YOU ARE HERE:>>REAL or FAKE>>Fake hares fur bowls page 6

 

In the  two photos below taken at 10X and 30X we are now starting to see a great degree of difference to a very small, but very important, portion of the outside glazed area of the authentic bowl.

 

 

In both photos above we the effects of old scratching, as described above.You can easily see the much more rounded, worn and oxidized scratches to be found on an authentic burial artifact. Also of note, are the scratches going in different directions. This can be caused by wear use or tectonic wear.

 

 

Notice the wear to the chipped out portions of the scratched areas. This is one of the reasons I believe this bowl could have had minor use wear before burial, as these old scratches, with most running horizontally, show more of a pattern of use. But, it is not conclusive enough to say with 100% certainty.

 

 

 




.

In these two photos below we are looking at a pressure crazing in the glaze on the outside of the authentic bowl which has magnificent, and original, oxidation iridescence.

It is in this side to side iridescence we are looking at true Song Period burial identification. You will find other occurrences of this effect on my TimelessArtifact.com web site, and more will be shown in the future. This is a natural effect of long term burial.

 




.

In these two photographs we are looking at the scratching that occurred on the inside of the bowl. We are seeing newer scratches, but some are showing minor wear. These two photos and two inside photos to follow show why I believe the bowl was buried up-side down, as the bowl does not show the same iridescence on the inside as it does on the outside. i would contribute this the outside of the bowl getting more moisture during its long internment underground. Also, with the scratches on the inside of the bowl appearing to be not as throughly worn I would think the inside of the bowl saw less tectonic movement and subsequent smoothing wear tan did the outside. It is also one of the main reasons I can not say conclusively that the bowl saw use wear - there is some definite smoothing wear to the inside scratches but not like what I see on the outside.




.

With the inside bowl photos below, again at 10X and 30X, we can see more of the rounded scratches as described above. While there are sharper areas to be seen in the largest scratches shown above, it is in the smaller, and more horizontal scratching, we find the older and more worn variations.

 

Also of note, are the tiny bits of quartz temper (totally missing on the two replication bowls) which show up her as the white spots with the tops of their glaze missing - this is more indicative again of use wear, especially as they appear on the bottom - but, still not enough to 100% verify it.




.

Finaly in these last two microscopic photographs we are showing a portion of the top rim on the authentic bowl.

 

There is obvious chipping and slight wear to be seen on the chipping of the rim. It even appears to show some wear use smoothing. However with this type of glaze we see how it goes to smooth stoneware in the thinest place - the top portion - which melts in firing and runs down, leaving it almost non-existant. Both the chips and the minor wear are still not conclusive to use wear for this bowl, as it could still be argued it is more of a tectonic nature.

 

This rim was oiled when I first viewed the bowl and thought it might have been re-fired. After the acetone 'bath' the oil was removed and we have what you see here. One last note - there is a small 'bump' on the bottom of the foot rim which has a minor chance of being a chip restored, but it does not look like it under magnification. It appears to be a minor repair when the stone ware was first made, and before the bowl was glazed and fired.

 



.

Many thanks to David for these extremely intersting last few pages and illustrated with such fine photgraphs too.

You will find a great deal more along these lines at David's websites:

David Fredericks and team offer authentications and appraisals of Ancient Chinese jades, pottery, and bronzes.

 

These two associated websites of David's are worth looking too.

Timeless Jade   and Timeless Artifact