Houdian writing brush

Produced in Hengshui, Hebei Province. Houdian pen-making industry began in Yongle of Ming Dynasty and flourished in Qing Dynasty. According to legend, during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a pen maker named Li Wenkui in Houdian who opened a pen shop in Beijing. Because of his excellent writing brush, he was attracted by a eunuch who loved calligraphy. On one occasion, he recommended Li Wenkui's brush in front of Emperor Guangxu. As soon as Guangxu used it well, he named it "Imperial Pen of the Court", which became famous. Scholars and officials in Beijing rushed to buy Li Wenkui's "Houdian Brush", and Bizhuang became increasingly prosperous. Since then, Houdian's unique pen-making technology has been handed down from generation to generation. The main raw materials of Houdian brush are animal hair and tail hair. After experiments, they selected more than 40 kinds of hairs, such as yellow wolf tail, fragrant raccoon tail, stone badger hair, Nanshan wool and cow ear hair, and winter wool was the best. Only after five major processes, such as basin, dry farming, odd jobs, straight lettering and packaging, and seventy-three small processes, can they make brushes with different specifications, shapes and uses. It has the advantages of moderate toughness, uniform rigidity and softness, large ink content and difficult depilation.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)