Antiques with golden eyes

"Treasure hidden in the painting?

"I've heard mostly that there are paintings within paintings. There are other antiques hidden in the shaft of this painting. This is really the first time I've encountered it."

Looking at the "Xige Qingyan Picture" in front of him, Shen Yu was obviously a little surprised.

Shen Yu is very familiar with the art of mounting calligraphy and paintings. Zhongzhonglou has several friends who are masters of contemporary art and calligraphy art, and Shen Yu naturally benefits from them.

He can frame ordinary calligraphy and paintings by himself, but of course, there is nothing he can do if they are in tatters.

The so-called ground pole is the axis pole on the scroll painting, also called the painting pole.

In the vernacular, it is a round wooden pole used for scroll painting.

A scroll painting has two shafts. In addition to the earth shaft, there is also a heaven pole. The two are collectively called the heaven and earth pole.

The sky pole is thinner at the upper end of the painting, while the ground pole is relatively thicker and heavier at the lower end.

Many people have questions: Why are the sky and earth poles different in thickness and weight?

This is because the scroll is hung on the wall, and the weight of the ground pole can hold the pendant straight.

Since the sky pole is at the top, it is not necessary.

In ancient times, there were requirements for the use of scroll poles, which must be solid wood sticks with a diameter of about two inches.

The surface must be smooth and clean. It must not be curved, prickly, cracked or skinned.

Because the shaft is wrapped in paper and silk, the requirements are relatively low, while the requirements for the decorative shaft heads on both sides are higher.

It must be precious wood, such as golden nanmu, rosewood, rosewood, red rosewood, chicken wing wood, etc. Those who pursue beauty will also use gold and jade materials.

Nowadays, due to cost reasons, most of the shafts of calligraphy and painting are replaced by cardboard rolls, and then two plastic shaft heads are installed on both sides to complete the work.

Some use cheap wood, such as jujube wood, elm wood, locust wood, willow wood, etc., which are all considered high quality.

Shen Yu squeezed the floor pole a little and found that it was soft. It was probably a hollow cardboard tube.

"Tear it down first and then talk about it."

Shen Yu took out a wooden square box under his grandfather's bed and opened the lid. Inside was a strong flashlight, a high-power magnifying glass, scissors, paper knives, rulers, awls, tweezers, glutinous rice glue, small nail clippers and other items.

Shen Yu took out the paper knife and opened it directly.

Shen Yu quickly dismantled the ground pole and took it down in just a few clicks.

Looking at its material, as Shen Yu guessed before, the ground pole is made of cardboard tubes.

Seeing this, Shen Yu couldn't help but laugh at himself.

I was so stupid back then that I didn’t even know how to squeeze the ground when buying paintings.

How could it be possible to use cardboard tubes for authentic Ming Dynasty paintings?

Putting the disassembled ground pole on the desk, Shen Yu skillfully pulled out the willow wood shaft heads on both sides, and then used a flashlight to shine inside.

Except for the foam on the edge of the paper tube, the inside was dark as if stuffed with cloth.

After thinking about it, Shen Yu took out a writing brush from the pen holder on his desk, turned it upside down and looked inside. It was very soft, and it was difficult to guess what it was.

"Don't be in a hurry."

Putting the tools back one by one, Shen Yu sat on the chair and thought quietly.

It’s impossible to know what’s inside the paper tube without opening it.

But how to dismantle it and where to dismantle it is a technical job.

Assuming that it contains jade plaques, seals, snuff bottles, silk fabrics, ancient scrollless paintings or various small jade carvings, the surface will be scratched accidentally, causing its value to plummet.

Shen Yu would never let such a thing happen.

After thinking for a long time, Shen Yu decided to cut the paper tube piece by piece.

After making up his mind, Shen Yu took out the scissors from the square box and started cutting.

The paper shell of the paper tube is very thick and is not easy to cut.

Shen Yu was also afraid of damaging the antiques inside, so he cut a few times and then shined a flashlight into the paper tube.

Just ten centimeters took Shen Yu five minutes.

This copy of Lan Ying's "Xige Qingyan Tu" is nearly fifty centimeters wide, and Shen Yu knew that it would be impossible to cut it without being sweaty.

Now that he knows the difficulty, Shen Yu is not in a hurry. He can take a break after cutting for a while and take his time.

After a quarter of an hour, those things that looked like cloth were slowly revealed.

Taking it out carefully with tweezers, Shen Yu was stunned.

It turned out to be some broken cotton wrapped in polyester cloth. The purpose of this should be to prevent impact, so it seems that the antiques inside are probably fragile.

Then you have to be more careful.

After thinking again, Shen Yu chose to cut on both sides.

After working so carefully for more than half an hour, a small rectangular cloth bag wrapped in layers appeared in Shen Yu's hands.

Shen Yu was very patient and opened the wrapped cloth layer by layer.

When the sixth layer was uncovered, a long strip-shaped object with dazzling black light comparable to gold and iron was revealed.

"It turned out to be an ingot of ancient pine smoke ink." Shen Yu really didn't expect that there was an ingot of ancient ink hidden in the paper tube.

He felt that it was probably a seal or a Zigang card.

This ink is made into a rectangular shape, which looks like a seal at first glance. It is about 12 cm long, 5 cm wide and about 2 cm thick.

The ink body is oily and elegant, the smoke is fine and the glue is clear, and it feels surprisingly good, giving people a smooth and delicate feeling.

On the back is engraved in regular Chinese script: "You cannot live without this king for a day."

The front is painted with landscape and figure patterns in relief.

The characters are lifelike and the landscapes are as real as they are.

There is also an ancient poem:

"The ancient ink is lightly rubbed and full of fragrance, and the new bath in the inkstone is full of light."

"When the cool breeze comes from the north window, I will write a few words about Huang Ting."

On the right edge is the nine-character regular script "Ming Dynasty Wanli Twenty-one Year System" engraved on the right edge.

The font is graceful, round and elegant, and the combination of knife and pen has a subtle master style.

Finally, there is a seal seal on the side of the ancient ink, which is "Cheng Yue Seal".

"Cheng Yue, Cheng Yue?" Shen Yu repeated the name repeatedly, but couldn't remember who it was for a while.

Shen Yu is no stranger to ancient ink. He studied this stuff a lot when he was studying miscellaneous appraisals with his grandfather.

When I was in "Bao Yu Xuan", I also sold a few pieces of ancient ink handed down from ancient times.

The highest piece is Fang Yulu's residual ink from the Ming Dynasty, worth up to 700,000 yuan.

Ancient ink can be divided into pine smoke ink and oil smoke ink according to the production method and material.

Among them, pine smoke ink is also called Wujin, Chenxuan, Xuanxiang, and Wuyu block.

Why do they all have the word "smoke"? It is explained in "Tiangong Kaiwu": "Every ink is made by burning smoke and condensing the substance."

This means that ancient ink is all burned with smoke, so naturally it has the word "smoke" in it.

Especially pine smoke ink, which is made from pine branches and pine wood smoke.

Because pine smoke ink wastes wood, it is extremely precious.

Chao Guanzhi of the Song Dynasty described it this way in the "Mo Jing": "The pines in Dongshan are heavy in nature, but they no longer exist today."

Shen Kuo also wrote in "Mengxi Bi Tan" that the pine forests for making pine smoke ink were almost cut down at that time. If you want to find pine forests to make pine smoke ink, you have to go far away.

It can be seen that in the Song Dynasty, pine smoke ink was very rare.

"Shen Yu, Shen Yu, once luck comes, you really can't hide from it!"

Shen Yu wanted to be calm and focused, but the smile on his face proved that he was very happy now.

Without it, anyone who finds the treasure will laugh.

He has already remembered who "Cheng Yue" is.

If it’s not anyone else, this Cheng probably refers to the master of ink making in the Ming Dynasty: Cheng Junfang.

If you focus on one thing and do it to the extreme, you will be an art master.

This is the case with Cheng Junfang.

Dong Qichang's evaluation of it is: "A hundred years later, there will be no Junfang but the ink of Junfang; a thousand years later, there will be no ink of Junfang but the name of Junfang."

"A hundred years of ink can be compared to gold", which is the price of ink in Cheng Jun's house in ancient times.

In ancient times, it was incredible that a piece of ancient ink could cost the same as a piece of gold of the same weight.

But now, it has to be doubled tenfold.

There is no customization or formula for ink.

There are many shapes of ancient ink. In order to facilitate grinding, most of them are rectangular, tongue-shaped, cylindrical, etc.

Shen Yu participated in a miscellaneous special auction held by Gaogu Auction House last year. An ox tongue-shaped ingot of ancient pine smoke ink from a famous Qing Dynasty inkstone maker sold for a high price of 1.1 million.

The price of the ingot of Cheng Mo I got today will only be higher and not lower.

As for why Baoguang is the size of a broad bean, it may be because it is a piece of residual ink.

There is a small chip on the edge of the right corner. To be honest, it does have some impact on the overall beauty of the ancient ink.

However, there is a saying that ancient ink collections are still treasures even if they are damaged, so the impact on their prices is minimal.

Old ink is a treasure, the older the ink, the more fragrant it becomes.

Shen Yu was not worried at all whether it was a fake or something.

There is basically no fraud in ancient ink because the technology is simply not up to par.

Zhao Ruzhen has a detailed description of the authenticity of ancient ink in the antique guide: "Most antiques are fake, but not ink.

"Gaimo pays more attention to quality than to name. If the quality is good, it is expensive even if it is not famous. If the quality is good, it is worthless even if it has a name."

This means that there are many fakes of any antique, but this is not the case with ancient ink.

The quality of ancient ink depends entirely on its quality.

Good quality ink ingots are still valuable even if they are not ancient ink.

On the other hand, if the quality is not good, even if it is engraved with the name of a famous ink maker, it will be useless.

Since this ingot of ancient ink has precious light, it must be Cheng Mo.

Besides, who has enough money to put fake ancient ink into the ground pole of calligraphy and painting with so much effort?

"Forget it, let's put it away first. When I have time, I will ask Uncle Li. He is very knowledgeable about ancient ink and can be said to be the master of identifying ancient ink." Shen Yu thought this way.

***The author has something to say***

ps: You can search for ancient ink. Good ancient ink is comparable to ancient porcelain, gold and jade, and it is definitely a top-notch work of art.