Zhengde blue sea dragon copper warm inkstone

[Zhengde Blue Sea Tengjiao Copper Warm Inkstone]

Zhengde Blue Sea Tengjiao Copper Warm Inkstone, Ming Zhengde, 23.7 cm long, 11.4 cm wide, and 11 cm high
The inkstone is made of copper, rectangular box type, consisting of the inkstone body, box cover and warm drawer. There is no inkstone, and the ink is grinded directly on the surface of the copper inkstone. The warm drawer is used to burn carbon fire and is placed on the lower layer of the inkstone body to prevent the ink on the inkstone from freezing in the cold winter. The lower wall of the inkstone body is a movable insert plate. The insert plate can be pulled out and placed in the warm drawer at will. Because of its function, it is named Warm Inkstone
Every part of the warm inkstone is cast with exquisite pictures. The upper part of the inkstone is the picture of “the blue sea leaps over the dragon”. The four walls of the inkstone are cast with the pictures of “winning the laurel in the middle of the moon”, “the Maple Chen offers advice”, “the Jade Emperor moves towards the sun” and the plum blossom, with poems. The cover of the box is a picture of a fish leaping over a dragon’s gate, and the upper part is engraved with a seven-character quatrain in regular script:
The mountainside stone has been moist for thousands of years, and the sea eye spring does not dry in a day
All the people in the world look forward to the rain, and the dragon will stop rolling here
The official “Zhengde Jimao (1519) was lucky in the autumn and September, and gave the Wuchen Scholars the same knowledge about Yangzhou and Pinghu, Sun Xi, to order the casting”
Most of the handed down warm inkstones were made in the Qing Dynasty. This is not only a rare work of the Ming Dynasty, but also the identity of the owner of the inkstone and the specific time of making the inkstone in the inscription, which enriched its historical connotation.

正德款碧海腾蛟铜暖砚拓片