Lew is always the nitpicking one...haha! He is correct, it is 'Qin', not
'Qing'.

MarhalN, I didn't say that the Seal Script was 'exclusive' to Qing dynasty.
I said it was used during the Qin dynasty. The Da Zhuan or Big Seal Script
was believed to be developed and standardized during Zhou dynasty, in the
7th century BC. The Xiao Zhuan or Small Seal Script was developed and used
during the Qin Dynasty, and accepted widely as a standard form of writing,
the most well known was The Story of Cang Jie, which employed approximately
3000 characters in Small Script, which are rather squarish in form than the
Big Script, which have slightly more elongated characters, and more
pictograph in form.

Chinese writing, especially when employed on calligraphy, often includes the
artist's interpretation and touch on the characters, 2 same characters
written by 2 artists would appear very different, sometimes with little
ornaments here and there. One may say that the words on the pot is not
strictly seal script, but the base of its style is.

And as I have mentioned, besides the 1st character on the left, the others
are very much correctly written in the seal script. And that's not a guess.
:")

Danny


"MarshalN" wrote in message
oups.com...
If we're in nitpicking mode, then seal script wasn't excusively used in
the Qin either, but also before and after.

It's mostly preserved as a calligraphy style nowadays. I don't,
however, think that the words on this pot is strictly seal -- I don't
know seal script that well, but it might be words that are styled in
the seal script style, but would in fact be incorrect based on the
original seal script way to write these words. That's just a guess.