Ban Yue《半月》~ "The Half Moon", 138.3ml, *Lao Qing Hui Duan, by Craftsman Zhang Huan, Engraving of Chinese Famous Painting 鹊华秋色图!and its Colophon by Craftsman Wo You ~!CONGRATS TO MR H.H.! 2216hrs 26th Sept 2026, Amsterdam! The Netherlands🇳🇱!
Title truncated above due to 250-character limitation on Shopify platform,
Full title here in respect of this work and its fortunate patron :-D
: Ban Yue《半月》~ "The Half Moon", 138.3ml, *Lao Qing Hui Duan ~Sieve Count 40 老青灰段泥~四十目, by Craftsman Zhang Huan 张欢, Engraving of Chinese Famous Painting 鹊华秋色图!and its 题字(Colophon) by Craftsman Wo You 卧游 ~!CONGRATULATIONS TO MR H.H.! 2216hrs 26th September 2026, Amsterdam! The Netherlands🇳🇱!
AS PROMISED, we will be SPECIALLY incorporating various elements of our Chinese Art, into these Fully-Handmade ZiSha works!
The special, this time, is the incorporation of one of China's top paintings, called the 鹊华秋色图!
The famous《千里江山图》"Qian Li Jiang Shan Tu", the top Qing Lü Shan Shui class painting, is incorporated at Craftsman Gao Xiang's work: 《青岚荷韵》"Qing Lan He Yun"
https://www.realzisha.com/products/%E9%9D%92%E5%B2%9A%E8%8D%B7%E9%9F%B5-qing-lan-he-yun-156-6ml-di-cao-qing-%E5%BA%95%E6%A7%BD%E9%9D%92-%E5%BD%A9%E8%89%B2%E6%B3%A5%E7%BB%98-colour-clay-sculpting-art-of-the-famous-%E5%8D%83%E9%87%8C%E6%B1%9F%E5%B1%B1%E5%9B%BE-qian-li-jiang-shan-tu-and-%E6%99%AF%E5%BE%B7%E9%95%87%E7%82%B9%E5%BD%A9-jing-de-zhen-dian-cai-of-%E8%8D%B7%E8%8A%B1-lotus-flower-by-craftsman-gao-xiang-%E9%AB%98%E7%BF%94
The Chinese words "半月" mean Half-Moon, a revered planet in the dark sky with partial luminosity,
We chose on this Ban Yue, one of the very top representative Shan Shui works of our Chinese Culture! The FAMOUS Shan Shui Painting, done in A.D.1295 by Zhao Meng Fu 赵孟頫!
The《鹊华秋色图》! ~ Yes "The Autumn Colours of the Que and Hua Mountains" by Zhao Meng Fu!
For your quick interest's sake, you may find information about our people's reverence and discussion of this famous painting here :-D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1V4319gAYk&t=777s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOC_K2tZW80&t=405s
More which you can key in the search words: "鹊华秋色图"
ZiSha Art is the most amazing carrier medium, here housing Five aspects of Chinese Cultural Arts, and a beautiful look in to Chinese Painting, Poetry, Calligraphy as well! All five aspects on your hands, plus serving the best teas ever for you on your tea table! Long lasting (lasts beyond a lifetime), easy maintenance, and becomes more beautiful with use and contact, not less!
1. Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft,
2. Painting,
3. Poetry,
3. Calligraphy,
5. Engraving Art and Craft.
Yes, all these engagement with Chinese Artforms, all while going about your daily and healthy mindful sessions at ease, drinking the best tasting Teas!
Savour the journey, dearest Friends :-D
《半月》"Ban Yue ~ The Half Moon
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT SHAPE, and one of the very top archetypal early versions of fhe Ban Yue, is this in the late Ming ~ early Qing period:
DISCOVERED IN THE 17th CENTURY: Late Ming ~ Early Qing.
Although a very old classic, the lines, silhouette and proportions are stylish. A very beautiful forward-looking Oriental shape, and EXTREMELY WELL-MASTERED by Zhang Huan! Seemingly simple, but all the curves are perfected by Zhang.
This《半月》Ban Yue, here matched with our Cao Family's Lao Qing Hui Duan 老青灰段 clay!!!
This is the EXACT SAME Lao Qing Hui Duan and Qing Hui Duan clay 青灰段 that our uncle:
ZiSha Religious Art PRIME MASTER CAO AN XIANG 曹安祥, uses in many, many of his works for the temples!
The Chinese words "半月" mean Half-Moon, a revered planet in the dark sky with partial luminosity,
We chose on this Ban Yue, one of the very top, and FAMOUS Shan Shui Painting, done in 1296 by Zhao Meng Fu!
The 鹊华秋色图! ~ Yes the Autumn Colours of the Que and Hua Mountains by Zhao Meng Fu!
For this Ban Yue, the first half with the Que mountain is proudly utilized in the Engraving Art. We chose the engraving to be done by Craftsman Wo Yue, trusting him to take this painting 28.4cm tall, by 93.2cm wide, and skilfully translate and transcribe it very carefully via the use of engraving on a teapot! Because painting naturally can have colours, gradation and continuity, Engraving Craftsman Wo Yue has quite a HANDFUL to think about, and translate this famous Que Hua Qiu Se Tu onto this ZiSha teapot! We congratulate and dedicate this, our team's effort, for you the fortunate collector, user, Tea Master, and your family and guests to savour during their tea journey!
Wo Yue is also very careful in the application of black ceramic underglaze.
The black underglaze is to couple with the Pot's name Half Moon in meaning,
as black would be solemn, and also black underglaze is able to contrast with and accentuate the dark grayish Lao Qing Hui Duan clay. Cao Lan Fang explains that the black underglaze would not take away anything from the grayish Qing Hui Duan, allowing this half-moon, to really impress with its half-luminosity: just as a half-covered moon would appear dim, but beguiling!
On the opposite face, we also chose the Colophon 提笔 lines on the original painting and Craftsman Wo Yue again CAREFULY PLANNED AND translate all these characters onto a neat 6 columns x 4 characters arrangement, and then beautifully engraves the characters onto this Ban Yue work.
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Craftsman Zhang Huan 张欢, since young, has embarked on his journey of crafting Austere ZiSha works of HIGH QUALITY. He had been noticed and hand-picked by Senior Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng over observation of the past decade, and they have taken him in as their very hardworking disciple and CORE COLLEAGUE.
After three years of perfecting further his already polished skills, his works have consistently been given more than a nod by our Artists, be it Senior Master Lu Xue Feng, Senior Master Cao Lan Fang, Assoc Master Yang Quan Sheng, Assoc Master Li Yan Ru, Assoc Master Du Cheng Yao. Craftsman Zhang is NOW proudly one of us and he will be featuring consistently, and he also works closely with Yi Xiao Ran (featured in our home page video) and also Chen Fa Chu (together both being the longest serving Craftsmen with us). Craftsman Zhang Huan is naturally gifted, and extremely dedicated to perfecting his Art. His works have been noticed and appraised highly. The lines and detailing of his pots are unmatched for their prices. His lines and detailing speak of his EXTREME CARE AND TIME taken to craft each part, each pot. The lines and detailing speak of his fighting through his years from very challenging family conditions since young.
Only a very well-trained, experienced and skilful Craftsman will be able to understand the curves and proportions perfectly, and here beautifully captured and crafted by Craftsman Zhang Huan.
Craftsman Zhao's works are highly scrutinised by our Senior Masters, and deemed to be ready for you, delectable for your use and a long lasting permanent ZiSha work in your collection.
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Again, another tremendous labor of love by our trusted and committed collaborative Craftsman Zhang Huan. It is a team effort and we thank you dearest Friends for your grandest support to the honest and the dedicated Craftsladies and Craftsmen here left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art.
Hold one, hold up one, swing his work around. Carefully examine his Fully-Handmade work. Look at it from afar, from near, and it will grow on you. The whole piece grow on you because 1) he takes reference from what the Senior Masters chose for him, 2) and he amazingly crafts them up EXACTLY as to what the Senior Masters want from him: extreme fine detailing with MUCH THOUGHT on each part, with MUCH TIME spent on every part, section. Because this is what Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art should be, and HOW FULLY-HANDMADE ZISHA ART is so different from and light years ahead of the ubiquitous jigger-machined pots and half-handmade pots masquerading under the sales tagline of "fully-handmade zisha" pots. These latter JM/HHM pots are made in what we call 流水线 a.k.a. 'Factory-Line operation' whereby the main pot body after being jigger-machined or coming off from the mould, is passed to the next worker who fits on the spout, and subsequently this second worker will pass the pot on to another worker who will in turn fit on the handle. Continuing so, the pressed lid is likewise passed to another worker who fit on the lid knob. EACH WORKER has NO IDEA what the other one is doing, and they are always working on fixed time lines stated by the boss. For example, the worker being "passed the baton" a pot with the spout just fixed onto the body by his colleague, will only focus on fixing on the handle, with nil to little regard to WHETHER THE HANDLE fixed on will be cohesive with the spout. Each worker has NO idea of HOW THE FINAL POT WILL LOOK LIKE. Beyond poor craftsmanship and clay, the result of such processes are ugly pots with poor cohesiveness which experienced Artists, Craftsmen and collectors will tell from a metre away. Experienced people in us, do not need to pick up a pot to check whether it is fully-handmade or made of zisha, we can tell from a metre away just by looking at the pot.
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The keywords are: Detailing and Cohesiveness.
A GOOD Fully-Handmade ZiSha Work combines great detailing and cohesiveness.
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Explained, https://www.realzisha.com/blogs/news/actual-zisha-landscape-at-yixing , the Craftsman by selling his hard-worked ZiSha craft at $190-$240, $45-$65 goes to the cost of the craft, inclusive of the fees for the firing for the kiln operator (three times per pot), the packaging boxes, and between $32 to $52 for the clay (Zi Ni Di Cao Qing, Duan Ni and upwards) used per pot. Craftsman takes 3 days (fastest 2.5days) to craft a pot.
If he works 30 days a month without a single day of rest (no family time), he will craft 10-12 pots.
If he crafts for 25 days (five days of rest a month), his output will be 8-10 pots.
The success rate for Zi Ni (e.g. Di Cao Qing, Lao Zi Ni, Da Shui Tan etc) and Duan Ni (e.g. Jiang Po Ni, Qing Hui Duan, etc) is 70% on average. Some times the whole batch of 10 may fail. We have seen our Craftsmen suffer like this very often.
The success rate for Zhu Ni (e.g. Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni) pots is 60%, or 70% with most optimism and at the very, very best. Unfortunately.
All of us at RealZiSha of course, hope for one another, professional colleagues and all, that all the pots will survive firing at the kiln successfully.
[For ZiSha models/designs that are very challenging and more complicated to craft, the time taken to craft will be longer, and the failure rate will be higher as well. Zi Sha by its virtue, have the highest shrinkage rate of all ceramic clay. Zi Ni and Duan Ni thus have that 70% success rate, while Zhu Ni has even higher shrinkage rate and thus even lower success rate (the lowest of all ceramic clay.)]
Our Craftsmen are wholeheartedly committed to the cause of Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and their strictness with their craft and dedication earn our respect. We give a big Thank You all of these Craftsmen, for they are saving what is our common precious tea culture: Tea + Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft. Your support is critical to their livelihood and the existence of this craft for all of the tea fraternity.
Thank you Friends!
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Our Senior Masters have given Craftsman Zhang Huan the full blessings with all of us. He is fully-fledged at RealZiSha. Most important, after all the hard work,
We are very happy that he is now with all of you.
Presenting Zhang Huan and his hard-worked and fine-worked Pieces for you. One by one.
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