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Good evening forum
Not sure if anyone would be familiar with.. or can possibly translate the marks on the bottom of my yixing zisha tea container so I can learn the time period of creation. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

A nice YiXing tea caddy. The mark reads Gu Zi Ni Fang Yang.

古紫泥坊羊 Literally: Old, Purple, Clay, shop or street. The Yang (meaning 'sheep') is probably a shortened form of an indication of good fortune or similar.

The large circular mark has two large seal script characters at either side, which are read together from the right as "Jixiang" (吉祥 - "Auspicious"). Then the center stack reads down from the top in seal script as "Zini Fang (紫泥坊 - Purple Mud Workshop). The two seal script characters in the double-gourd reserve are a bit indistinct but seem to be "Shun Xing" (順倖 - Favorable and fortunate".

I found a Google link (imbedded below) to a December 2013 Chinese online forum where the poster had a tea container with the same circular mark but no added double gourd that looked oldish but drew a response of new goods. I saw some other pieces including one tea container labeled as by the same workshop but no picture of the base-marks, if there were any, just the inscribed sides.

FYI, the term "Zini, translated here as "Purple Mud", also can be read as "Purple Seal", as in a purple wax seal. I believe "Purple Mud" is the apt choice, as it seems to be used used in making the mid-grade quality pots at Yixing.

Best regards,

Bill H.

URL Title :Yixing tea container

Thank you MikeOZ and Bill H for your replies. I did find a link to an auction at Christies for a very similar tea caddy from the early 20th century. Do you think my caddy is older or newer? The mark on the newer one does differ in character placement from the mark on mine. Not what sure what that would mean.

link attached

URL Title :yixing christies link

The Christie's tea caddy showed at least a modicum of wear and enough differences in color to suggest age. Yours looks very fresh and uniformly darker than the Christie's example. While looks can be deceiving, on the surface your caddy looks to be newer.

The placement of the mark may not bear any implications for age, considering that the marks probably are applied by hand. There may be a greater implication in that neither the Christie's nor the one said to be new that I found online had the accompanying double-gourd mark. However, until more comparative information surfaces on this particular style of caddy, it will be difficult to figure out where the weight of this implication really lies.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Dear Bill,

Thanks for correcting my reading of Ji as Gu. My eyes must be getting dim with age.

Quite a nice caddy - pity we don't have dimensions.

Mike

Mike Oz, don't feel bad. My best trick to translating some of this stuff is first to decipher the most obvious characters, then Google-search them using asterisks to nail the ones I can't fathom. Seems like there's always a sale or forum discussion somewhere in China when it comes to pottery and porcelain wares with Yixing and older Jingdezhen marks.

Cheers,

Bill H.

Dimensions are 5.5" height by 3.25 tapering to 2.5" each side.

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