Yixing

[Mark-S]

@Bok

As I wrote a couple of posts before, I thought that these marks came from when the teapot was shaped against the mould. Thanks for the explanation. What would "mould marks" look like... in comparison to this technique? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

[Bok]

Bok

As I wrote a couple of posts before, I thought that these marks came from when the teapot was shaped against the mould. Thanks for the explanation. What would "mould marks" look like... in comparison to this technique? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Go to your garden shed and look at the watering can made out of plastic and look inside. That is exactly how it looks like.

[Mark-S]

Go to your garden shed and look at the watering can made out of plastic and look inside. That is exactly how it looks like.

Half handmade teapots will have many small scratch/tool marks inside the teapot where it was shaped against the mould, whereas a fully handmade teapot will not.

Apparently, we are not talking about the same watering cans. There are no scratch/tool marks inside. It's actually pretty smooth with grooves every now and then. It would be awesome if you could show me an example pot.

[Bok]

no scratch/tool marks inside. It's actually pretty smooth with grooves every now and then.

You were asking about mould marks, of course mould marks do not look like tool marks...

The ones you talk about are when the artisan is smoothing out rough edges that come from the mould...

[Mark-S]

You were asking about mould marks, of course mould marks do not look like tool marks...

The ones you talk about are when the artisan is smoothing out rough edges that come from the mould...

I was taking about what I've read in the blog of Mud and Leaves:

Half handmade teapots will have many small scratch/tool marks inside the teapot where it was shaped against the mould, whereas a fully handmade teapot will not.

And your answer to my teapots:

It is really quite easy to determine how this marks came to be if you look at how they make a pot. Bottom is "glued" to the body with the help of a wet clay gunk. What happens when you put glue between to pieces of harder something and press it together? Exactly, it will be pressed out and form an unsightly excess line of glue. What do handy craftsman all over the world do? The use some sort of appropriate tool to smooth it out...

In Yixing pots of certain periods and - when they decided it needs to look clean, often they did not - they smoothed it towards the center, tadaa, there you have it, case closed.

So you are saying that these marks on my pots do not come from "smoothing out rough edges that come from the mould" but from smoothing the "wet clay gunk" used for gluing bottom and body together to make the inside look cleaner?

Or am I wrong when it comes to moulds? I've read that the bottom and the body is one piece when using a mould.

Again, very sorry if this is stupid, but I'd like to get this right.

[olivierd]

Again, very sorry if this is stupid, but I'd like to get this right.

+1, I don't really understand. None of F1 pots I have shows any bottom tool marks in lines as yours, regardless of the era. I still don't understand why at times 'lines" are extremely deep and sometimes they are not.

[Bok]

@Mark-S and @olivierd I don’t really know. All I can say is that a sun pattern like this only makes sense to smooth out inner bumps of whatever else impurity. How those occurred I do not know there were and are many different methods in different times.

Unless you have 100-1000s of pots in your collection it’s never really representative or conclusive for any theory, if the majority of said collection doesn’t have anything similar : )

I’ve seen this in usually larger and newer period pots. Many of average quality so it’s not a sign of fully handmade I guess.

Early factory and also many antiques never clean up the inside, except for the premium segment, which usually doesn’t show up too often in the Western market.

[Bok]

Maybe @Youzi or others more familiar with actual methods of more contemporary Yixing can shed some light.

[Mark-S]

@Bok

This is already very helpful, thanks a lot

[Bok]

Bok

This is already very helpful, thanks a lot

Welcome.

Furthermore what I meant with the watering can, are the cast lines and such that you can see on mould made objects, or for slip cast, the way the handles and air holes look from the inside.

[olivierd]

Bok

This is already very helpful, thanks a lot

Yes, big thank you from my side too.

[DailyTX]

Maybe Youzi or others more familiar with actual methods of more contemporary Yixing can shed some light.

Not an expert but I was curious about those sun beam pattern earlier if it existed before factory period, and it was confirmed by @steanze. You can look at his post for antique pots that have those marks. Here is a video on why those lines is a current practice, but the video is in Mandarin

[Bok]

See! That proves my own point earlier… I never seen an antique one in my collection or the ones of others, yet the sample size has not been large enough to prove or disprove anything : )

Or the pots not large enough as I do believe it’s more common in larger pot sizes.

[Andrew S]

Is this perhaps an antique example?

Qing pot, from what I am told.

(contrast and sharpness exaggerated to make it clearer and to compensate for my poor skills)

Andrew

[Bok]

Is this perhaps an antique example?

Qing pot, from what I am told.

(contrast and sharpness exaggerated to make it clearer and to compensate for my poor skills)

Andrew

How does the rest look like? Inside lid pot in general etc. Hard to tell from one picture alone.