Chinese Contemporary Art Ceramics Market Trends Up

During hard times of this financial crisis, the auction market situation become unstable. However, the Chinese contemporary art ceramics gone against the market trend and ascending, which make investors sit up and take notice.

Keep Silence as a Perfect Gentlemen when Watching a Chess Game (by Li Jusheng)

The colorful gold bell bottle named "Karaoke Map" owned by Zhu Jianxin sold on the 2008 RongBao Autumn auction with a final price 39,200 Yuan;

On the China JiadDe 2008 Autumn, a color underglazed porcelain bottle named "Boating on River" owned by Bai Lei was sold on price 78,400 Yuan;

On the Beijing HanHai 2008 Autumn, a Zhen Baichong hand-painted color landscape porcelain bottle sold for 89,600 Yuan, at same time, a fine porcelain bottle painted with tiny Wang Zhiwen calligraphy and landscape painting was sold for 224,000 Yuan by the buyer.

On the China Guardian 2008 Autumn Auction a ceramic figurine called "I'm pregnant" made by Zhou Guozhen was sold on price 257,600 Yuan; A high temperature color glazed porcelain ware made by Li Jusheng and named "keep silence as a perfect gentlemen when watching a chess game" sold on a highest price as 1,904,000 Yuan.

I'm Pregnant (by Zhou Guozhen)

As early as on the China Guardian 2007 Spring Auction, the first special auction for "Modern and Contemporary Ceramic Art" in China was launched already, on which the mainly auctioned arts&crafts were came form contemporary artists of industrial arts in JDZ, and there were totally 79 pieces of artworks were sold out and the total mount of sales is 15,784,160 Yuan, with a high transaction rate of 97.4%.

Among them, a high-temperature colored glaze inlay ware named "Teenage Life" produced by LI Jusheng, one of great masters of industrial arts in China was sold for 1.232 million Yuan, which is the highest price on the auction.

Through the Guardian 2007 Spring Auction collectors become to realize the value of Chinese contemporary ceramic art, while on auctions hold on autumn later, Beijing HanHai and RongBao auction also opened its special auction for modern and contemporary art ceramics separately, and both of them has acquired good achievements at this hard times of the auction market caused by the current international financial crisis, and the value of master artworks also show a up trend in the market.

Teenage Life (By Li Jusheng)

Mr. Chen Linlin, the project manager of China Jia De Porcelain Crafts Department believes that with its unique techniques, strong sense of the times, originality and technicality, Chinese modern and contemporary ceramic arts & crafts have attracted collectors, and as the collecting mentality of collectors become mature gradually, the traditional criteria lines of "Judge a hero via ages and times" is now slowly changing, and they thought the artistic value of the artwork is worthy more attention.

In addition, as there are no technique problems in contemporary art ceramics, the art value of a special artwork could be identified easily by collectors, together with the market is still in its infancy, so the average price of which is rather lower and no bubbles in it, so there is a large space for price rising in future.

The head of Beijing HeBiXing Ceramic Art Museum Mrs. Wen Li said that she had realized the collection value of contemporary art ceramics since three years ago, she often visited those masters of industrial arts and professors in Ceramic Academies in Jingdezhen, LongQuan, and buy fine artworks once encountered.

As artworks she collected more and more, she found the current market had not put enough attention on contemporary art ceramics. Upon that she opened the HeBiXing Ceramic Art Museum, and devoted to create the primary market of art ceramics. After three years of painstaking efforts, she found some improvements in the market finally, and the success of the auction market also has given more confidence to collectors aimed for Chinese contemporary art ceramics.


* Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China

Pottery Art with A Long History III – History of Ceramic Pottery in The World (down)

In this region we can through another method to deduce the ages more accurate, that is analysis the roof beams of these houses. Dr. Douglas in the University of Arizona invented a method of through analyzing the annual rings of the house roof beams to confirm the exact age of the beam. This way not only has fixed on the time frame of the Mayan’s settlement on calendar, but also has determined the corresponding ages of different potteries in the time scope. Compared to the United States Pueblo region, the sediment layers in the Maya region of pottery production were distributed more widely.

In addition to ceramic relic piles, in the ground of squares and buildings as well as tombs left by those upper ranks we also had found the sediment layer of ceramic flakes. All these sediment layers had been found in the Wuwaxiake, these sediment layers described a chronology for the main types of Maya’s pottery.

This chronology has provided us with a basic framework of the Peten region, and the age orders about Kepan will be published too, and other materials come from regions of Pidelasi, Nicholas, Palenque also had been dig out and been arranged well, and a book written about potteries dig out from Yucatan are just on printing process.

And the order of pottery from Zacualpa and Zaculeu are same, on the high ground of Guatemala, and the pottery orders of the formative years of Kaminaljuyu and former classical period were been recorded same.

Viewed from the marked changes of the pottery production in these regions, for the development of the whole Maya’s pottery, a large number of excavations in other areas are very essential, and due to the widely comparability between different areas, and timely amendment in individual areas based on the Maya chronology, all these have shown us with an overall chart of the Maya development.

Through the Maya monument that marked with dates, one day we would finally get an accurate dating standard. The accurate years of many Maya monuments were determined strictly in accordance with the Maya chronology, whose existence are merely used to make the Maya chronology corresponded to the Gregorian calendar, just as we could conclude the accurate age of a tree according to its tree-ring.


The above-mentioned we said are related to the at the types, the complexity, the quantity and specialization of Maya pottery, while they are so agree with the monuments that marked with accurate dates, so that when all the story fragments and all evidences came together, compared with the pottery production industry in other nations of ancient America, and from the pictures of Maya we may get more about the Maya’s pottery production, the origin places and sites of different types of Maya pottery, the industry distribution of Maya pottery and its final decline.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History III – History of Ceramic Pottery in The World (up)

Pottery is the most significant symbol of the immortal ancient culture that passed down by human, and pottery is the best reflection for the progress of human culture, it also marked the culture descension and continuation of human beings.

A heap of pottery fragments has confused us about the Mayan’s previously living sites, but just like as geologist analyzing the different geological periods of the Earth had experienced, we can make use of the same technology of analysis too. The technology, known as "geological setting", followed a unified principle of – materials which produced or formed former will deposited earlier. As a result, the pottery found in the deepest reactor bottom of the sediments is the oldest pottery.

In the areas of pottery makers who lived together, pottery relic piles of ceramic fragments were gradually formed, and mixed with other debris. These relic piles usually were found in exposed places, of which most perishable materials have disappeared. Aside from those relic piles that in rare dry climate or with covers, in those exposed relic piles only those hardly damaged objects could been found, such as stones, shells, bones, as well as ceramic flakes, some of them are valued with archaeological meanings and are most important for the recording of break-off ears.

These relic sites always near to the areas the maker lived in, the depth of which usually as deep as several rules. The cross-section of the sediment has displayed that it is no doubt that the Mayas who lived near to the accumulation site of debris has a long period of history of pottery making. The sediment layer just like the ceramic flakes could provides us a reliable and related order about pottery, but does not offer us with an absolute chronology of the pottery development.

This technology of judging the era according to the typical pottery of various pottery species had improved the Pueblo’s Indian culture in the southwestern United States greatly.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History I --- Preface

"Tao (pottery)", according to the figure described in oracle bone inscriptions, it implies a person who was squatted and sit on the ground, with a tool just like a wood stick modeling clay. Through sintering adobes will form into ceramics, which we called pottery today.

Archaeological discoveries have proved that as early as in the Neolithic Age (about 8000-2000 BC) the Chinese people had invented pottery. The agricultural production emerged in later primitive society had bought a relatively more fixed life to the ancestors of the Chinese people, which also produced the demand for pottery objectively. So, in order to improve the quality of life and make their lives more convenient, gradually Chinese people invented pottery through the burning of clay.

The word first appeared on pottery, it was found on a ceramic flake left by Shang Dynasty, and which is the only piece so far, while there are many pieces of ceramic flakes without words on. With a long history of pottery, China has left a great number of ceramic heritages, among these historic treasures, the oldest pottery was been produced out in BC 9,000 (with carbon isotope C14 detection).

The original pottery were been burned into in open-air, and these primal pottery are rough and fragile. About BC 8000, people started to put the ceramic model into pottery kiln, and with the method of controlled burning to improve the pottery, quality, through this method the pottery produced became not only more strong but also more beautiful, and turned into one kind of artworks.

Before the Shang Dynasty, the main colors of the pottery are only three: red, gray and black. Later based on the development of enamel coating technology, the color of pottery became more abundant and bright. In the Tang Dynasty, faience ware, also called painted pottery or colored pottery, one kind of Tang handicrafts was created out, among which, the Tang tri-colored pottery is the most well-known typical work.

On the basis of the high-level ceramic technology accumulated long-term, China produced porcelain ware in the world, which has become an important medium of the exchanges between the East and West cultures and economy, and people in the West just called porcelain as CHINA namely the country of China, it can be also said to describe China with Chinese porcelain (china). In Western languages the word “china”, whose meaning also includes pottery. In the history of the development of Chinese ceramics, the pottery was appeared before porcelain, and the porcelain was took birth from pottery.