"Amitabha."

This made Fang Ming confused, didn't he just say that the Buddha statue in front of him was in the Tang Dynasty or the late Tang Dynasty? How can you say that it is not real? What the hell is going on?

Zhou Yafang, who was standing on the side, didn't understand what kind of medicine Fang Ming was selling in this gourd, although he didn't speak, but the look in Fang Ming's eyes was also a picture of why did you say that.

"Hah!"

Fang Ming knew that what he said before had caused a misunderstanding, so he hurriedly said: "That's the case, this Buddha statue does seem to belong to the style of the Prosperous Tang Dynasty or the Late Tang Dynasty, but I still think it's fake." We know that because the big Buddha is relatively large, it is not as simple as the small Buddha, and some details will be ignored. ”

If it is just a small Buddha, it can be placed on the table, and it is natural to play and study it carefully, but the Buddha statue in front of you is as high as three meters, and a person standing in front of it feels small, how can it be seriously identified?

This is actually a difficult problem in the identification of antiques, small things can be held in the hand to identify, play day and night, so it can be relatively easy to identify, at the same time, because the smaller things from the process of speaking, the more difficult to do, if you are not careful, it will be exposed, in this sense it is also easier to identify.

The big one is different, standing in front of it feels like a big size, so it is not easy to see it carefully, and at the same time, all the parts of the big thing are magnified countless times, so it is much easier in terms of the production process, which also brings great difficulties to the identification.

The big Buddha in front of you is such a situation.

The big Buddha in front of me is made of copper, and bronze has always been an important traditional utensil, so there have been many masters of forgery in the past dynasties, and there have been many masters in this area in modern times alone, and they are all famous.

According to the region, it can be divided into "Weixian made", "West ~ An" and "imperial capital".

400 or 500 years ago, the antique bronzes of Weixian County began, and this place had many old craftsmen of the Qing Dynasty, such as Fan Shouxuan, who was good at carving flowers and inscriptions; There are Wang Xinchen, who is good at carving fine pen inscriptions and can turn sand to make mirrors, and his son Wang Hai and so on.

The antique bronzes in this place have several characteristics, first, generally speaking, they are made in accordance with the catalogue of the "Western Qing Dynasty Gujian", so that a result of the appearance of the article is that the shape and pattern of the late one are not quite in line with the characteristics of the Shang and Zhou bronzes; Second, from the process point of view, the "segmented assembly method" is used.

That is to say, the various parts of the bronze are cast in sections, and then "assembled" into a whole, so that a "seam" is formed that is not a fan mark, and this seam is often connected with tin. There is also a situation that if it is cast with a wax mold, the final bronze is often heavier, and sand holes will appear at the same time; Third, the way to make rust is to soak it in hydrochloric acid first, then bury it in the loess, and then cover it with a wet sack, so that the bronze ware will naturally rust.

There is heaven and there is Suzhou and Hangzhou, which has always been a paradise place, saying that the living environment here is better than other places. Perhaps because the social life and economic conditions here are better than those in other places, Suzhou is also a famous place in terms of imitation of bronze, and even historically, the imitation of bronzes here is earlier than that of the imperial capital.

After the late Qing Dynasty, the famous coppersmiths here have Zhou Meigu, Jin Runsheng, Liu Junqing and others, among them, Zhou Meigu is most often imitated is the cooked pit bronze, Liu Junliao is good at imitating the pit bronze, a large part of the imitation of these two people are out of the country.

Bronze ware, including coins, is divided into pits and cooked pits, so the pit refers to the chemical changes on the surface of the bronze ware due to the interaction of various environmental conditions, and slowly appears with the passage of time or green or red or blue or purple rust color. As for the ripe pit, it refers to some people who play the collection in order to make the surface of the bronze more beautiful or to prevent corrosion and "clean" the copper, after removing the surface of the patina, waxing, so that the surface of the bronze will appear bright and rich color, now in the museum can see many of the bronze is treated in this way, the characteristics of the treated bronze is that it is difficult to corrode again, can be maintained for a long time.

The characteristics of Suzhou's imitation bronze ware are: first, many imitation Shang Dynasty bronze ware in Yinxu, Anyang; Second, the formula of the copper used in the forged bronze ware has its own uniqueness, generally speaking, silver will be added to the copper, so the final formation of the copper is white, as for the skin color of the bronze ware is made by mixing lacquer and color; Third, it is also assembled after casting in a segmented way, and the casting marks that appear are not polished, and sand holes often appear; Fourth, the imitation of bronze is basically different from the real one in terms of size and size; Fifth, the pattern is relatively smooth, which is due to the better copper quality and better craftsmanship; Fifth, if there is an inscription, it is generally engraved deeper; Sixth, a characteristic to be noted is that the edges of the mouths and edges of the imitation bronze ware produced in this place will be relatively "hard", and what is lacking is soft and round, and there is often a feeling of "cutting hands".

Because it is a political and economic center, the imperial capital has always been a center for imitating all kinds of antiques, and the same is true for bronze objects.

In fact, the imitation bronze ware of the imperial capital has formed its own characteristics to a certain extent in order to cater to the preferences of foreign antique dealers.

The most obvious thing is that the bronze ware imitated in this place is often more gorgeous, and at the same time the aspect of the shape is also more peculiar, which is to meet the preference of curiosity, and the most appearing is the heavy and gilded ware of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The most famous are the so-called "Wan Longhe" and "Crooked Mouth Yu", both of which have repaired bronze vessels with the eunuchs of the Qing Palace, which shows that the technology is quite excellent.

The mantle of the crooked mouth was continued by Zhang Taien, and later changed the name to "Wan Longhe", he was also called "bronze Zhang", good at lettering and rusting, turning sand, and there were many disciples under the door, and there were Zhang Wenpu, Wang Deshan, Liu Junqing and others who became famous, among which Zhang Wenjing, who was the nephew of the bronze Zhang, studied the way to rust by soaking patent leather in alcohol and then blending the color, which can be fake and true, and is called "small bronze Zhang".

In the case of such a large number of masters participating in the imitation of bronze objects, there are more bronze objects appearing in the antique market, and even real experts cannot see it.

"Amitabha. Master Fang, you come and listen. ”

Although Yitong is not a professional antique, he actually has a wealth of knowledge in the identification of antiques, which is the same as many people in the monk who understand feng shui and so on.

The big Buddha in front of him, after getting it, he actually conducted a serious appraisal, and at the same time found some masters to identify, and basically the conclusion was that it was true, it was a Buddha statue of Tang. But now Fang Ming said that this was not true. I'm really a little bit confused.

The identification of bronze is actually a very complicated matter, generally including copper, rust color, pattern, style, font, smell, sound, etc., these are important criteria for the identification of copper.

For example, if you see a bronze object that is brass or even white copper, it is definitely not a bronze object before the Song Dynasty. This is because the color of copper is red, if lead, zinc and nickel are added, you can get brass, if you add more, more than half, it is cupronickel. This point can be used to identify bronze objects, mainly by looking at the soles of the bronzes.

"Fang Ming, you tell me in detail, I also think this Buddha statue in front of me is true, in fact, this Buddha statue is also very consistent in terms of rust color, you look at the place of this base, this rust color is like a pool of green water, quite good, I think it is at least a thousand or hundreds of years old, if it is Tang, it is also right in terms of time."

Although there were many believers in the main hall, Zhou Yafang still looked at it carefully for a while, and some people next to him felt strange, but when they saw a few little monks next to them, they no longer came up, and Fang Ming and the others deliberately lowered their voices when they spoke, so they were not afraid of the people around them hearing it.

Fang Ming shook his head and said that rust color is a very important criterion for judging in the identification of bronze artifacts, but it is difficult to prove many times, and the method of judgment is uneven. ”

The rust color of bronze is an aspect of judging the length of time of the existence of bronze, and its formation is related to the way of circulation of bronze, there are three main ways of circulation of bronze, one is into the earth, one is falling into the water, and one is handed down.

The so-called soil means that the bronze objects are buried in the soil and then dug up in later generations; Falling into water means that the bronze has been stored in water or in a relatively humid environment; The hand-me-down has been passed down in the hands of individual players.

Many people think that because of the different ways of circulation, it will cause the rust color of the bronze ware to be different, but in fact there is not much difference. However, even so, there are many kinds of rust colors, and the rust colors that can be seen at present are green, red, black, blue, purple, etc., and in green rust, they are often divided into ordinary green, glass green, and malachite green; The red rust is also divided into cinnabar, including cinnabar spots, in addition to flowing gold.

Of course, with the length of time, the rust color is different in subtle places. For example, the rust color of bronze ware that has been in the soil for thousands of years is pure and warm, if it is green rust, it seems to be emerald, and if it is red rust, it seems to be jade. If it is a bronze vessel that has fallen into the water, the green rust is like the skin of a melon, and the red rust is like a ripe persimmon. If it is handed down, the same time is a little worse in terms of rust color, mainly because the rust color formed in the air is naturally not comparable to that of being buried in the soil or submerged in water.

"Therefore, my opinion is that when appraising bronze objects, the rust color is of course an important basis for making identification judgments, but it cannot be used as the only basis, and it is likely to be wrong."