The journal is where we write about the questions that come up across the counter and by email: what a vase is worth and how to find out, why Satsuma is not porcelain, what a crackle glaze is and is not, how to buy Asian antiques from abroad without a customs surprise, and what a shipwreck cargo does and does not tell you about a pot. The guides are the reference shelf — reign marks, bases, condition, the periods — and are revised as we learn; the journal is the running commentary, dated, and left as written. Every post is built from museum records and from pieces that have passed through our hands, and where a claim could not be confirmed from a primary source the post says so rather than repeating it.
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How to care for, display and clean antique ceramics
Most damage to old ceramics happens in a sink or on the way to one. Here is how to handle, clean, display and store porcelain, stoneware and earthenware without adding to it,…
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The Joseon moon jar and its join
The seam round the widest point is structural, not a fault — a jar that size cannot be thrown in one piece. Why four museums treat the asymmetry as the point, and…
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Famille rose, verte and noire: the palettes explained
Jacquemart named them in 1862, not 1873. What actually separates famille rose from famille verte — the opaque white, not the pink — and why famille noire is not a fourth palette…
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Celadon, Longquan and Yue: what the words actually mean
Celadon is a Western term for a family of iron-glazed wares, not a colour or a kiln. How Yue and Longquan sit inside it, which glaze names are Japanese, and the one…
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Shipwreck cargo porcelain: the cargoes, the sea-wear, and the part dealers skip
Nanking, Vung Tau, Ca Mau, Tek Sing and Binh Thuan — dates, recoveries and sale results. What seawater does to a glaze, why almost all of it is blue and white, and…
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Buying Asian antiques into and out of the UK: VAT, CITES and the hardwood stand
The effective 5% import VAT rate and how it is calculated, the CITES 10 kg rule that usually exempts a hardwood stand, the Ivory Act’s 2025 extension to four more species, and…
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Ge and Guan crackle: when the crazing is the point
The Met records that Guan crackle is deliberate. What “gold thread and iron wire” means on Ge, why the two are hard to separate, and why Ge is the weakest link in…
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Satsuma is earthenware, not porcelain — and mostly not from Satsuma
Museums catalogue Satsuma as earthenware, which is why the crazing is intrinsic rather than damage. Plus Kyō-Satsuma, the 1873 Vienna exhibition, and a V&A jar dated sixty years wrong by its own…
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How much is my Chinese vase worth? What a dealer looks at, in order
The mark comes fifth. What a dealer actually assesses when valuing Chinese porcelain, and the photographs that make a free valuation useful.