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I have a beautiful Chinese Bowl with a blue 4 character mark and 2 blue circles on the base. I saw it described as above. Can you please give me a translation of the characters. I have tried myself without success. kind regards thank you,







Link :Shakespeare

I believe your dish has an apocryphal mark of the first Ming emperor, reading "Made during the Hong Wu Reign" (Hong Wu Nian Zhi - 洪武年製), which ran from 1368 to 1398. You don't show enough detail of the piece to verify your 19th century date of manufacture. The Ming mark and what appears to be a crackle glaze under the dragon decoration makes me think it may be Republic period (1912-49) or a bit later.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thank you so much for your information. I am attaching more photographs of the bowl. It does have a crackle glaze. Is this 20th century in your opinion, many thanks

I'd give you better than even odds that this dish is a product of the late 20th to 21st century. In addition to the crackle glaze, which indicates the dish is soft pottery and not high-fired porcelain, the base has been given a whitewash of opaque glaze meant to showcase the faux mark of the Kangxi period and could possibly cover damage on the base as well. The contending dragons and what I guess are surrounding cloud forms may have been painted over printed transfers, and the cloud forms also may have been alternately flipped to avoid detection as modern transfer printed appliques.

Best regards,

Bill H.

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