Liufang Bamboo – Handmade Yixing Purple-clay Qingshuini Raw-ores Zisha Teapot

Qingqu 清趣 Refined tastes

Qingxindequ 清心得趣 Clear minds and get pleasures

Suici Yu Gu Yangxian 歲次于古陽羡 at Yixing (Yangxian, the ancient name of Yixing)

Dingyou Nian 丁酉年 Year of Dingyou

Yinjun Bi 一軍筆 Yijun wrote

Contraction ratio: 12%

Introduction:

Engraving means carving words or pictures on wood or stone with a knife, as is the case with the engraved Zisha pottery, that is, carving words and pictures on the walls of Zisha pottery. Engraving is a very common decoration technique and the main form of the decoration of Zisha teapots, by leaving poems and songs, flowers, birds, insects and fish, and landscape and figures on teapots, the art of literature, calligraphy, painting and seal cutting has been added to the teapots.

Purple-clay 紫砂 [zǐ shā] is famous of high in iron and silicon contents, featuring high plasticity, the glossier surface the more useages of brewing tea. Tea sets made from purple-clay is not normally glazed. A finished product is primarily purple, thus it is named. This pottery can be divided into different colors, such as purple-brown “purple clay” which is in amaranth or light purple; gray-yellow “green clay” in gray or gray-blue; vermeil “red clay” in red-brown. Purple-clay tea set has a long history in China. Su Shi, the great scholar of the Song Dynasty, had designed a pot with handle, called “Dongpo Pot with Loop Handle”. In the Ming Dynasty, making loose tea in a small pot was popular, which led to the development of purple-clay pots.