The popularity of this bottle is very low, it has not been on the national treasure, and it is not a world-famous collection of the Palace Museum and the National Museum. It is not well-known, its sense of existence is extremely low, even the merchants do not despise it as a cultural creation, and even the owner of the bottle is an ordinary person, the kind of person who is placed in the pile of people and almost no one pays attention.
But this bottle is a well-deserved national treasure, and it can even be said to be the "best" among national treasures.
So, who made this bottle? Was it created collectively by the emperor ordering the imperial craftsmen of the court? Or is it the nameless god of folk ceramics who uses absolute originality? Historical and cultural relics experts have studied so far, can not find the answer?
If it is done in the court, the "palace utensils" must be recorded, if it is done by the people, how is the technology realized?
This is all the unsolved mystery of this bottle.
The mystery of the story
Let's start with the story of the owner of this bottle. The actual owner of this bottle was Zhu Liheng, an ordinary retired worker in Yangzhou Light Industry Machinery Factory, according to Mr. Zhu, Mr. Zhu's ancestors were once prominent officials who held important positions in the imperial court.
But if this bottle comes from the court, the Ministry of Internal Affairs must have a record, not to mention that the emperor himself rewarded the heavy weapon, and the court secretary must record it clearly, which day? What is the reward? Which emperor? Which minister was rewarded? It is not smuggled out of the palace, so the origin of the "palace instrument" is still doubtful.
Because according to the rules of the Forbidden City's Internal Affairs Office, the emperor's reward will never be an orphan product, the orphan product can only stay in the Forbidden City, and the items rewarded by the emperor, although noble, can be made, and this bottle is an orphan product.
Therefore, from the imperial reward, this argument does not hold up.
The truth of the source of Mr. Zhu's statement, Mr. Zhu himself can not be sure, most of them are heard from the elders of the family. But there are also real parts, for example, Mr. Zhu said that this bottle has been passed down to his hands for six generations, and this bottle has been particularly mysterious since he was a child, hidden in the safest place in the family, and is an heirloom.
Mr. Zhu said that there have been many changes in the family, but the father and mother's family have never thought of selling this heirloom to supplement the family, saying that they are sorry for the ancestors. Mr. Zhu was born in the 1940s, his parents were born about 1920, in 1945 Mr. Zhu's family lived in Jiangdu, a county in Yangzhou City, and someone once spent a lot of money to buy from his mother, but his mother categorically refused.
The people of their time could indeed hold on to an artifact until the end of their lives, preferring to be destitute rather than sell their ancestral possessions. Originally, such a national treasure heavy weapon would not have seen the day again, and it was likely that it would be passed down from generation to generation among the descendants of the Zhu family, and the turning point came to 1976.
See the light of day again
The 1976 Tangshan earthquake was a rare urban earthquake disaster in China's history, and in an instant, a city of one million people was reduced to rubble, and people's lives and property and national property suffered heavy losses.
The earthquake damaged more than 30,000 square kilometers, and the affected area reached 14 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, equivalent to one-third of the country's area. The earthquake killed 242,000 people and seriously injured 164,000, leaving more than 1,700 people permanently disabled in Downtown Tangshan alone.
Mr. Zhu Liheng, who is in Yangzhou, also deeply felt the power of the earthquake, when the earthquake came, their house shook violently, and the bottle almost broke on the ground. The tangshan earthquake caused a huge shadow on Zhu Liheng, the impermanence of life, the impermanence of natural disasters, Zhu Liheng felt a lot of feelings.
What if the bottle falls down and I don't catch it? Wouldn't that be shattered? Isn't the Heirloom of the Zhu Family "Fragrant Jade Death"? After repeated ideological struggles, Zhu Liheng struggled alone in the room for half a month, and he finally made a decision to sell the bottle to the cultural relics store.
When his mother was not paying attention, Zhu Liheng took the bottle in his arms, wrapped it tightly in three layers of newspapers, and went to the famous cultural relics store in Yangzhou. After some haggling, the bottle relics store only sold for 16 yuan, which was already quite a lot at the time.
Zhu Liheng disagreed, grinding hard bubbles, and forcefully lifted the bottle to 18 yuan. Eventually, the head of the heritage store agreed. This national treasure bottle went out of the Zhu family for the first time and went to society, at a cost of 18 yuan. 18 yuan in 1976 is equivalent to about 2,000 yuan today.
At that time, due to the policy of removing the four olds and the lack of attention to cultural relics and art, coupled with the fact that there was no circulation environment for national treasures and cultural relics outside, the cultural relics at that time were only a slightly more expensive commodity, not a priceless treasure.
Theoretically, an ordinary person's family can also buy it if they are meticulous and frugal. Of course, not now. Buying and selling cultural relics is illegal, good works of art are millions, less than a few million have no entry value, and now there is no such opportunity.
Flowers fall in Yangzhou Museum
In this way, this national treasure cultural relics appeared in the window of the cultural relics store in a bright way, circulating for 12 years, and some people asked for the price, but no one bought it. At one point, the head of the antiquities store thought he was going to smash his hand.
A national treasure is a national treasure, and it is destined to be in the dark, and the place that belongs to the national treasure will eventually come. In 1986, a staff member of the Yangzhou Museum went to visit the cultural relics store, which was originally an inadvertent move, and actually found a national heavy weapon.
After the Yangzhou Museum staff repeatedly observed the details with a magnifying glass, it was confirmed that it was genuine, which made the staff even more excited. Because the value of this bottle is too great, the value of a huge Yangzhou Museum can not match the value of this bottle.
You know, Yangzhou Museum is a national first-class museum. The staff immediately reported to the leader, and after the approval of the leader, the staff purchased the bottle at a price of 3,000 yuan. In this way, this bottle arrived at the Yangzhou Museum, directly became the treasure of the Yangzhou Museum, and to this day, it is still the incomparable "collection boss"!
Expert Research Conclusions:
1. The glaze sacrifices heaven and earth
The full name of this bottle is called Yuanji Blue White Dragon Pattern Plum Bottle, Ji Blue Glaze is a "sacrifice" heaven and earth instrument, for the supreme treasure, because the cost of "cobalt" required for firing Ji Blue Ware is extremely expensive, "Cobalt" is also an important raw material for various high-grade pigments, the Tsarist Emperor exhausted the national strength in order to buy expensive cobalt pigments, and the blue pigments in the halls of the Kremlin are cobalt materials.
The cobalt material used in Ji Lan is many times that of blue and white, and because of its proximity to the "color of the sky", it is listed by the emperor as the imperial blessing royal porcelain, and only the emperor, the empress and the empress dowager are eligible to use it in the imperial palace.
Second, the dragon pattern is in the wind
Let's take a look at the pattern of this bottle, first of all, from the shape, this bottle belongs to the plum bottle, 43 cm high, belongs to the large instrument in the plum bottle.
The dragon pattern on it can be seen very naturally on the dragon head, the mouth is cocked, the legs and three claws are strong and smooth, especially the main pattern, the dragon soars in the sky and dances in the blue sky, quite a momentum.
Third, the shape of the instrument is the largest
"Dictionary of Appreciation of Chinese Cultural Relics": This bottle has a calm blue glaze throughout the body, with a vivid white dragon, which is an extremely precious art masterpiece.
"Appreciation Dictionary of Treasures of Chinese Dynasties": This plum bottle is the largest in shape, up to 43.8 cm, the best preserved, and is the most perfect Yuan Dynasty plum bottle seen so far, which is a rare treasure.
Dominate the entire floor of yangzhou museum
In 1987, the Yangzhou Museum exhibited the bottle for the first time, and it received unprecedented attention, which immediately triggered a scramble for famous museums across the country. After all, the Yangzhou Museum cannot compete with the nine national museums such as the Palace Museum, the Shanghai Museum, the Nanjing Museum, and the National Museum, and the collection of cultural relics is also a heaven and an earth.
Many leaders hope that the Yangzhou Museum will transfer the bottle to a national museum, but the Yangzhou Museum certainly disagrees. After many rounds of competition, the Yangzhou Municipal Government finally came forward and decided that the bottle would be placed in the Yangzhou Museum.
The Yangzhou Museum then invited experts from the Palace Museum in Beijing to identify the plum bottle, and they unanimously identified the bottle as a fine piece of blue glazed porcelain from the Yuan Dynasty of the Jingdezhen Kiln in Jiangxi. Until 1992, the Ji blue glazed white dragon pattern plum vase was rated as a national treasure by the State Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee and became the treasure of the Yangzhou Museum.
Now in the Yangzhou Museum, a large exhibition hall of more than 200 square meters only places this plum bottle. Around this bottle, it is separated by three layers of guardrails, and visitors can only look at it from a long distance.
Heritage disputes
The controversy surrounding this bottle now is mainly quantitative.
The Yangzhou Museum says there are only 3 in the world.
Cheng Meidong said that there are only 5 in the world.
"Yangtze River Business Daily" said that there are 6 cases in the world.
According to the Yangzhou Museum, there are only three pieces of this bottle in the world, one in Paris and one in Beijing, and the one preserved in the Yangzhou Museum is the largest and most exquisite one. But this claim was opposed by Cheng Meidong in 2006.
Cheng Meidong He Xuren, who received his J.D. from Beijing Normal University in June 2001. He is currently the vice dean and professor of the School of Marxism at Peking University, the president of the Chinese Marxism Teaching and Research Association of Beijing Universities, the person in charge and chief expert of the Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Sinicization Marxism Development Research Base, and the deputy director of the Chinese Cultural Development Research Center of Peking University.
Cheng Meidong is well known to the public, and he must pay attention to the truth when speaking, because in November 2006, Cheng Meidong posted that there are 5 pieces of this bottle in the world, not 3 pieces of Yangzhou Museum.
Because the auction company once auctioned one, the auction of Beijing Hanhai is well documented, and another is also auctioned anonymously, and the collector does not know who it is. Add these 2 at auction, and it is determined that it is 5 pieces.
As for Cheng Meidong's question, the Yangzhou Museum did not give a corresponding reply and explanation. Just when everyone thought that there were 5 pieces of this bottle, things changed again.
It's 2010. "Yangtze River Business Daily" pointed out that Wu Xingping of Wuhan collected one of this bottle, but unfortunately the bottom was broken, the quality is not very good, if you add this is a total of 6 pieces.
In the end, this heirloom national treasure is 3 pieces, 5 pieces, 6 pieces, the public said that the public is reasonable, no one is convinced of anyone, but in the end, this bottle may be more than 3 pieces. But the collection in the Yangzhou Museum is the most exquisite and complete, which is recognized by the world.
Overseas rich families, entrusted Sotheby's Auction House to contact the collection agency, for 4 billion yuan to buy the bottle, when Sotheby's Auction House and Yangzhou Museum revealed their intentions, they were rejected by the Yangzhou Museum. In 2013, the specifications of this bottle were further improved, and it was listed by the Chinese government as a cultural relic that is prohibited from being exhibited abroad.
postscript
The bottle has been very well preserved over the past 600 years from the Yuan Dynasty to the present day, and it represents the highest level created by The Yuan Dynasty porcelain. It is said that after Zhu Liheng retired, he opened a noodle restaurant in the alleys of Yangzhou, lived a dull life, and took his little grandson to the museum in his spare time to see this Yuan Dynasty plum vase that originally belonged to his family and is now the "treasure of the town hall".
Many people feel that today it seems to have lost a lot, while many more people are full of respect for Mr. Zhu and his family, because they have left such a national treasure-level cultural relics in Yangzhou. Looking at the things that originally belonged to their own homes from a distance, they can see but can no longer touch them in person, which makes people sigh and sigh.