In the 2023 autumn auction of Xiling Seal Society, a masterpiece "Innocent Pot" from Chen Mingyuan, a purple sand saint in the Kangyong period of the Qing Dynasty, fell under the hammer at a price of 18.85 million yuan, plus the commission transaction amount was nearly 21.68 million yuan, creating a very beautiful result in the general downturn of purple sand artworks.
Many years ago, a friend also had a bunch of firewood pots by Chen Mingyuan, which I brought to admire at that time, and kept them in my place for nearly half a month. As a generation of great masters since the Qing Dynasty, Chen Mingyuan expanded the theme of purple sand expression, allowing the flowers, birds, fish, insects and animals in nature to be integrated into the creativity of purple sand art in the way of molding, and stamped with seals like calligraphers and painters to show his responsibility to the buyers. This is also the first initiative of the Chen family since the birth of Zisha art, which opened a precedent for a generation of literati Zisha and set a model of artistic expression for future generations.
When Chen Mingyuan was alive, the price of his pot was very high, he had more intersections with literati and scholars in his life, and he did not have to worry about his livelihood, he lived a rich life since he was a child, and making pots was just a hobby, and there was no need to make pots for a livelihood like other people, so there were not many works left, and the folk were popular in the Qianlong period: the story and legend of the overseas competition for Mingyuan Disc (referring to the purple sand elephant sculpture), according to historical records, Chen Mingyuan casually pinched a purple sand pot, and its price could be worth one or two gold, if calculated according to today's gold price, intuitively calculate 10 taels**A pot** reached nearly 250,000 yuan today, if you follow the purchasing power of the Kangyong period of the Qing Dynasty, plus the historical value, humanistic value and artistic value, it may be equivalent to today's sky-high value of 100 million.
I think that the transaction price of this auction is more than 20 million yuan in absolute terms, which is not expensive at all, just like this year's Guardian Beijing Autumn Auction, the landscape painting of Wang Meng, one of the four Yuan Dynasty artists, was sold for more than 280 million yuan, which is really not too high.
A famous purple sand artwork, there is a history, there is a story, there is a record, any time at any price of the transaction is right, if this work is collected for another 100 years, I think there must be a most reasonable value of return.