In 2021, on the Poly Autumn Auction Field, a "Qingqianlong Imperial Ink Color Imperial Inscription Poetry Small Pen Holder" was sold for 8.62 million yuan, so the sky-high price was only to buy a small pen holder, this kind of large-scale operation is really jaw-dropping.
Qingqianlong Imperial Ink Color Snow Matter Eight Yong Imperial Inscription Poem Small Pen Holder
Coincidentally, at the 2018 Christie's Hong Kong Spring Auction, a piece of "Qing Kangxi Blue and White Glaze Red Four Scenes Reading Music Poetry Pen Holder" was sold for 3.49 million yuan, and it was such a high price, why is the small pen holder crazy?
Qing Kangxi Blue and white glaze red four scenery reading music poetry pen holder
At first glance, these pen holders may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, but why can they be auctioned for such a high price? This has to start with the source of the pen holder.
The "rising star" of the literary room
The ancients used to write and paint the utensils, collectively known as the study room utensils, the most common is the "pen, ink and paper" of the four treasures of the study room, but compared with the four treasures, the pen holder used as an auxiliary use, the story may occur a little late, until the Ming Dynasty was widely seen its figure.
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, ivory carvings depicted in black lacquer pencil holders in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing
The pen holder, as the name suggests, is used to put the pen, it is developed from the pen sleeve, the pen bed, the pen insert, so the early words "pen holder", all refer to the pen cover or the pen cap. In 1975, Han Dynasty brushes and pen sleeves were unearthed in Phoenix Mountain, which may be the earliest form of protective brushes; the Tang Dynasty Beacon Mountain was popular, and the poet Cen Sanyouyun: "Counting techniques and willows are low in clothes, and a mountain flower falls on the pen bed." At this time, shosoin, which contains many treasures, also has a seventeen Tang-style pen with a pen sleeve, which is named "Qiu Zhong", which is extremely difficult to preserve, and is a pen holder that is displayed on the table for placing pens, and it is widely popular after the common use of high seats.
Spotted Bamboo Pen Song Wuming's "To the False Miscellaneous Tricks": "(Wang) dedicated to the class bamboo pen holder name Qiu Zhong. ”
To the Song Dynasty, this era of literati elegance, almost all the stationery utensils such as Yan di, water cheng, ink bed, and beacon mountain can be found, but only the pen holder cannot be found, such as the Southern Song Dynasty Lin Hong's "Study Room Tuzan" does not mention the pen holder, but mentions the beacon mountain.
It should be pointed out that the "Special Exhibition of Song Guan kilns" held by the National Palace Museum in Taipei in 1989 was designated as the "official kiln powder green pen holder" of the Northern Song Dynasty in the first year, although the Qianlong poem at the bottom of it was designated as a Northern Song Dynasty object, saying that it was used by The Song Huizong, but according to the style, Qianlong Ye was wrong, and this pen holder is likely to be a Qing Dynasty instrument.
In the Ming Dynasty, round mouth straight wall, novel shape, simple and practical pen holder really appeared, and the material is diverse, literature books, physical utensils have left a lot of considerable information, Wen Zhenheng's "Chronicle of Long Things" has said: "(Pen holder) Xiang bamboo, palm is good, moso bamboo is elegant with bronze inlays, rosewood, ebony, pear is also available." At this time, the pen holder has become a permanent object of the literati's book case, and it has not faded to this day.
"Load pen" to "load B"?
Everything invented by human beings, except for practical value, will develop in the direction of satisfying people's emotional needs and realizing the needs of cultural values. Like modern people putting books on the table, placing tea sets, and posing tide card dolls, hundreds of years ago, the ancients put a pen holder on the table at random, which actually showed personal taste, and was low-key to say that they had a unique culture...
Qingqianlong Imitation Ru kiln inscription poetry pen holder capital museum collection
In fact, if you think about it carefully, if the pen holder is used to store the brush, we put its pen head down in the pen holder, it is easy to fry the hair, can not be used; if you put it in reverse, the water at the end of the millimeter will flow backwards down the pole, infiltrating the bamboo pen shaft will hurt the pen very much, so the brush is used up or the method of hanging head down is the best. Therefore, it is said that the pen holder was not used to put the pen in the first place.
What is that pen holder for? In addition, there are other practicalities, such as storage, town rulers, picture scrolls and other miscellaneous gadgets can be placed inside, we can see that many ming and qing dynasty paintings in the pen holder, are stuffed with debris.
Ming 《Yangzheng Illustration 1: Li Taibai Matching Money》
In the eyes of the literati, the pen holder is a thing worth playing carefully, enough to make the person who writes and paints a happy mood, the appreciation of the view, its otherworldly and elegant atmosphere is also incomparably addictive, like "home", "the pen is in the case, or the side or quite, the Jews are unscrupulous, the barrel is bundled, such as the guest home, idle and rest assured, return to innocence." "Then for the rich and more human emperor, it is bound to be even more unusual."
The pen holder painted in the Qing "Tongzhi Emperor's Amusement And Pleasant Picture" should be made of green jade
In both the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were emperors who were particularly fond of vassalage and elegance, and in order to meet their own preferences, they poured the strength of the country to make treasures, and the rarity of the pen holders they made and the exquisite craftsmanship could be said to be the pinnacle. The Forbidden City contains some ivory, enamel, jade, rosewood and other material pen holders, all of which are excellent treasures. Among them, Kangxi Qinghua, Yongzheng Ink Color, Qianlong Pastel and other pen holders have reached the highest level of porcelain firing.
In the firing of porcelain in the study room during the Kangxi Period, the pen holder was the most outstanding, the production of the pen holder was large, and the shape and ornamentation were quite exquisite, and the artistic expression was also diverse.
Kangxi Qinghua Colorful Belt Qinyou Corset Pen Holder Height: 12.3cm Caliber: 8cm Domain Jian × PlayIng Antique Connoisseur Fidelity Porcelain Special Auction
At this point, the pen holder has gradually developed from the initial storage container to an exquisite decorative utensil, and those pen holders left by the ups and downs of history have exquisite craftsmanship and precious materials, which have a high aesthetic value in themselves, and it is also natural to be popular in the collection world.
Pen holders from different periods
01 Chongzhen pen holder
In the Chongzhen period, the porcelain pen holder is currently only seen in blue and white, its color is elegant, the painting is exquisite, the pattern is mainly character stories, Bogu Qing offerings, landscapes, and beasts, and the stories are mostly based on ancient opera novels and prints. During this period, there were three types of pen holders, large, medium and small, most of which were flat sand bottoms, the mouth was not glazed, and the mouth edge and shin had dark engraving edges.
Ming Chongzhen Qinghua Wen Wang visited Xian Tu pen holder
02 Shunzhi pen holder
At this time, the pen holder basically continued the late Ming Dynasty, with slight changes. Most of the pen holders are slightly lower in height than when They were Chongzhen, and the dark engraving decoration is simplified from the original mouth along the curly grass flower pattern and the tibia seawater river cliff pattern to two darkly carved parallel lines. The paintings on the Shunzhi porcelain pen holder are relatively single, dominated by landscapes, flowers and birds. In addition, at this time, a blue and white multicolored pen holder was added.
Kiyoshi Shunzhi Blue and white flowers and birds figure pen holder
03 Kangxi pen holder
Kangxi period of political and cultural prosperity, the shape and category of the pen holder compared with the late Ming and early Qing dynasties increased a lot, common blue and white, five-color, doucai, blue and white glaze red, underglaze three colors, sacrifice blue, sacrifice red, sprinkled blue depiction gold, Ujin glaze depiction gold, bean green glaze, bean green glaze flower, etc., in addition to the straight barrel on the instrument type also added square, decorated with common character stories, landscape pavilions, flowers, birds and beasts, Bogu poetry and so on. Its typical characteristics are that the tire glaze is tightly combined, the tire quality is delicate, and the bottom is mostly "wall foot".
Qing Kangxi White glazed flower-tangled lotus pattern pen holder
04 Qianlong pen holder
Entering the Qianlong Dynasty, the craftsmanship of Jingdezhen's porcelain industry became more diverse. The porcelain pen holder also has a lot of obvious changes: first, the size of the pen holder has become smaller, the smallest size is only 6.8 cm high; second, the functionality is more specific, which can really be called the pen holder; the third is that the production process has changed, and most of the bottom of the pen holder is a circle foot; the fourth is that the instrument type is more diversified, adding hexagonal, double diamond- and so on; fifth, the variety of bionic and raw porcelain has increased.
Qingqianlong underglaze three-color Bogutu pen holder
References: Porcelain pen holder. Zhimu; the original pen holder was not originally used to put pens. Changfeng Museum of Art; The rising star of the stationery - pen holder. Ding Zi