low temperature may cause uneven color, bubbles, too old or too tender, which should also be noted.

After 1000 years of historical evolution, Yixing Zisha Pot has become a world-famous pottery with its unique clay, exquisite production skills, scientific production technology, exquisite utensils modeling and widely known practical functions. Ancient Yixing ceramic craftsmen used fire to make clay materials shine brilliantly, which also left many eternal mysteries to future generations. Modern scientific and technological means provide the key to open this treasure house, so that we can continue to carry out in-depth scientific research on purple sand pottery, explore mysteries, sum up experience, make the past serve the present, promote the prosperity of pottery bucket and carry forward the excellent tradition of Yixing purple sand pottery.