中国雅物 · Objects of the Chinese Studio

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The brush is counted first among the Four Treasures of the Study. A common misunderstanding is worth clearing up: 狼毫 'wolf hair' is not wolf at all — it is weasel. The name is a naming habit carried over, not a description of the animal.

毛笔列「文房四宝」之首。有个常见的误会值得说清：所谓「狼毫」并不是狼毛，而是黄鼠狼（鼬）毛，名字是旧称沿袭，不是对动物的描述。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The most famous ink historically came from Huizhou (徽墨), in today's Anhui. An ink stick is also a small sculpture — moulded with landscapes, poems or imperial inscriptions — which is why old sticks are kept as objects rather than used up.

古来以徽州所产「徽墨」最有名。墨条本身也是一件小雕刻：常模印山水、诗文或御题，所以旧墨多被当器物收着，而不只是拿来磨完。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Named after Xuancheng, the old trading town, though the paper is mostly made in nearby Jingxian. 'Paper that lasts a thousand years' is not pure flattery — xuan paper is slightly alkaline, so it resists ageing better than most paper.

以旧时集散地「宣城」得名，纸实际多产于邻近的泾县。「纸寿千年」不算夸张：宣纸偏碱性，耐老化程度高于多数纸张。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The classic four are Duan (端砚, Guangdong), She (歙砚, Jiangxi and Anhui), Taohe (洮河砚, Gansu) and Chengni (澄泥砚, a fired clay). Song writers already put Duan first, and they gave the same reason buyers still give — the stone is fine and moist.

四大名砚：端砚（广东）、歙砚（江西/安徽）、洮河砚（甘肃）、澄泥砚（陶质）。宋代记载已把端砚列在首位，理由与今天买家说的一样——石质细而润。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Made in jade, porcelain, bronze, wood or stone. Small and often finely carved, it is one of the most collected pieces on the desk — and one of the cheapest ways to own a serious carving.

材质有玉、瓷、铜、木、石。体量小、常精雕，是案头最常被收藏的一类，也是花小钱就能得一件正经雕刻的路子。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Literati taste in the late Ming and Qing favoured bamboo brush pots carved with figures or landscapes — a way to keep a landscape on the desk rather than on the wall.

明清文人偏好竹刻笔筒，多刻人物或山水——等于把一幅山水留在案上，而不是挂在墙上。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The weight is the function; the carving is what makes it worth keeping. Shaped as lions, toads or scaled beasts, the pair is meant to be seen as well as used.

压得住是功能，雕得好才是留得下来的理由。多作狮、蟾或瑞兽形，成对摆着，既能用也好看。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Cut from Shoushan, Qingtian, Changhua or Balin stone — the four classic seal stones. On a finished piece of calligraphy the seal is the signature; it can also be carved to order with your own Chinese name.

四大印石：寿山石、青田石、昌化石、巴林石。在完成的字画上，印章就是署名，也可以按你的中文名专门刻一方。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The three parts are often read as 三才 — lid as heaven, saucer as earth, bowl as the person between. That reading is a later literary one; the vessel itself is simply a very practical design that suits any tea.

三件常被附会为「三才」：盖为天、托为地、碗为人。这套说法是后来文人的解读，器物本身其实就是个很好用的设计，什么茶都能泡。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Yixing pots have been made since the Ming, and potters such as Shi Dabin and the scholar Chen Mansheng are still named in the trade. It is a craft object rather than a commodity: prices run from a few dollars to six figures, and the very cheapest are mould-pressed, not hand-made.

明代以来即有声名，时大彬、陈曼生这些名字至今仍被引用。它是工艺品而非商品货，价格从几十元到极高都有——极便宜的多是模具压制，不是手工。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The small-cup habit comes from the gongfu way of brewing, in which many short infusions are poured in succession rather than one long steep — so a large cup would simply go cold.

小杯的习惯来自功夫茶的泡法：多道短出汤，而不是一次久泡。杯子大了，人还没喝完茶就凉了。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

A practical piece rather than an antique form: it became standard only as gongfu tea spread in recent decades. Glass is the usual choice today, because it lets you see the colour of the liquor.

这是实用器，不是古器型：随着近几十年功夫茶的普及才成为标配。今天多用玻璃，图的是能看见汤色。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Bamboo, wood and stone are the usual materials. Carved bamboo-root trays are a collector's category of their own — for many drinkers the tray is the one piece worth spending on.

常见竹、木、石。竹根雕茶盘自成一路，是有人专门收的——对不少人来说，茶席上最值得花钱的就是这块盘。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Tea takes on the smell of anything kept near it, which is why the caddy is one of the few pieces people still spend real money on. Tin was the old standard for keeping a small quantity perfectly airtight.

茶极易吸味，所以茶叶罐是茶席上少数至今仍会花真金白银的一件。旧时以锡罐为标准，密封性好，适合存一小份。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

A recent habit rather than an old ritual — it spread with gongfu tea practice in the 1980s and 90s. The pleasure is the change in the surface, the same satisfaction as 'raising' a zisha pot.

这是近几十年才流行的习惯，随八十、九十年代功夫茶的普及而兴。乐趣在于表面的变化，与「养壶」是同一种满足。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Made famous in the Song, when tea was whisked as a powder and a bowl was judged partly on how it set off the pale foam. The best Song pieces are in museums; kilns in Jianyang have since revived the techniques, so a modern bowl is a reasonable thing to own.

宋代点茶用碗，讲究衬出汤花，建盏因此出名。宋器极品多在博物馆；今天建阳的窑口已把这套技艺恢复起来，所以买当代盏是件说得通的事。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The Han-era 博山炉, shaped as a mountain with pierced 'clouds', is the ancestor of the form. Bronze censers cast in the Ming — the 宣德炉 — remain the most copied style, while porcelain and stoneware are the everyday versions.

汉代博山炉是这一器型的源头，炉盖作山形、镂云纹。明代铸造的宣德炉至今是被仿得最多的样式；瓷与陶则是日常用款。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The smallest and cheapest piece in the incense set, and the one most often given as a small gift — frequently cut with a single line of poetry.

香具里最小、最便宜的一件，也是最常被当作小礼物的——常刻一句诗在上面。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

A modern product rather than an old form: it depends on the smoke being heavier than air, and on a cone made with a hole through the middle. Worth saying plainly — it is a nice piece of design, not a traditional object.

这是现代产品，不是古器型：靠的是烟比空气重，加上特制的中空香塔。说清楚更好——它是件不错的设计，但不是传统器物。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The old practice was to burn a small amount and let it be noticed rather than to fill a room — the aim is a change in the air, not a scent statement.

旧时讲究烧一点点，让它在屋里若有若无——求的是空气变了，不是把屋子熏满。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Long valued in China, Japan and the Middle East, and graded by origin and by how the scent behaves — a good piece smells different when gently warmed than when first lit. Prices for wild pieces have no real ceiling.

中国、日本与中东都早已看重它，按产地和气味表现分级——好的料，缓慢加热时与刚点燃时味道不同。野生料的价格上不封顶。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Sandalwood is a protected species under CITES, so legality depends on origin and paperwork — worth asking about when buying. In Chinese practice it is usually used as a base note alongside agarwood rather than burned in quantity on its own.

檀香属受 CITES 保护的树种，合法性取决于产地与文件——买的时候值得问一句。中式用法里它多作底香，与沉香合着用，很少单独大量烧。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Made at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi from the Yuan dynasty onward. Early Ming pieces used imported cobalt with a high iron content, which pools into dark speckles — a detail collectors still look for and modern workshops still try to reproduce.

元代以来以江西景德镇为主产地。明初用进口高铁钴料，会聚成深色斑点，这个细节至今是收藏者要看、当代作坊要仿的地方。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The Longquan kilns in Zhejiang produced the best-known celadon from the Song onward, and the ware travelled early — it turns up in shipwrecks and sites from Japan to East Africa. The word 'celadon' is European; Chinese simply says 青瓷, 'green ware'.

宋代以来以浙江龙泉窑最负盛名，且外销极早——从日本到东非的沉船与遗址都有出土。「celadon」这个词是欧洲人起的，中文只说「青瓷」。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Called 'the white of China' by European collectors when it reached Europe in the seventeenth century. Ming potter He Chaozong's figures are the benchmark, and the technique — moulded first, then finished by hand — is why a fine figure can still be affordable.

十七世纪传入欧洲时被收藏者称作「中国白」。明代何朝宗的塑像被当作标尺；模制后手工修整的工艺，使好的人物塑像至今仍能做到价格可接受。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The crackle is a controlled flaw: the glaze contracts more than the body as it cools, so it crazes — and rather than hiding that, the tradition treats the pattern as the point. Buying advice follows: 'Ru style' means a modern piece, and a listing should say so.

开片本质是「可控的缺陷」：釉冷却时收缩大于胎，于是裂出纹路——传统不但不掩饰，反而以纹为美。所以买的时候把话说清：「汝窑风格」指的是当代器，商品页应当写明。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

A Qing innovation: it appears in the Kangxi period and peaks under Yongzheng and Qianlong. Most pieces sold today as 'famille rose style' are modern workshop work, which is fine as long as the listing says so.

清代的新品种：康熙晚期出现，雍正、乾隆最盛。今天标「粉彩风格」的多为当代作坊品，只要商品页写明白就无可厚非。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The form is far older than the name, and it did not begin as a flower vase: Song and Yuan examples were made as wine jars, with a lid that could be turned over and used as a cup. The 'plum' reading is a later one.

器型比名字早得多，起初也不是花器：宋元器多为酒器，配套的盖反过来能当杯子用。「梅瓶」这个叫法是后来的。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

It became a scholar's accessory in the Ming and Qing: a painting on a fan could be carried, opened for someone and given away, in a way that a hanging scroll could not.

明清成为文人随身之物：扇面上的书画可以带着走、随手展开给人看，也能送人——这是挂轴做不到的。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

The older of the two Chinese fan forms, and the one that appears most in painting — women in Tang and Song pictures usually hold this rather than a folding fan.

两种中式扇里更早的一种，也是入画最多的：唐宋绘画中的仕女，手里多是团扇，而不是折扇。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Large ones stood in gardens as a substitute for a mountain; small ones sat on the desk. The appraisal is aesthetic rather than geological, and because the shapes form naturally, no two are alike.

大的立于园林中，当作山的替身；小的摆在案上。评判是审美而非地质的；形状天然而成，故无一相同。

Craft & origin · 工艺与来历

Mounting (装裱) is a craft of its own, and a scroll can be re-mounted once the old backing fails — which is how Song and Yuan works are still with us. A blank mounted scroll is a common way to buy the format itself, ready for your own writing.

装裱本身就是一门手艺，托底坏了可以揭裱重装——宋元作品能存到今天，靠的正是这个。空白装裱卷轴也常被买来自己写字。