On a shopping trip to my favorite haunts in Southern China two years ago, this ominous thought came to me as I perused through the merchandise offered by the local “premier” shop that specialized in antique accessories. This shop purportedly combed the local markets near and far for fresh merchandise that came from the provinces. They were known to be a magnet for pickers – small time dealers who collect goods in their own locale. What I saw were merchandise I had bought and sold from ten years back; mostly I noticed what I rejected in previous years were still standing on the shelves. These were not finely made painted porcelains, glass or enamel works of art, nor were they exquisite wood carvings that one expects from the glossy pages of a Chinese works of art auction catalog. The shop was selling simple everyday objects from Chinese vernacular culture of the last 100 years, refurbished for the marketplace. Rows upon rows were red lacquer rice containers, tiered baskets of woven bamboo, vegetable baskets of woven reed and wheat stalks, tiered bamboo baskets, paper mache boxes, cake molds, and other utilitarian wares. Our policy is only buy quality. Anything outstanding had “higher than sky price,” a very appropriate Chinese description I thought. As a result, we bought very little.
So what of my ominous thought – it dawned on me that the supplies of good antique Chinese accessories would come to an end. For years, container loads of Chinese vernacular furnishings left China for the United States and Europe, only to be replaced with inferior reproductions. It stood to reason that after the reign of Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-1795) Chinese works of art went on a decline. With natural disasters, famines, peasant rebellions, bandits raiding the countryside, invasions by foreign powers, the opium wars, the society in China was in an upheaval. Under these dire circumstances, how could one think of possessing fine material goods? Artists and craftsmen could not continue without patronage. Unlike Europe, China did not go through an Industrial Revolution which gave rise to a nouveau riche class of industrialists who filled their homes with opulent furnishings. Instead, the people of China had to endure two revolutions that took place between World War I and II. The Cultural Revolution that followed further depleted the remaining material goods.
