Sentimentality versus Practicality

When a piece of furniture captures my attention, the motivation to buy is not always pecuniary.  Sometimes I confess I was driven by sentimentality. The purchase soothes my heart and soul, but in my inventory it indefinitely dwells. One such piece is the handsome black lacquer curio cabinet pictured here.  Made of cedar or a similar wood, the surfaces were coated with black lacquer.  Unusual breaks from the traditional symmetry, shelves in the top section are staggered in different levels for interesting display of curios and antiques.  The multiple drawers are perfect for holding small objects like jades and seals.  More antiques can be stored in the lower section for occasional rotation.  The black background and the uneven spacing provide an ambiance for the pieces of antiques and enhance their value. So why did I buy it?  In another time and place, a curio cabinet like this was forever etched in my memory, displaying objects of art that were not to be forgotten.

The last time I saw it was a sneaked peek into my great-grandfather’s Curio Room in his stately home in Hong Kong.  Great-grandfather Ho Kom-tong made his fortune in successful business dealings. But he was best remembered as a man with a wife, eleven concubines and twenty seven children - a local record that has yet to be surpassed.  A reputation like this obviously overshadows his fame as a collector of antiques and curios. His house Kom Tong Hall, built in 1914 in a classic revival style, boasted of a walk-in safe, a place to keep his extra antiques as he rotated his collection. His European antiques were on display in the drawing room named the French Parlour, so named because of the white and gold architectural features that included ionic columns and gilded ceilings with crown mouldings and furnished with French provincial furniture.  His Chinese antiques were exhibited in glass vitrines in his living room upstairs, filled with Guangdong black wood furniture that were ornamented with designs made from mother-of-pearl.  The rare and valuable pieces of the collection were kept in the Curio Room where Great-grandfather would entertain his fellow collectors and visiting dignitaries by showing his latest acquisitions of archaic jades or painted porcelains.  Children were forbidden to enter the room. On one occasion when I, a small child of no more than six, found the door ajar and stole a glance, before my nanny shooed me away, her main charge was to make sure I would not misbehave.  The moment was short in sight but long in remembrance - an unforgettable memory of beautiful objects on display in his curio cabinet.  As time progressed and my interest in Chinese art grew, these objects acquired names – the square tube became an archaic jade cong, the lady in white was a blanc de chine Guanyin, and the pretty vases were Qing Dynasty painted porcelains.

The art collection survived World War II and was noted as being one of the best private collections in Southeast Asia.  A museum in Australia offered to buy 400 of the best pieces but Great-grandfather was ill advised to send the collection to New York for auctions.  And that was that.  No one knew what happened to the objects or the monies from the purported sales.  Upon his passing, family members retained some pieces and the remainder sold.  Even until twenty years ago, unscrupulous dealers on antique row in  Hollywood Road and Cats Street would surreptitiously embellish the salability of an antique by giving it a false Ho Kom-tong provenance.

Kom Tong Hall was preserved as a historic building by the Hong Kong Government.  After extensive renovations, it opened in December 2006 as the Dr. SunYat-sen Museum, to commemorate the founder of the Chinese Republic.  I make it a ritual to visit whenever I am in Hong Kong. The Curio Room is no longer forbidden, it is now part of the exhibition space.

For views of Komtong Hall please watch this video by frl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlOIg-fGY6w

Beautiful and Mysterious

 LARGE PAINTED LACQUER COFFER

18^th Century

76” x 22” x 37”H

One of the great joys in the Chinese antique furniture business is finding a piece that is a real puzzler. Michael, my husband and business partner, purchased it in a furniture market in Southern China a number of years ago.  This particular coffer has an unusual trapezoid shape that is unfamiliar in Chinese furniture.  Its black lacquered surface is decorated with groups of bird and flower painting with beautiful rendering of brush work in pastel tones that seem to have a luminous quality.  Still life studies of flowers and fruits are grouped with antique objects and they all share the auspicious symbol of wealth and prosperity.  The style of the painting is neither Chinese nor Japanese.  The still life grouping of objects is more often seen on painted Korean screens.  The whole presentation of the coffer shows a painted art object that is formal, well organized, and beautifully rendered, but they do not share the mannerisms that are associated with Chinese, Japanese nor Koreans.  What then, are the elements that so persuasive? Take the birds on the flowering branches for instance.  This is a subject matter found in all three cultures.  Why do I look at them and think European Botanical Print?  My formal training in the history of Chinese and Japanese painting led me to the deduction that the entire schematic structure, despite its beauty, does not adhere to the Chinese painting tradition.  On the other hand, it harks of elegance and refinement that are associated with Japanese painting, but the composition is too complex.  When in doubt, I try the third alternative – Korean, but none of the elements applied here.

So the coffer with the trapezoid shape continued to delude us until we happened upon a similar piece in my cousin’s apartment in New York City.  Her coffer was in the same style and shape as ours.  According to the information which was based on the research of a well esteemed Chinese art historian, these painted coffers were specially made in the Ryuku Islands for a rich Chinese merchant who imported them to the Peking (Beijing) market in the 18 century.  We know about the Ryuku Islands by way of Okinawa.  It is an island chain that extends from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu to the northern tip of Taiwan Island.  In ancient times, it was an independent kingdom.  The Chinese and Japanese fought over its sovereignty from the 14 to the 19 century.  Under Japanese sovereignty, many Koreans came to work on the islands.  They brought with them their artistic tradition and technique that were neither Chinese nor Japanese but had a unique quality all their own. By the 18 century, European bird and flower painting would have arrived in Japan in the form of botanical prints.  Could it be plausible that the Ryuku artists learned the western technique and applied them here? That would offer an explanation why the unusual rendering of the birds and flowers deviate so far from Asian traditions, yet the cumulative effect is a reflection of the art of all three cultures.

The knowledge places the coffer in a different perspective.  We have learned that this was a special import, therefore highly treasured; that it was rare, for few were made.  Long ago it graced the environment of a wealthy home, and now in a formal room, it can resume its importance as a focal point once more.