When it came to the origins of the brush washer, Huo Sining found it intriguously coincidental.
Last year, before heading to Dongyang, she took the Secret Color Porcelain swapped from Taicheng Museum back to Zhou Shitao's residence.
At the Zhou Residence, she learned about the existence of Zhong Fang for the first time and also heard from Zhou Shitao about the time he was deceived.
Back then, the object Zhou Shitao presented was precisely a Sky-blue Glazed Brush Washer.
That brush washer was a Northern Song Ru Kiln Lotus Flower Brush Washer, and Ru Kiln ranked first among the five most renowned kilns of the Song Dynasty, known for its exquisite craftsmanship and short-lived prosperity of only twenty years, making genuine artifacts extremely rare. The forgery of that brush washer convinced Zhou Shitao he had struck a great bargain, leading him to spend a fortune to acquire it.
