The story of the giant teapot

This huge Yixing teapot was made in 1990 by a potter named 丁志斌 . He is currently the assistant craft master in this trade. The engravings on the front and back side of the teapot were done by a renowned engraving artist 谭泉海. He is currently the national grand master in area of art and craft.

On top of the teapot or rather the lid, there are two mandarin oranges sitting on a couple of leaves. Later I realised that this teapot was made to look like a mandarin orange with the usual rough skin one can find on the fruit.The engraving (on left) consists of two huge character (praising the fruit) follow by the year and the engraver's name. On the right picture, one can see there a 49-characters poem about the fruit written by a poet by the name of Qu Yuan who is  often associated with the dumpling festival in the Chinese culture. I could not understand the content of the poem as it was written almost 2000 years ago during the Spring and Autumn period in the history of China. That was the time the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty was not even born. The poem was neatly and beautifully engraved on the teapot.

Sometimes when one purchases a teapot, it is a good idea to buy one with some engraving to depict the cultural aspects in this trade. Of course, if the engraving is done by a renown artist, it will certainly increase the worth of the teapot.