I am pretty sure that this is an ancient (or very old) white jade teapot. It is probably worth untold millions. I have seen that there have been a few jade teapots on the Christie's auction website that have sold for something like $1,695,000
And it would be really great if this teapot was worth that, or something anywhere near that :-). Once I showed it to a close relative, who shall remain unnamed, and she thought it was ugly. It isn't exactly graceful and delicate, not really a finely carved, complicated piece. But I find it to be beautiful. I bought it at a thrift store for $2.99. It was covered with tape. It was kind of like a grab bag. One could not make out exactly what it was, but I knew it was stone and I knew it was a little teapot, so I splurged. I took it into a local antique store and the owner was kind of busy with other customers, who were there actually interested in purchasing her wares. But she kindly had a look at it and said that she thought it was really jade. (Another time I showed her a necklace that I thought was jade and she sweetly let me know that it was a very nice soapstone necklace.) But when I showed her this teapot, she looked carefully at it and said that she thought it was jade. She seemed kind of uncomfortable and almost afraid and said she thought it might be very valuable. (Maybe she was trying to get rid of me)...But she gave me the phone number of a man who deals in Chinese antiques and his email. I emailed him and he responded to the query, telling me he was on his way to China and would return soon and to contact him again and we would arrange a meeting. Then I became excited. I had sent him photos and he wanted to meet. But then I began to think. I wondered if he just wanted to lure me into his dark shop, so that he could take my precious teapot. Or worse, he would charge me a fee to tell me it was a fake. I convinced myself that I shouldn't meet him, after all. That it could be dangerous or embarrassing. And the truth is, I really like the teapot. I don't want to sell it. I don't want to know if it's a fake. The teapot feels like it has been through time. It is mysterious. I wonder who carved it, who might have held it in his or her hands and if they ever had tea. Would it have been stained if it had been used for tea? Maybe jade is impervious to stain? I kind of love this tea pot, as much as you can "love" a thing. Maybe I only love it because of its mystery. If I found that it was not worth a great deal of money, I could go ahead and have a cup of tea and then I might love it even more :-) Unless there is some disturbing chemical like lead in the polish. Hmmm. Perhaps, I had better just use it for pondering. Or, I can hold it and imagine that if all else is lost, I can sell it to some very very very rich collector who will place it in a real museum where school children can learn about the history of everything, jade, carving, tea growing and preparation, the whole shebang...how tea makes everything good. YEAH, even though I have no pension, I do have my fortune in the form of a tea pot. Oh wow :-)
This poster or print that I found in a Goodwill in Cypress, CA has me perplexed. I thought it would be easy to research it and find out where it is from. I thought I could date it without months of digging through books at the library. I thought I would find similar images on the internet , no sweat. All that I have surely found is what an ignorant person I am and have been. I don't even know what country it is from. It might be China or it might be Korea or it might be chinoiserie from who knows where. I have studied several books on Chinese art and Japanese, Korean, etc. and have found that most Chinese and Japanese art have writing and seals on them, unless this is just a panel from a series or a scroll. It looks, from my admittedly truly-uneducated-in-Oriental-art-perspective to be from the Sung period. Or it is meant as a copy of something from the Sung period. BUT PLEASE, If you know better, PLEASE tell me what you think. I thought perhaps it could be a depiction of a scene from some Chinese opera, perhaps the one where a schoolgirl falls in love with someone in a dream. The people in the drawing don't look as if they live real lives. They don't look as if they need to walk around a lot. I believe the seated figure could be a man. Or the seated figure could be a woman. How truly disturbing that I don't know. I was thinking the seated figure could be a mother--due to the shape of her lower anatomy, I reasoned she might have given birth. Maybe this is a portrait of her and her eldest daughter. Or if that figure is a young rich man, could he be idle and too well fed and slightly out of shape? This is so embarrassing. I can't tell a man from a woman? I think both figures have grace and beauty. Obviously, they lead a genteel life, sitting around the garden. Why did the artist paint them? Was it simply because he or she was hired to do so by someone who wanted a portrait of family members ? Or was it a desire of the artist to show something he or she found .....what? beautiful? curious? somehow meaningful? All I could find from the label on the back of the frame is that the company made brass lamps and was involved in a lawsuit with some importers from Korea and another company from China. They don't seem to exist anymore, although I think they won that lawsuit. There doesn't seem to be a signature. There is a butterfly on the upper left border. I've included a photo of that (third photo down), as a clue for any interested viewer.
I humbly thank you for reading this and if you have any comments.....
This poster or print that I found in a Goodwill in Cypress, CA has me perplexed. I thought it would be easy to research it and find out where it is from. I thought I could date it without months of digging through books at the library. I thought I would find similar images on the internet , no sweat. All that I have surely found is what an ignorant person I am and have been. I don't even know what country it is from. It might be China or it might be Korea or it might be chinoiserie from who knows where. I have studied several books on Chinese art and Japanese, Korean, etc. and have found that most Chinese and Japanese art have writing and seals on them, unless this is just a panel from a series or a scroll. It looks, from my admittedly truly-uneducated-in-Oriental-art-perspective to be from the Sung period. Or it is meant as a copy of something from the Sung period. BUT PLEASE, If you know better, PLEASE tell me what you think. I thought perhaps it could be a depiction of a scene from some Chinese opera, perhaps the one where a schoolgirl falls in love with someone in a dream. The people in the drawing don't look as if they live real lives. They don't look as if they need to walk around a lot. I believe the seated figure could be a man. Or the seated figure could be a woman. How truly disturbing that I don't know. I was thinking the seated figure could be a mother--due to the shape of her lower anatomy, I reasoned she might have given birth. Maybe this is a portrait of her and her eldest daughter. Or if that figure is a young rich man, could he be idle and too well fed and slightly out of shape? This is so embarrassing. I can't tell a man from a woman? I think both figures have grace and beauty. Obviously, they lead a genteel life, sitting around the garden. Why did the artist paint them? Was it simply because he or she was hired to do so by someone who wanted a portrait of family members ? Or was it a desire of the artist to show something he or she found .....what? beautiful? curious? somehow meaningful? All I could find from the label on the back of the frame is that the company made brass lamps and was involved in a lawsuit with some importers from Korea and another company from China. They don't seem to exist anymore, although I think they won that lawsuit. There doesn't seem to be a signature. There is a butterfly on the upper left border. I've included a photo of that (third photo down), as a clue for any interested viewer.