The specialist guide to Asian antiques and exotic home decor from the far east.

Pretty neat. If anyone can pick up a copy for me it would be much appreciated as I have yet to see in print.

Reactionaries? Make That ‘Collectors’

By DAN LEVIN Published: February 3, 2010
Original article online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/garden/04chinese.html 

TREASURE HUNT A worker at the ACF China furniture factory with a refurbished trunk.

CONTESTANT No. 3, a portly man in suspenders named Cui Xiaosong, clutched a golden mallet and gulped like an executioner having second thoughts. As a guest on China’s wildly popular antiques reality show “Collection World,” Mr. Cui knew he might have to get violent before the next commercial break. The victim? A delicately painted vase he had brought to the show, which he believed to be from the Qing dynasty and worth about $30,000.

“If it’s a fake, will you smash it?” asked the program’s white-gloved host, Wang Gang, as Mr. Cui faced the studio audience and three guest judges.

Mr. Cui nodded. The audience quieted down and Mr. Wang used the final minute to impart a bit of wisdom about collecting antiques in modern-day China: “Just as China opened up, so too is collecting about opening the mind to understand the outside world.”

It was hard to tell whether Mr. Cui was listening, but he certainly heard the host announce the judges’ verdict: “It’s a modern reproduction!”

Mr. Cui winced as he swung the mallet, shattering the vase — and with it his dreams of the wealth it might have brought at auction. Cue the instant replay.

Some four decades after the Cultural Revolution, when many of the country’s centuries-old treasures were defaced or destroyed as a result of Mao’s command to eradicate “the four olds” — old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits — China has reversed its attitude toward antiques. Ming dynasty porcelain vases, 19th-century hardwood furniture and even early 20th-century calligraphy ink pots have become popular status symbols for an emerging middle class eager to display its new wealth and cultural knowledge. The antiques market has become so hot, in fact, that it has given rise to a new category of must-see TV here.

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A 2000 year old, Han dynasty earthenware jar with swirling cloud patterns

A set of Han earthenware painted jugs

Note: All images are clickable.

During our treks and travels, we come across all sorts of rare, unusual and interesting things. Like this 300 year old temple table we stumbled across this past summer. Or this Chinese ancestor painting which eventually wound up permanently wall-mounted in a friends living room. But this cache of Han Dynasty earthenware, which we recently found surely deserves a mention. Now, normally our blog is encompassing of all topics pertaining to antiques, but in this case, these Han dynasty burial items are best described in terms of antiquities and archeology. And though by no means, am I an archeologist,  I must say I understand that there just something really cool about holding an object in your hands made over 2000 years ago (Or for that matter, owning something that can found in museums or at Christies Auction house).

First, a quick lesson in history. Lasting almost 400 years, the Han dynasty (Han Dynasty, 206 B.C- 220 A.D) consisted of two main periods referred to as “Western Han” (Chang’ an) and  “Eastern Han” (Luo yang) which is why you will see Han burial items often referred to in this manner ( Its worthy to note that there does indeed  exist a third and very short in between dynasty named “xin” or “Wang Man”). To put that much time into perspective, lets just say, this was during the same period as the Roman Empire, the silk road and the birth and death of Christ.

Coccon shaped Han dynasty "hu" jar similar to the one in the Kimbell Art Museam

A closer look at the mouth of the above Han dynasty jug

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This from the China Daily / China.org recently:

The chairman of a major pharmaceutical company and his employee died in an explosion caused by a “chemical experiment gone wrong” at the businessman’s residential villa. Police found an instruction book of ozonizer as well as fragments of oxygen cylinders on the fourth floor, suggesting a chemical experiment was in progress. Zhang’s family confirmed he often carried out tests on the fourth floor of the villa. Many chemical materials were stored inside the Zhang residence, police said. Zhang was also an enthusiastic antique collector, who owned a private museum in Taizhou. According to a local media report, Zhang tried to make the antiques he owned appear older, using chemicals, and subsequently sold the pieces off for a profit.

Obviously creating fakes comes at a (heavy) cost. I have had this book called The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals sitting in the office for quite some time which I was thinking to put to go use. However after reading this, I think I will think very carefully, before I cook up any of these recipes,.

The original article reprinted here:

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Here is a nice article I came across on Chinese Symbols on antique-marks.com which is worth posting here. Thanks to them for compiling such a comprehensive list. The original can be found here under “Glossary of Chinese Symbols.”

Glossary of Chinese Symbols – and images found on antique Chinese furniture and other artifacts.

The Chinese Symbols list is not exhaustive but we will add to it as time goes by. The descriptions detailed are only intended to be relevant to how the word or term relates to decoration on Chinese furniture and other Chinese antiques.

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Dear ACF customer,

Beijing has received heavy snow fall and record setting low temperatures over the past week. This, in addition to the closures of many roadways and expressways, has effected customers and businesses equally, in terms of road closings, transportation delays and/or reduced working hours. In keeping with the above, we would like to remind our customers that we also are subject to “mother nature” and consequently during this period, we anticipate minor delays and reduced operating capacity.

In practical terms, this means the delivery dates for any in-progress orders (meaning, currently in our production cue) may potentially be delayed by up to three to five working days. Newly placed orders (orders placed during this period) will not be effected, however we do ask customers to anticipate a slightly extended turn around time. We will of course, work to provide the best service in the fastest manner possible and will handle each order on a case by case basis.

For further status updates please  check the News & Events section on our blog at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/

For those outside of China who would like to know about the recent snowfalls more information can be found here:

BBC News: Beijing officials close schools and mobilise residents to clear roads after the heaviest snowfall for nearly 60 years.

Record Snowfall blankets Beijing.

We thank you for your support and continued business and look forward to working with our friends in this new year.

Roger Schwendeman
Managing Partner
ACF China Home / Millstone Trading Co.

Here’s a somewhat arcane post, yet one that’s incredibly useful for anyone who is either an interior designer, furniture designer or even just someone redecorating their home with one of the many 3d programs like Google sketchup. Which brings me to the topic of this post: where to find 3d models of Chinese furniture

So, here are a few suggested sites:

Free sites:

http://www.3dmodelfree.com/3dmodel/list425-1.htm

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

Paid Sites:

http://www.the123d.com/furniture_collections/asian_furniture_kit.html

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/330344

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_search.aspx?id_category_0=0&search=Chinese+furniture

This wouldn’t a proper blog on Chinese furniture and culture without a least a mention of the Chinese contemporary artist Ai Wei Wei, who reinterprets traditional and classical furniture designs in unexpected ways. In one instance, “officials hat chairs” are carved  from solid blocks of white marble (and with no joinery I might add). In another, a terra-cotta Han dynasty vase is emblazoned with the logo of Coca Cola. An excellent quote by Geoff Manaugh sums up Ai Wei Wei’s work just nicely!

“For “Grapes”, 2008, Ai partially merged ten stools; they force their way into the others structure, like mutant siblings slowly fusing in the womb. Here, several centuries’ worth of artisan furniture production have been hybridized to form something altogether new. In Ai’s Table with Two Legs on the Wall, 1997, a single table has been folded in half to rear up like a horse and rest its legs against the wall. It is cousins with the centaur: a mythic being trapped between two forms, two competing versions of itself. Another table – “Table with Three Legs”, 2008 – has been turned into a spidery mechanism, a low-tech machine of wood, its legs akimbo and stance slightly askew. Carefully poised, it seems so unsure of itself – yet strangely at ease with its unusual new form. Can furniture get drunk?, one might ask. “Table with Three Legs” offers an answer in its very geometry.”

For more on Ai Wei Wei see: http://phillipsartexpert.com/forums/7/597/ or http://www.phillipsdepury.com/exhibitions.aspx?sn=EXUK1009

The Chinese have always prized hardwoods for their dense grain, durability and rich color. But with Beijing being located in the north of China, one must wonder where all those tropical hardwoods being made into classical Chinese furniture today come from? Well, in most cases the answer is the Dong Ba Timber Market or “Dōngbà  mùcái Shìchǎng” (东坝 木材 市场) in Chinese. (Website: http://www.cbdwood.com/)
View Map

Located just on the outskirts of Beijing (outside the 4th ring road on Dong Wei Road), Dong Ba is a large clustering of timber merchants, wood merchants and hard wood suppliers selling lumber and logs reclaimed wood to the nearby furniture  and decorating industry. Obviously this is not a place for the “retail buyer” and for those outside of the furniture industry a visit would be boring a best. But for the carpenter, furniture designer or anyone else interested in digging down deep into the depths of the classical furniture industry in China, Dong Ba makes for a fascinating few hours.

There is a staggering number of imported hardwoods for sale here, ranging from sandalwood to rosewood to ebony, brought in from far reaching places across the globe including Brazil, Laos, Vietnam and West Africa.

The ENORMOUS conference table is made from a single section of a tree – the question is, where did this tree originally come from and was it illegally logged? Your guess is as good as mine…

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People frequently ask me for recommendation on good books to learn about Chinese and Tibetan Antiques. Here are a few from my own collection along with some additional suggestions.

Books of further interest:

The only book I am aware of on Tibetan artifacts and metal working	A worthy edition for those who want to plunge into the symbolism behind it all.	Focuses exclusively on  Tibetan rugs carpets.

This enormous solid wood console (over two meters) which probably dates back to the Ming Dynasty, originally made its home in a temple in Shanxi province before being stumbled upon by us in the far off, dusty dirty corners of the antiques trade. Known in Chinese as a “Gong An,” or roughly a”temple table” the name alludes to its former use and one can’t help but imagine monks keeping quarters with this table. Modestly estimated to be approximately 300 years old, there are several clues to look that allude to its age starting with the wood below the hardware worn to the bone from endless contact over the years.

Note: All images are clickable.

A common feature on many genuine antiques is defacement from the cultural revolution or “Wénhuà Dà Gémìng,” a period of great political and social turmoil in China’s recent history. From roughly 1966 to 1976 Mao Zedong launched a massive campaign to destroy the “four olds”, namely old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. During this time, Red Guards burned antique books, ransacked architecture, shattered old porcelain and destroyed or defaced carvings and even whole pieces of furniture. On the table below, the faces have been rudely hacked away.

The “chao tou” or wing-like swooping edges of the table are carved from a single large log with no visual seams or joints; a practice rarely used in contemporary times.

A second clue to its age and origin is the thin layer or coarse horse hair mesh, between the wood and the lacquer. Not quite refined enough to be considered fabric, this rough layer of hair allows the wood below some freedom to expand and contract according the climate and humidity without cracking the lacquer above.

And then there is the original finish, crackled beautifully through the endless passing of time.

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Li Songtang at his museum in Beijing, where he displays relics saved from demolition sites in the rapidly modernizing city.

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

BEIJING — The destruction of this 800-year-old city usually proceeds as follows: the Chinese character for “demolish” mysteriously appears on the front of an old building, the residents wage a fruitless battle to save their homes, and quicker than you can say “Celebrate the New Beijing,” a wrecking crew arrives, often accompanied by the police, to pulverize the brick-and-timber structure.

But before another chunk of ancient Beijing disappears entirely, a hospice administrator named Li Songtang can often be found poking around the rubble, looking for remnants that honor what was among the world’s best-preserved metropolises until a merciless wave of redevelopment gained the upper hand.

Since the 1970s, when Mao inspired his Red Guards to pummel every “reactionary” Confucius temple and Ming Dynasty statue they could find, Mr. Li has been salvaging architectural remnants and stowing them away, sometimes at considerable risk.

Manchu hitching posts. Ornate wooden doorways. A giant granite horse that graced an emperor’s palace. These and thousands of other objects fill Mr. Li’s warehouse and spill across the grounds of the hospice he runs in Beijing’s eastern suburbs.

Every item has a tale. That Song Dynasty lintel etched with a frenzy of folk scenes? Pulled from a pig sty. The lacquered screen that tells the history of a clan of scholars? Fished from the burn pile.

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Below is very short but useful post reprinted from Wikipedia time-lining the various Chinese Dynasties (Click on H for the history of the dynasty, and E for a table of its emperors (or other rulers).

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This past weekend, ACF China and  The Hutong organized a field trip for local expats here in Beijing to visit an genuine outdoor wholesale antique market, where peasants from the countryside bring un-restored antique furniture and other curios to sell to wholesalers, collectors and restorers. The trip proved a success, allowing attendees a fascinating peek directly into the hidden corners of the antiques industry. A bit dusty, a bit dirty, and situated on the far outskirts of Beijing, this market exists solely through word of mouth and is not found on any map or guidebook. Chris Buckley, owner of Torana Carpets and author of the book “Tibetan Furniture” accompanied us on our excursion and his own post about our tip on his RugDogBlog sums up our trip much better then I can:

“In years gone by furniture vendors from the countryside came right into the city to sell their furniture, but these days with increasing ground rents and lack of space in the city the trade is conducted much further out from the city, in this case about 45 minutes drive from Guo Mao. This spot is strictly a wholesale market, with unrestored items piled high in the warehouses of individual sellers from different parts of China.

In a couple of hours we were only able to scratch the surface of what is a very large market. We visited several vendors from north China (Shanxi and Inner Mongolia), though apparently there are sellers at the market from most regions. It’s been a long time since I have looked at wholesale furniture like this (the last time I looked at it seriously was back in the mid-90s) and it was reassuring to see that there is still old furniture out there! Vendors are now going a lot further afield for their old furniture than in the ’90s and many are bringing in furniture from the border regions versus the central China styles that were more common in previous years. “

Though this particular trip was not a buying trip, we will organize future excursions, buying trips and longer outings, so check back here regularly and/or on  The Hutong’s Website for upcoming dates.  Thanks to Chris Buckley for tagging along and for providing the wonderful group photos shown here.

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ACF China and the The Hutong will be co-organizing a field trip this Saturday morning to visit a outdoor wholesale market where peasants from the countryside bring antique furniture to sell to wholesalers, specialists and restorers. This is an extremely rare opportunity to see where antique furniture comes from and what it looks like in its original un-restored form. 100% wholesale only, this market exists only through word of mouth and cannot be found in any guidebook or map. ACF’s Roger Schwendeman will be accompanying the group as a specialists and guide as well as to answer questions about styles, origins and history.

Estimated time (including travel) will be approximately 2.5 hours total (including 20 minutes each direction of travel time). The group will meet in front of the China World Trade Center (in front of Starbucks across from HSBC) at 10 AM sharp.
View Larger Map

Space is limited for this trip and we can accommodate up to ten people only which means you MUST pre-register. Cost will include transportation. Please wear comfortable clothing which can get dirty as this market is extremely dusty.

Over the years, having spent a fair amount of time in and out of Hong Kong, it suddenly dawned on me that (up until now), this famous Hong Kong antiques street in Central, has yet to be mentioned here. Adding insult to injury, is that fact that for many years, upon my arrival in Hong Kong, I would make a beeline for this street – usually within the first day or so. For those unfamiliar with Hollywood Road (easily reached via the Central-Mid-levels escalator), this long, narrow winding street initially gained its reputation as an antiques market over a hundred or so years prior, when sailors and traders began to sell antiques and artifacts here which were collected during trips into the mainland China. Today, Hollywood Road (and the streets branching off from it)  is littered with small galleries, boutiques and  shops selling trinkets, antiques, Chinese reproduction furniture and even contemporary Chinese art. Its even reputed to be a gateway for smuggled antiquities from China. Though these days, I frequent the street less and less, I still find myself drawn to it from time to time, if only just to appreciate the wide variety of items on display here, often in very attractive surroundings.
View Larger Map

Many of the shops here seem focused on porcelain, pottery and terra cotta – with furniture coming in a close second in the remaining boutiques. Finally, a few smaller nooks and crannies deal in the range of tourist trinkets from calligraphy brushes to Maoist memorabilia, to imitation jade figurines. Thick lacquers, glossy finishes and a distinctly southern Chinese red, black and gold themes are everywhere. Table lamps made from deep sea green ceramics are if anything both stylish and contemporary. Shop owners are a mix of feigned politeness to genuinely interesting to locals who seemed to pride themselves on rudeness. Surprisingly often the most interesting and pleasant conversations can be had not with shop owners but basic employees who, free from the pressure of having to “make a sale” chat freely about what little they may or may not know about the item and or its history.

A bit of ancient, a bit of old, and plenty of “just made yesterday.”

As is throughout much of this industry, “old” is a term used freely, and taken with a grain of salt, this may mean anything from “just made yesterday” to hundreds of years old. Some are forthright, though unfortunately, some sellers can be downright unscrupulous. When asked “how to tell if its old or not” one seller of “authentic Tibetan antiques” smiled and gave me the following response:

“If you study these things and understand the product and the industry you will know just by looking at the piece. But if not, then you really need to just trust me on this. See if the piece “speaks to you or not” and go with what your true feelings tell you.

Uh huh…

Now this is starting to sound all too familiar. There were some pieces in the shop that were indeed antique, but having sold the same reproduction Tibetan sideboard many times over right down to the same coloration and motif, this piece was definately talking to me and it was screaming “bullsh*t!” Nevertheless, this line must work for them, as a two 40ish western women were in the process of deciding which cabinet they would purchase for their home (at a mere bargain price of 80,000 Hong Kong dollars!!!). If it were me, I would definitely do a bit of reading first before I plunked down my eighty thousand… And that’s not to say that every shop on the street is this way. But be aware – there will always be some with loose ethics.

This might also explain why some sellers become visibly nervous the moment I start inspecting undersides, opening doors and rubbing my hands over edges and joinery. One shop keeper immediately asked me if I was from “such and such society in London!” From this, I have learned that if I want to pose as a tourist, I better act like one!

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