With books and paintings on paper, it undertakes the mission of cultural communication. It is rare to hide the paper in the form of study and play. Most of them are products after Qing Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, the paper was not so much used for painting, but as a symbol of authority, to satisfy the emperor, the dignitaries, and the luxury of wealth, rather than the desire of real literati. In the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Houzhu once made chengxintang paper. When this kind of colored paper was introduced to Qianlong, Hongli loved it very much and ordered to copy "Qianlong imitated chengxintang paper".
Because Qianlong liked luxury, the paper products of the Qing Dynasty such as wax paper, sprinkling gold paper, color paper, pattern paper, gold foil paper, and so on emerged one after another. There was even paper with patterns and waxing and sprinkling gold more than 3 meters. The contents of the paper included landscape, terrace, cloud dragon, Phoenix, birds and animals, flowers, and so on, It's a pity that this kind of pattern paper has become a rarity now. Shuhuai - Shijian is another kind of valuable paper in the Qing Dynasty. This kind of paper is used to write poems or letters and is printed by the watermark technique. It was usually drawn by famous painters in Qing Dynasty and then printed in color. In addition, there are poems on which bronze wares of the Shang and Zhou dynasties are painted, or words and sentences on inscriptions and ancient steles are depicted by the double hook method. It is difficult to find the taojian mentioned above. Only a few of the Qingjian from the late Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China has survived, but its price is very expensive.
Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, local resources have been used to produce writing paper. Such as Jingxian Niaowen Xuan paper, Luhuang Xuan, Xiaoling Hupi Xuan, Sichuan Jiajiang Xuan, Hebei Qian'an calligraphy and painting Xuan, Hunan Liuyang Gong Xuan, Guangdong Renhua Changjiang Xuan, Hubei Qianshan hanpi Xuan, Jiangxi Qianshan Lianshi Xuan, Shaanxi Zhenba Qinbao Xuan, and so on. Among them, "Luhuang Xuan" is the king of Xuan paper, which is rare in the world, and people call it "national treasure". The Xuan paper is a super-pure leather Xuan paper. It has many advantages such as white jade, Kizawa Miya, clear texture, fine rattan, strong pulling force, anti-aging, easy to break, suitable preservation, anti-corrosion, moderate ink absorption, and clear rhyme.
The first step to identify ancient paper is to determine the age, which can be roughly divided into four periods: the early Qing Dynasty, the middle Qing Dynasty, the late Qing Dynasty, and the early Republic of China. There is a less good paper from the period of tomorrow Qi to the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, and the paper in the Jiaqing period is mostly imitated from the previous dynasty, so the paper in the Qianlong period is the most valuable. Secondly, it's better not to believe the time when it was printed on paper because a large number of the emperor's special papers of the Qianlong period were imitated in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The author found dozens of kinds in the antique market, almost all of which were fakes. Third, we should be familiar with the production characteristics, forms, and decorative patterns of various kinds of paper. Fourth, to see whether the paper surface is smooth and even, whether there are miscellaneous stains or color of the old, whether natural. Usually, the ancient paper is thick, broken into small pieces, and the cross-section is mostly twill.