Vintage nixing pots
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:12 pm
So here we are... after vintage and antique Yixing and vintage and antique Chaozhou clay comes the clay black sheep... older Qinzhou Nixing pots. This is enough of an info dumping here I thought it warranted its own post/thread. I should preface all of this with saying I am not an expert so anyone who has additional or more knowledge, information, or experience to share please do or correct errors you see. A lot of this info was drawn together using some probably very rough google translating and searching. I tried to take a skeptical view of certain resources while looking in to these things so as not to fall for too much vendor 'tea lore', but one can never truly know given my distance to all of this. I just have a big love for liu bao and hope to make it to Guangxi myself some day, which drew my interest to the regional clay as well. With so little info being available in English it seemed a nice place to contribute something and I hope some tea people out there will find some of this interesting or helpful. Onward...
Just to skim over since it is probably pretty common knowledge Nixing clay is drawn from the two banks of the Qin river. One side has a more iron rich hard clay while the other side is soft and has kaolin like characteristics. How finite this source of clay is/was and how it could possibly have changed over the years I don't quite know... but one side supposedly being denser and the other softer when mixed form a good wheel throwing clay. From what I was able to find it sounded like the earliest goods made using “Nixing”, even before things such as vases or jars, was that the clay was found to be of a good consistency for making clay pipes, as well as parts for puppets - however it isn't totally clear to me but it sounded like that particular “Nixing” clay actually came from a different river. What we now know as 'Nixing' clay goods, coming from Qinzhou, may have started around the end of the Qing/early ROC period supposedly developed by a potter named Li Bulao. This modern Nixing pottery, mainly vases from what I can tell, was what was then shown in exhibitions in the US and Belgium and helped to establish a larger industry.
Now, enter teapots... from what I was able to figure out it seems that the first teapots, or at least mass manufacture of teapots, started sometime in the 1950s-60s. I suppose it was possibly used before then too since I'm sure pots in various regions were produced using all sorts of clay just because it was there, so in this case I am more referring to Factory type larger scale production of teaware rather than small scale local only or artist made products. This production seems to have really ramped up probably peaking in the 70s or 80s. In many ways it seems like the production peak and subsequent period was probably also Nixing's worst time in many ways too. Anyone who has seen and handled older Nixing pots can tell that as a generalization the quality ranges from not that great to downright awful. Most of the pots are I am guessing slip cast or mold assisted in some way in parts and then hand finished or assembled, but the workmanship is often very rough and sloppy, the firing is super inconsistent, so on... Clearly a lot of goods were produced, but a lot of it probably being of pretty undesirable quality, which if the industry was intending to compete with or alongside Yixing at that time stood no chance. I know there was export to parts of southeast Asia, perhaps marketed to people who couldn't afford Yixing goods or as direct competition. From what I see come up for sale plenty also made its way over to Europe too, most of which given the condition I see it in was probably used as very cheap vitrine ware goods. All that said, there are pieces out there that aren't half bad – so the tricky thing isn't so much finding old Nixing pots or other teaware, its finding ones that are actually decently produced and fired that takes hunting.
Probably the most famous Nixing pot is the classic “Begonia” pot, which is pictured on the classic Duoteli yellow box liu bao. There are several different sizes of this pot indicated by number, No. 2 I believe being the size on the Duoteli box. This shape seems to have been introduced very early on, and supposedly a way of dating Nixing pots in general is that older pots tend to have have carving on its own, with the brighter coloration in the carving lines starting to show up later on. In addition to different sizes I've also seem different set iterations for the Begonia pot, including the complete set of pot, and 4 cups all of which close in a circular clay case with carving on the outside. Adventure In Every Cup has posted his here on his blog- https://teapotnews.blogspot.com/2018/12 ... ?q=tea+set
There were also reproduction/tribute versions of this design made after the 2000s with better firing and quality control – you can also tell the difference that the reproductions have a maker's seal and muti rather than 3 hole filters.
Identifying older pots... Generally I would say this isn't very hard given their coloration, quality, and distinctive looks - you can tell them apart especially easily once you see them a few times. Other than the Begonia part there are also only a few different major designs that ever seemed to make it to mass export that seem to come up often, so not quite as variable from what I have seen as say Factory 2 Yixing having tons of designs. Being wheel throwing clay they tend to be rounder and wider designs (one of the other common ones being called 'the Pearl'). Often times they come in, or at least originally, as sets. You'll find random hand/finger prints that weren't bothered to be fixed which I am guessing is the result of being taken out of a slip or injection mold, as well as some often quite crude cutting and carving marks. Typically they are larger in size – more in the 300-500ml or even bigger range, often with an infuser basket, though smaller ones were made in designs other than the Begonia, they just don't seem to show up as often. Most have pretty bad spouts and just 3 hole filters. The lid on almost all of these older pots I have seen are also very shallow, they sit on a lip on the pot and don't really have skirts to them. No artist seals on these mass production pots either – just a 'made in china' stamp, and sometimes an additional number and sometimes the made in china mark is even scraped off or was never marked leaving the bottom blank. Compared to modern pots the colors tend to be lighter and the clay is rather different- more porous and rough inside to me, I am guessing this is in part due to a lot of the firing being lower.
I don't want to repeat such claims since I've never seen any definitive evidence or study, but it seems some vendors (probably with very limited success at least so far) try and make claims about older Nixing pots being 'better' due to the clay being 'cleaner' and are trying to create more buzz around these older pots, presumably to be able to sell them for more. I have no idea what the going rates and actual availability of such pots are in China and elsewhere in Asia, but in my experience they aren't too hard to find even in Europe - it is finding the good condition ones that just takes patience rather than money. A lot of it seems to me to be trying to tap in to people's general conceptions of and the history of Yixing. I will say though that in my experience so far the clay is different though. Again I think a big part of this seems to be from firing but could also be from clay processing changing since I have no idea what is any changes were possibly made over time. Part of the reason I make the firing assumption is because a lot of these older pots are more on the pale/liver colored side of things and don't generally tend to show as wide of a range of kiln change effects like marbling or darker coloration. Often they have the 'softer' sort of look I feel a lot of other under-fired pots in other clay types also exhibit. I do think Nixing's reputation for being 'muting' comes more from this production time period. I don't find my modern Nixing as muting as its reputation seems to be most of the time, just noticeably different than Yixing or porcelain with more emphasis on body and mouthfeel over enhancing aromatics. So to me these older pots with more porous clay and lower firing would make sense to be more on the muting side of things and to establish that reputation. An older pot like this is probably more desirable or interesting to someone who is drinking a lot more wet and 'traditional' stored and processed Liu Bao or other fermented teas. It would make sense to me that the local pottery would be made to interact well with the local tea which is both a product of and remedy to the humid environment. So, while this isn't vintage Zhuni or ROC Yixing, if you drink wet stored tea, or a lot of liu bao, or are just curious, it might be worth your consideration to pick one of these pots up just to try out.
Here is an article on a shop specializing in and/or using vintage Nixing pots and Liu Bao which has quite a few pictures of various classic designs. - https://www.sohu.com/a/279558026_598301 If you do some digging around on the internet you can also find some photos of other pots or sets that were designed and never made it in to manufacture, some of which are pretty bizarre proportionally and involve a lot of stacking...
Just to skim over since it is probably pretty common knowledge Nixing clay is drawn from the two banks of the Qin river. One side has a more iron rich hard clay while the other side is soft and has kaolin like characteristics. How finite this source of clay is/was and how it could possibly have changed over the years I don't quite know... but one side supposedly being denser and the other softer when mixed form a good wheel throwing clay. From what I was able to find it sounded like the earliest goods made using “Nixing”, even before things such as vases or jars, was that the clay was found to be of a good consistency for making clay pipes, as well as parts for puppets - however it isn't totally clear to me but it sounded like that particular “Nixing” clay actually came from a different river. What we now know as 'Nixing' clay goods, coming from Qinzhou, may have started around the end of the Qing/early ROC period supposedly developed by a potter named Li Bulao. This modern Nixing pottery, mainly vases from what I can tell, was what was then shown in exhibitions in the US and Belgium and helped to establish a larger industry.
Now, enter teapots... from what I was able to figure out it seems that the first teapots, or at least mass manufacture of teapots, started sometime in the 1950s-60s. I suppose it was possibly used before then too since I'm sure pots in various regions were produced using all sorts of clay just because it was there, so in this case I am more referring to Factory type larger scale production of teaware rather than small scale local only or artist made products. This production seems to have really ramped up probably peaking in the 70s or 80s. In many ways it seems like the production peak and subsequent period was probably also Nixing's worst time in many ways too. Anyone who has seen and handled older Nixing pots can tell that as a generalization the quality ranges from not that great to downright awful. Most of the pots are I am guessing slip cast or mold assisted in some way in parts and then hand finished or assembled, but the workmanship is often very rough and sloppy, the firing is super inconsistent, so on... Clearly a lot of goods were produced, but a lot of it probably being of pretty undesirable quality, which if the industry was intending to compete with or alongside Yixing at that time stood no chance. I know there was export to parts of southeast Asia, perhaps marketed to people who couldn't afford Yixing goods or as direct competition. From what I see come up for sale plenty also made its way over to Europe too, most of which given the condition I see it in was probably used as very cheap vitrine ware goods. All that said, there are pieces out there that aren't half bad – so the tricky thing isn't so much finding old Nixing pots or other teaware, its finding ones that are actually decently produced and fired that takes hunting.
Probably the most famous Nixing pot is the classic “Begonia” pot, which is pictured on the classic Duoteli yellow box liu bao. There are several different sizes of this pot indicated by number, No. 2 I believe being the size on the Duoteli box. This shape seems to have been introduced very early on, and supposedly a way of dating Nixing pots in general is that older pots tend to have have carving on its own, with the brighter coloration in the carving lines starting to show up later on. In addition to different sizes I've also seem different set iterations for the Begonia pot, including the complete set of pot, and 4 cups all of which close in a circular clay case with carving on the outside. Adventure In Every Cup has posted his here on his blog- https://teapotnews.blogspot.com/2018/12 ... ?q=tea+set
There were also reproduction/tribute versions of this design made after the 2000s with better firing and quality control – you can also tell the difference that the reproductions have a maker's seal and muti rather than 3 hole filters.
Identifying older pots... Generally I would say this isn't very hard given their coloration, quality, and distinctive looks - you can tell them apart especially easily once you see them a few times. Other than the Begonia part there are also only a few different major designs that ever seemed to make it to mass export that seem to come up often, so not quite as variable from what I have seen as say Factory 2 Yixing having tons of designs. Being wheel throwing clay they tend to be rounder and wider designs (one of the other common ones being called 'the Pearl'). Often times they come in, or at least originally, as sets. You'll find random hand/finger prints that weren't bothered to be fixed which I am guessing is the result of being taken out of a slip or injection mold, as well as some often quite crude cutting and carving marks. Typically they are larger in size – more in the 300-500ml or even bigger range, often with an infuser basket, though smaller ones were made in designs other than the Begonia, they just don't seem to show up as often. Most have pretty bad spouts and just 3 hole filters. The lid on almost all of these older pots I have seen are also very shallow, they sit on a lip on the pot and don't really have skirts to them. No artist seals on these mass production pots either – just a 'made in china' stamp, and sometimes an additional number and sometimes the made in china mark is even scraped off or was never marked leaving the bottom blank. Compared to modern pots the colors tend to be lighter and the clay is rather different- more porous and rough inside to me, I am guessing this is in part due to a lot of the firing being lower.
I don't want to repeat such claims since I've never seen any definitive evidence or study, but it seems some vendors (probably with very limited success at least so far) try and make claims about older Nixing pots being 'better' due to the clay being 'cleaner' and are trying to create more buzz around these older pots, presumably to be able to sell them for more. I have no idea what the going rates and actual availability of such pots are in China and elsewhere in Asia, but in my experience they aren't too hard to find even in Europe - it is finding the good condition ones that just takes patience rather than money. A lot of it seems to me to be trying to tap in to people's general conceptions of and the history of Yixing. I will say though that in my experience so far the clay is different though. Again I think a big part of this seems to be from firing but could also be from clay processing changing since I have no idea what is any changes were possibly made over time. Part of the reason I make the firing assumption is because a lot of these older pots are more on the pale/liver colored side of things and don't generally tend to show as wide of a range of kiln change effects like marbling or darker coloration. Often they have the 'softer' sort of look I feel a lot of other under-fired pots in other clay types also exhibit. I do think Nixing's reputation for being 'muting' comes more from this production time period. I don't find my modern Nixing as muting as its reputation seems to be most of the time, just noticeably different than Yixing or porcelain with more emphasis on body and mouthfeel over enhancing aromatics. So to me these older pots with more porous clay and lower firing would make sense to be more on the muting side of things and to establish that reputation. An older pot like this is probably more desirable or interesting to someone who is drinking a lot more wet and 'traditional' stored and processed Liu Bao or other fermented teas. It would make sense to me that the local pottery would be made to interact well with the local tea which is both a product of and remedy to the humid environment. So, while this isn't vintage Zhuni or ROC Yixing, if you drink wet stored tea, or a lot of liu bao, or are just curious, it might be worth your consideration to pick one of these pots up just to try out.
Here is an article on a shop specializing in and/or using vintage Nixing pots and Liu Bao which has quite a few pictures of various classic designs. - https://www.sohu.com/a/279558026_598301 If you do some digging around on the internet you can also find some photos of other pots or sets that were designed and never made it in to manufacture, some of which are pretty bizarre proportionally and involve a lot of stacking...