Purple Sand Peach-shaped Cup
3 min readPurple Sand Peach-shaped Cup was created in the late Ming Dynasty, which is a tea appliance. It is composed of a cup and a cup holder. With chopped half of peach connected with the branches and leaves as the cup, it is decorated with branches, leaves and flfl owers. The whole cup boasts organic linked peach branches, leaves and fruit. At the cup bottom, three feet also consist of peach branches, leaves and fruit. Inner and outer walls of the cup are smooth and dark. The middle of trunk is hollow, with only traces of scar, which is lifelike image. Sizes of leaves near cup wall vary greatly. The whole artwork appears in high and vigorous spirits. This cup is made of clear and thin mud, which is in dark red. It is extremely rare treasure among Yixing Purple Sand Potteryware. With peach-shaped cup, it enriches people’s imagination, and integrates poetry, calligraphy, seal carving and engraving in one. The usage of drinking tea can also help people get spiritual enjoyment.
The bottom of the cup
Small peaches on the branch add vigor to old branches. Slightly extending leaves, branches and peach are on the same level as three support points at the bottom of the cup so that the peach-shaped cup stands stably on the cup holder.
Yixing Purple Sand Potteryware
Yixing Purple Sand Potteryware is also known as “Zi Sha Tao” or “Zi Sha Qi” in the Chinese language, which is the unique ceramic craft of China. It is worldfamous for various shape, quaint color, hardness, durability and skilled craftsmanship. The most obvious feature of Yixing Purple Sand Potteryware is that it is fifi red with rough purple clay and mostly looks purple red, which generally has no glazing.
Pei Shimin (1892-1977)
Pei Shimin is a modern artist. He devoted to the study and imitation of ancient purple sand artworks in Shanghai, who was very famous. He was good at making cups, plates, furnaces, dings and other artifacts in elegant and chic style, with solid and simple features of bronzeware. After the age of 35, he started to make pure-colored and colored pots, especially the best pots like real fruits. The masterpieces “peach pot”, “mitten crab” and “spring silkworm” are vivid. He ever made cup holder for peach-shaped cup of Xiang Shengsi, and made cover for “spring pot”, which became a much-told story in purple sand community.
Purple sand teapot
Among purple sand products, the most prominent one is purple sand teapot which is mostly a part of tea set regardless it is unearthed or handed-down artwork. As purple sand teapot features various shapes and unique characteristics, which not only has strong ethnic style, but also plays some special functions. For example, when tea is made with boiling water, it never becomes cold in winter, becomes hot in summer, deteriorates in the bubbling, discolors in the storage and sours in midsummer.
Peach
In the opinion of the Chinese people, peach is a kind of auspicious fruit, which can also be used to ward off evil spirits. According to the legend, Queen Mother of the Heaven used jade bowl to contain seven 3000-year-old peaches to grant to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, there is the custom of celebrating birthday with peach. Thanks to ancient crafts, many peach-shaped objects or objects with decorative pattern of peach blossom also appeared.
