At first glance it looks like jade, but to be exact, stone.

This is a Qingtian stone seal.

The sealing door in the Qingtian stone.

Qingtian stone is produced in Qingtian, Zhejiang Province, and it is not uncommon to find such a seal in Hangzhou. What surprised Tang Yi was that this Qingtian stone seal, according to his judgment, was actually from the Eastern Jin Dynasty!

This has to talk about the history of Qingtian stone carving. It is generally believed that the history of Qingtian stone carving can be traced back to the period of the Six Dynasties, but according to Tang Yi, only Qingtian stone carvings were found during the Six Dynasties, but no Qingtian stone seals were found.

These six dynasties, strictly speaking, are not a specific historical period, but only six dynasties: the Eastern Wu and Eastern Jin dynasties, as well as the Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Because these six dynasties have been in the rich Jiangnan, it can be regarded as a certain continuation, so it has such a name.

The Eastern Jin Dynasty is the second earliest dynasty in the Six Dynasties, and the Qingtian stone seal of the Eastern Jin Dynasty has never been found in archaeology.

In particular, this seal is still the best in Qingtian stone - sealing the door blue!

The sealing door green in Qingtian stone and Tianhuang in Shoushan stone are the top stones pursued by many literati in printing. These two kinds of stone, in addition to the delicate texture, the color is also very good-looking.

Tian Jin's brilliant yellow, even Emperor Qianlong also appreciated, and now the Tian Huang three-chain chapter in the Forbidden City is a typical representative.

And the green of the closed door is actually a kind of green. In ancient China, when it came to blue, it generally referred to blue, such as azure, which is actually sky blue. The green of the closed door is a kind of tender green, a little yellowish. This is because the sealing of the door is also called the sealing of the door Qing, the so-called "Qing", which refers to the pure and free of impurities.

The production of sealed door green is small, the color is less authentic, and the scarcity is expensive, and this stone has not been cheap.

The reason why Tang Yi looks like jade at a glance is because the sealed door is as warm as jade and not dry. This as a seal stone, dry, is taboo, carving knife down, dry is easy to collapse, only warm stone, is suitable for engraving.

Archaeologically, only the Qingtian stone carvings of the Eastern Jin Dynasty have been found, and no seals have been found, and the sealed door is green, and the stone carvings have not even been found in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In Tang Yi's impression, Fengmenqing should have only begun to increase in the Ming Dynasty, and as for when it appeared, he had not dabbled in it.

The literati like to seal the door green, and it is also in line with the quality of the seal door green's subtle inner show, the gentleman in the stone, gentle and elegant. Tang Yi remembered that Jin Shixi had a sealed door green seal.

This stamp is not large, it should be less than four centimeters high, and the side length is also about four centimeters. The shape is very simple, with a square seal and a tile button on it.

The tile button appeared later than the bucket button, and it was the mainstream style of the button in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty. Just like an arched tile buckled on a square base, the "bridge hole" in the middle is just right for threading.

Many of the seals of the Wei and Jin dynasties were borrowed from the Han Dynasty. However, it is not easy to make a tile button from jade. The curvature of the tile of this seal is very beautiful, and the polishing is also very fine, and the cut edge of the square seal base is also very square and regular, which is definitely not something that ordinary craftsmen can do.

These things are all conclusions that Tang Yi made when he didn't read the inscription.

The discovery of the seal of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was a major discovery in itself. Tang Yi is a little strange, it is said that with Pan Yunzhu's historical professional level, he should not understand the surprise, how can he casually put it behind a lattice celadon pen wash? This celadon pen wash is just a product of the Qing Dynasty imitation Song Dynasty.

As a result, Tang Yi turned over and looked at the inscription, and after identifying it, his mouth couldn't close directly!

The inscription is the Four Spirit Seal, which was also popular from the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties. The four spirit seals are a combination of pictographs and words, and the four spirits are engraved around the text.

The so-called four spirits are the four images of Xuanyin: the green dragon, the white tiger, the vermilion bird, and the Xuanwu.

Tang Yi's mouth couldn't close, it had nothing to do with this, it was because of the content of the inscription:

The Seal of Wang Xi!

It sounds a little too simple, but this is Wang Xizhi! Why is his inscription similar to ours now, and it has no characteristics?

What kind of features do you want? The private seal of the Wei and Jin dynasties of the Han Dynasty is generally a "seal", "seal" or "seal" after the name.

Combined with the previous judgment that this seal was a product of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Tang Yi had no reason not to believe that this was not Wang Xizhi's private seal!

Could it be that the contemporaries carved such a seal for collection because they admired Wang Xizhi? Or, someone wants to impersonate Wang Xizhi?

Tang Yi felt that this possibility was too small. If you admire Wang Xizhi, you will not engrave this kind of private seal that Wang Xizhi has. The admiring inscription should be like Zheng Banqiao's admiration for Xu Wei, and engrave a seal similar to "the lackey under the Qingteng Gate".

As for pretending to be Wang Xizhi, with Wang Xizhi's identity background, I'm afraid not many people have the courage to do this. And Wang Xizhi is not easy to pretend, he will be exposed when he writes, who can write his words?

Also, this sealed door is indeed too rare, and when it is put in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, ordinary people can't get such a thing.

On Wang Xizhi's works, this seal has never been seen. That's inevitable, not only can't we see this, but also can't see any of Wang Xizhi's seals, we see his works full of seals, which are all stamped by later generations.

Because in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was no habit of stamping the calligraphy and paintings created by oneself. This matter is controversial academically, but it is generally believed that the private seal on calligraphy and painting began in the Tang Dynasty and became popular in the Song Dynasty.

However, not having this habit does not mean that there is no private seal. The history of the appearance of private seals is much earlier, at least in the Han Dynasty, there were a large number of archaeological discoveries of private seals. Before Qin, the seal was not called the seal, but the seal. Since Qin Shi Huang dedicated the emperor's seal as a seal, official seals and private seals began to be called seals.

In the Han Dynasty, the number of private prints was already very large, and the forms were also very rich, and the general size was not large.

The Wei and Jin dynasties continued the style of the Han Dynasty, so this seal is basically a slight adjustment of the shape of the private seal of the Han Dynasty.

Even the inscription is also a common seal used in the Han Dynasty to copy seals. The shape of the Miao seal font is more square, a bit of the meaning of the book, and the strokes and the small seal are more tactful and different, but bent and entangled. In general, it's still relatively good-looking, and if you're interested, you can search for pictures and see, and won't repeat it.

"What's wrong?"

Tang Yi stared at the seal and was distracted, Zhang Lu shouted twice next to him before he came back to his senses.

Turning his head, Pan Yunzhu was also beside him. Tang Yi raised the seal in his hand, "Professor Pan, this?" ”

"It's just a prank imitation, how can it be Wang Xizhi's private seal?" Pan Yunzhu laughed, "But the material is a real sealed door, and it's an old thing!" ”