China’s purple sand tea pots on show

Yixing Purple Sand Pottery Arts Factory leads tea-making culture and art investment in China


A small tea pot made headlines around the world in 2010 when it was sold for 12.32 million RMB ($1.94 million) at China Guardian’s auction in Beijing. It was not made of diamonds or gold, but of purple sand by renowned Chinese potter Gu Jingzhou. Acclaimed artist Wu Fan did the tea pot’s engravings.

Though unfamiliar to many, purple sand has been considered a top-quality material for making tea utensils since the time of China’s Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). New light has been shed on the pottery recently with the growing interest of art aficionados, especially Chinese.

“Purple sand pottery has been leading the recent art investment craze in China. The price jumped about 15 times during the past three years. The reason some of the exhibits here are not for sale is because they are too expensive,” said Seo Hae-jin, head of Sino-Korean Pottery Culture Exchange Base, at Korea Gallery in Insa-dong, central Seoul.

Artists from the Yixing Purple Sand Pottery Arts Factory gathered their representative works for the exhibition in Seoul. At the exhibition currently underway at Korea Gallery, about 170 works by 60 potters are on display.

Established in 1958, Yixing Purple Sand Pottery Arts Factory is the leading group in the field. This show was co-organized by the arts factory, Korean Pottery Society, Yixing Pottery Industry Association and GU TEA.

The combined price of the exhibits is estimated to be well over 1 billion won, according to the organizers. Prices range from about 15,000 won for pottery made for mass distribution, to up to 50 million won for those created by great masters.

Among the potters participating in the exhibition, Bao Zhiqiang holds the title of Chinese Great Master of Arts & Crafts, the highest-level of artisan in China. The list of artists also includes several Jiangsu Great Masters of Arts and Crafts including Shen Hansheng, Jiangsu Celebrities of Arts & Crafts like Shu Dansheng, and State-level Senior Masters of Arts & Crafts like Bao Zhenglan.

 

What makes purple sand pottery so special is of course, the material. The original material is in fact not in the form of purple “sand” but stone which is only found in the Yixing region in Jiangsu Province on the east coast of China.

“First, the stones are weathered on a field. Then they are ground by a millstone and kneaded with water until they turn into clay. This process takes from a year to as long as ten years,” said Seo.

And it requires a specialized technique to make the circular pots and tea cups because the potters do not use spinning wheels but only work with their hands and simple tools.

“The technique is so delicate that the technique to make the purple sand pottery is the No. 1 Intangible Cultural Heritage in China,” said Seo.

Thanks to its excellent viscosity and the deft techniques of the artisans, it is possible to make the works as thin as 1 mm. The works not only have poems or other sayings engraved on them but are also kneaded into various shapes like animals and architecture.

Yixing Purple Sand Pottery Arts Factory is gearing up to promote its works abroad, and chose Korea as a starting point. Korean Pottery Society, which has been maintaining a good relationship with the arts factory for about a decade, is eager to work with them.

“Korean pottery is also of very high quality. In order to promote them in China, it is a good idea to go together with Yixing Purple Sand Pottery Arts Factory. Over 100 tea utensil festivals are held throughout China every year, and everywhere the most valued ones are purple sand pottery,” said Seo.

The exhibition runs through Dec. 26 at Korea Gallery in Insa-dong, central Seoul. Admission is free. For more information, call (02) 720-1161.

By Park Min-young  (claire@heraldcorp.com)