Before reading the basic set (Craig Clunas’s Superfluous Things…), I randomly decided to focus my blog post on ceramics. The passage has less information on ceramics than calligraphy and bronzes. I tried to address the multiple leading questions I had to answer, but some of them are not discussed in the sphere of ceramics. One question that I was unable to answer was how collectors authenticized ceramic objects. For calligraphy, I learned from Hannah’s post that a proper label, mark, or seal would more likely be on genuine, original calligraphic works.
However, the absence of information makes sense; forgery and counterfeits in ceramics occurred less frequently than in calligraphy and bronzes because the creating process requires additional effort to mold and fire the object to at least appear real.
This week encouraged me to continue digging into this topic for my final research idea, specifically to figure out what distinguished counterfeit ceramics from genuine ceramics.
Things I Learned this Week
- Forgery in calligraphy was difficult to authenticize by analyzing handwriting.
- Authentication in calligraphy can be done by finding an official label, mark, or seal on the writing.
- Calligraphic and bronze counterfeits were more common than ceramic counterfeits.
Bibliographic Reference
Clunas, Craig. Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China. Honolulu: Univ Of Hawai’i Press, 2016.
