Is this chinese?

[ivomd]

Hi guys,

 

These don't seem to be chinese signs? Can anyone translate if they do are?

 

Thanks!

[889]

Of course they are Chinese characters. Somewhat loosely based on oracle bone script.

 

http://www.vgfun.net/lee/langpage/scripts/other/oraclebone03.png

[ivomd]

Thanks. This is the rest of the text. Can you translate? They just seemed odd to me.

Thanks!

[889]

Just a note for anyone posting requests here for translations on works of art and such:

 

The main inscription, to the right, is usually just some poetic rambling, often taken from Chinese classics. Both hard to translate and not very helpful if you do so.

 

The interesting bits of an inscription are almost always at the far left; if you're lucky, this will contain the name of the artist, a date, and sometime even a location.

 

Point is, when you post inscriptions you need to take care to show the left-most portion clearly, and head-on.

[Publius]

Doesn't make any sense.

20 characters are supposed to be a poem. Have tried every direction but can't seem to find two characters that rhyme. (Of course I can only recognize maybe half)

[ivomd]

Does this help?

[Publius]

壬戌夏月 Summer of 1982

國華製於 Made by Guohua at

潯陽 Xunyang (a district of Jiujiang city, Jiangxi province, China)

 

Lan Guohua (藍國華) is a famous artist. http://www.artnet.com/artists/lan-guohua/past-auction-results

But I'm not sure about your piece, or if this Guohua is that Guohua. The red seal is unreadable.

Those big characters look more like random decorative patterns than real, meaningful seal script text.

Frankly the whole thing looks suspicious to me.

[ivomd]

Thanks but very strange. I know this is not an antiques forum but maybe I can show the front.

The jar is 100% an old jar most likely around 1900. The baking is from from that period as well as the painting.

The front consists of a very fine! painted love scene.

It really is very fine and very fluent painted. Almost like a cartoon!

But I agree the characters (especially the poem) look suspicious. Maybe they are put there more recently because there was nothing on the back? Like there is a big marker number on the bottom.

Are you really sure the date reads 1982?

Sorry for the bad pictures! Can try some better when it's light.

 

[arrow]

This is just common inscription.

眉寿无疆 寿命昌宜

庚王其子孙万亿年乍宝用之

[Publius]

Yes the front is indeed very nice.

About the date. There's one thing you should know: traditionally the Chinese use a cyclical calendar, the symbols to represent a year repeat every 60 years. So 壬戌 can be 1982 or 1922 or 1862 or 2042.

Sorry for misleading you. My bad.

[ivomd]

Thanks! Didn't know that and interesting!

Should be closer to 1862 I believe.

But I agree that the back is suspicious. Most of these jars have some characters on the back. Maybe someone (here in the west) put these later on because otherwise there was nothing on.

Will see if it is marking but it doesn't look like it.

I have never seen a jar like this with this style. It really is very very well painted but still very simple. It looks like Qian Cai style but still different.