Chapter 410 Ancient Greek Pottery Vase

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"Young master, these are the works of art that Wang Jiu and they picked up in August, a total of 137 pieces, all of them are here!"

He took the list handed over by Uncle Zhong and took a brief look at it! He had not yet understood the collection of domestic artworks, so he naturally did not know the specific value of foreign artworks. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Is there anything in here that is worthy of a first-class cultural relic?"

"Yes!"

Uncle Zhong nodded.

"Where's it, show it to me!" Wang Zheng's eyes lit up!

Uncle Zhong, who knew the location of all the artworks well, quickly moved out a tightly sealed wooden box with a height of about 120 centimeters and a length and width of about 90 centimeters with the help of Wang Fu, an expert in the mountain museum.

The wooden box was carefully dismantled with tools, and wrapped in layers of sponge filling, a jar with two ears, a flared round bottom, red and black painted on the surface, and a height of about 55 cm was presented in front of Wang Zheng.

It is different from the style of clay pots that are popular in China. The round mouth of this jar is nearly 60 centimeters in diameter, and the lower it goes, the thinner the waist. The diameter of the bottom part of the tray that connects to the bottom tray is only about 18 cm. If I had to use a figurative metaphor, this thing is more like an enlarged version of the spittoon, with a thick round base underneath.

Of course, although the shape of the jar is chic, what really attracts you is the exquisite ornamentation on the surface of the jar.

Wang Zheng took a closer look and found that the ornamentation on the surface of the jar was mainly divided into two groups. One of them was a warrior dressed as an ancient Greek, stabbing a spear into the chest of a struggling figure who had fallen to the ground. There are also four different images next to it, but they are all warriors with shields in their hands and wielding long knives.

The other depicts a young man arming himself. From being unarmed at the beginning, to putting on armor, taking up arms, to going on a campaign.

The two sets of paintings are completely Western classical painting methods, and the characters are very realistic!

Although I don't know the origin of this jar, I know that this thing is not simple just by the exquisite ornamentation and the simplicity revealed from it.

Of course, it's not simple, it's not simple, and Wang Zheng still has to ask about it.

"Wang Fu, do you know the origin of this thing?"

The other party nodded, although Wang Fu is only a biochemical person of the 'antique appraiser' template that Wang Zheng replaced from the system, not a teacher and student of antique appraisers directly rewarded by the system like Wang Sen and Wang Jiu, and he can't pick up leaks for Wang Zheng, but in terms of the identification ability of artworks alone, he is not worse than Wang Sen and Wang Jiu!

"Boss, this is an ancient Greek pottery vase!

"Exekias?" After muttering to himself, Wang Zheng nodded with interest, "Tell me more about it?"

"Yes!" Wang Fu agreed, "When it comes to ancient Greek pottery vases, we must talk about ancient Greek paintings." Ancient Greek vase painting is a decorative painting on Greek pottery, which has been handed down by attaching to pottery and representing the style of Greek painting. It is rich in content, profound in meaning, diverse in style, exquisite in technique, very highly decorative, and has a very high artistic level, which occupies an extremely important position in Greek art. Greek pottery mainly has two categories: bottles and cans for wine and cups and bowls for drinking, the decorative paintings of bottles and jars are mostly painted on the abdomen, the picture unfolds approximately square, and the decorative paintings of cups and bowls are divided into inside and outside, the decorative paintings on the inside are circular pictures, and the outer ones are circular. This is also evident in this 'Exekchias vase'. ”

“… In addition, the ancient Greek bottle paintings are rich in content, mostly mythological stories and heroic legends, mythological story paintings, are the image materials of mythology, reflecting a wide range of life, such as war, hunting, production, family, entertainment, sports, etc., and so on. Just like the 'Exekias pottery vase' we see now, the two sets of ornaments on its abdomen are the 'Death of Ajax the Great' which reflects ancient Greek mythology, and the war story that reflects the Athenian youth arming themselves!"

"The painting style of the 'Execchias vase' is based on red and painted with a black image. In ancient Greek painting, this style was called 'black flower', also known as black painting. This is the main depiction of ancient Greek painting in the early part of ancient Greece, that is, in the sixth century B.C., and the representative of ancient Greece for this kind of black painting is 'Exechias'!"

"What distinguishes it from black painting is that the 'red painting' that appeared in ancient Greece around the fifth century BC, as the name suggests, is black as the base and painted with a light red image. The most famous red painter in the history of ancient Greek painting is 'Opronios'!"

"Red painting and black painting are the two most famous and important ways of painting in ancient Greek painting. However, before the two, in the seventh century BC, there was an oriental style of ancient Greek painting. Because of the export to the Orient, so considering the aesthetics and practicality of the Oriental people, mainly to the flora and fauna decorative patterns, sometimes directly using the Oriental patterns, followed by enhancing the decorative interest, the flora and fauna to be patterned. ”

"'Oriental style', 'black painting style' and 'red painting style' are the most important artistic expressions of ancient Greek pottery. And 'black painting', 'red painting', and in the classical period of ancient Greece, that is, in the fourth century B.C., a kind of 'white background color painting' became popular, are the three main artistic expressions of ancient Greek pottery!"

After listening to Wang Fu's eloquent talk about popular science, Wang Zheng also has a general understanding of the origin and art form of ancient Greek painting.

However, he was more concerned about the value of this ancient Greek vase than his mastery of appraisal knowledge.

"Since it's a BC thing, I think it's precious, right?"

"Boss, this thing can't be described as precious, it is completely worthy of the level of 'Treasure of the Town Hall'! The top world-class art treasure!" Wang Fu said excitedly.

"Is it so powerful?" Wang Zheng was a little incredulous. Because in the Chinese collecting world, pottery is the least valuable! Of course, this is not absolute. Black pottery like the domestic Dawenkou culture and Longshan culture has become the top artwork in the pottery because of its unique shape and extremely high craftsmanship!

"Of course!"

Wang Fu nodded vigorously, "In the world today, there are only two pieces of pottery made by 'Exechias' that have survived, one is the 'Ajax and Achilles Dice Roll' stored in the 'Vatican Museums' in Greece, and the other is the 'Dionysus Crossing the Sea' preserved in the 'Bavarian State Museum of Antiquities' in Germany. The former is a Greek national treasure, and the latter is a treasure of the town!"

"In addition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States also has a treasure called 'Euphronios Pottery Vase'! But he survived nearly a century later!"

Hearing Wang Fu say this, Wang Zheng has a deeper understanding of the value of this pottery.

"In this way, its value is the same level as 'Yue Wang Goujian Sword' and 'Wu Wangfu Cha Spear', or 'Simu Wu Dafang Ding'?"

"That's right! 'Simuwu Dafang Ding' is the representative of Chinese bronze culture, and this 'Exekias pottery vase' is a representative of ancient Greek painting! They are the masterpieces of the ancient works of art of the two ancient civilizations!"

Hearing this, Wang Zheng's vision of this 'Exekia pottery vase' was different. The look of interest can be called 'happy to see the hunt'!

"How did Xie Huan get such a precious thing? And isn't he from Cairo, Egypt?"

Xie Huan said that he had received the pottery from a small merchant in Cairo, who did not recognize the cuneiform script on it, and thought it was ordinary pottery. It has always been used by the small merchant to hold macaroni to make the local Egyptian food 'kushali', so there is a lot of sundries on it. He stumbled upon it one day when he went to lunch, made an excuse and bought it for 100 Egyptian pounds!" explained Uncle Chung.

"One hundred Egyptian pounds?" Wang Zheng didn't care what the exchange rate between the Egyptian pound and the Chinese dollar was, even if it was comparable to the pound sterling, he would make a lot of money this time. No, it should be said that it is a lot of money.

"As for why this ancient Greek pottery appeared in Egypt, in fact, it was originally intended for export, and trade between Mediterranean countries began before the 8th century BC. In addition, around 750 BC, as the population grew, the Greeks of Athens began to colonize the country. Over the next 250 years, new Greek city-states spread across the Mediterranean coast, including Asia Minor and North Africa. Among the city-states, the most powerful were Sparta and Athens. So, it's normal for Greek things to appear in Egypt!"

After listening to Wang Fu's explanation, thinking that he was about to completely return the historical knowledge to the teacher, Wang Zheng nodded.

After satisfying his curiosity, Wang Zheng's attention shifted to other artworks.

"In addition to this ancient Greek 'Exekias pottery vase', are there any other first-class cultural relics in it?"

"Yes!"

Uncle Zhong nodded, and together with Wang Fu, he lifted out a long wooden box about 90 centimeters long and about 50 centimeters wide and high. Carefully unpacked, the outer sponge was removed, and the red soft cloth wrapped around the periphery was removed, and a black long box with a length of 60 cm and a width of about 25 cm was presented in Wang Zheng's eyes.

When Uncle Zhong put the long box on the table next to him and opened it, it was wrapped in a thick yellow soft cloth inside!

Although Wang Zheng doesn't know what's inside, just looking at the three layers here and the three layers outside, and the way they are tightly protected, he knows that the things inside are not simple.

Sure enough, it wasn't until Uncle Zhong opened the yellow soft cloth package and took out the contents to open it that Wang Zheng really knew what it was!

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