Basic guide to recognizing Tibetan antique furniture - Part 1

"Tibetan" style furniture is a phrase used loosely and frequently items made just yesterday are placed side by side with items 50 or 80 years old. Of course, all are claimed to be real "Tibetan Furniture." So when it comes to so called Tibetan" items, its important to know just what is is that you are actually purchasing and (hopefully) later on selling to your customers. So, without further ado, we will start off a series of posts to help you better understand and demonstrate the differences in the low end, the fake and even the good stuff!

An comparison of styles

Botellas Chinas Del Rapé: Artículos Coleccionables

Article in Spanish/Español...

La botella del rapé es probablemente uno de los artículos más pequeños y a la vez más buscados entre antigüedades chinas. Las botellas del rapé fueron utilizadas por el chino durante la dinastía de Qing para contener el tabaco en polvo. A mediados del siglo dieciseis hasta finales del mismo el uso del rapé y de las botellas del rapé fueron introducidas a la personas de clase alta, y antes del fin del décimo octavo siglo la costumbre se había transmitido hasta el resto del país y en cada clase social. ¡Era incluso común ofrecer una pizca del rapé como manera de saludar amigos y a parientes! Claro, no vayan a pensar que escribo este blog para promover el tabaco, sino cabe destacar que durante este periodo en China las botellas del rapé se convirtió en un objeto de la belleza y una manera de representar la clase social. Las botellas fueron hechas para ser sostenidos y por eso, en general, una buena botella del rapé debe tener una calidad táctil maravillosa. Para la mayoría, es aquel tacto y belleza que estimula esa interes en botellas del rapé.

http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/2008/02/19/botellas-chinas-del-rape-articulos-coleccionables/

Year of the Rat starts - Springfestival

full article on : http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog

Year of the Pig ends and year of the Rat begins on febraury 7^th 2008 till January 26^th 2009

“Springfestival” or “Chinese Newyear” is nowadays well known in the West as well, though only experiencing it yourself will show you how important it is for the Chinese. The impact is huge, surely with the role China is playing in world trade nowadays. During 3 to 4 weeks 80% of the country is on holiday, so the buyers in the West prepare/plan ahead!

A definition :

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival (simplified Chinese: 春节; pinyin: Chūnjié), or the Lunar New Year (simplified Chinese: 农历新年; pinyin: Nónglì xīnnián), is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and an important holiday in East Asia (and celebrated largely by overseas Chinese). The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called the Lantern festival (simplified Chinese: 元宵节; pinyin: yuánxiāojié).Chinese New Year’s Eve is known as Chúxī (除夕). Chu literally means “change” and xi means “Eve”.Lunar calendar :The lunisolar Chinese calendar determines Chinese New Year dates : starts on the first day of the new year containing a new moon, ends on the Lantern Festival fourteen days later. (each lunation is about 29.53 days).


In the Gregorian calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, a date between January 21 and February 20.What happens :The period around Chinese New Year is also the time of the largest human migration, when migrant workers in China, as well as overseas Chinese around the world travel home to have reunion dinners with their families on Chinese New Year’s eve. More interurban trips are taken in mainland China in this 40-day period than the total population of China.No need to say how long the lines are to buy a ticket for public transport … IF you even manage to buy one.What else happens :

• Very important is that Chinese should SPEND money during this period! Everyone is supposed to buy a whole new set

Carving Vs. CNC

original post is here : http://www.acf-china.com/blog/?p=93

Last week we went to an exhibition of new classic Chinese furniture. There were not only factories of furniture, but also those selling frightening robot-like CNC machines… It made me wonder if hand labor is even in threat of becoming abundant even here, even in this workmanship, even in art …
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There is no doubt, those CNC (computerized numerical control) are pretty impressive. It seems it can produce almost any shape at a preciseness that can not be achieved by the human hand.Here is my first point of skepticism. What is woodcarving about? About the value of the labor, the skill of hand carving, or only about how fine the result is? There is a certain kind of coldness to a perfect picture, a computer made drawing. It is an art form, just like painting. Why don’t we hang computer-made print-outs on our wall instead of gouache paintings? This point proves that hand carvings will never be completely replaced.


Now a more practical remark is that : computers do not make designs, artists/craftsmen do. Knowing that carving has a lot of cultural identity in it, every region has its style (even a craftsmen family) and carries a signature, is unique. Those styles have been passed on for generations. Now who is going to make the CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings, the blueprints for what the CNC makes?Also making such CAD is very labor intensive. (Those who are good at making them have a very technological background.) It must take maybe even longer to design a carving on a computer then having a craftsmen actually sculpting his piece of wood. Once a computer design is made it can be reproduced a hundred thousand times … that is true … Then we are moving towards mass productions, towards “IKEA-carvings”.
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Nevertheless we are happy with the development of the CNC. It can do amazing things. And in fact does increase the value, the appreciation of the carving made by artisan craftsmen. On the long term, hand made carving will become a luxury, expensive art. As for the antiques, the same counts, people will realize the amount of work put into certain pieces. It took us more than a thousand years to build a machine that can do almost the same.
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It would be interesting to know the opinion of other people. So I hope to read a lot of comments on this post !
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On the internet I have found some articles about this matter :
An inexpensive computerised numerical control (CNC) machine has helped start a new production woodworking business. The company produces complicated architectural ornamentation that was up till then mostly made by skilled craftsmen working with power tools. There is a substantial market niche for producing decorative woodcarvings faster, cheaper and at higher levels of accuracy.
Low-cost CNC machines can accurately duplicate a computer aided design program in much less time than someone working by hand.Although clearly a skilled job, making complicated pieces such as carved mouldings and friezes is a very slow process by hand.The first piece is typically assigned to a very experienced and highly paid craftsman, who cuts it out with hand and power tools, then less experienced workers typically duplicate the piece using a tracer.One problem with this approach is that even the most skilled woodworker has difficulty accurately producing three-dimensional contours.The result is a piece that requires extensive finishing by hand, to chisel and sand the piece the way a customer wants it finished.
The beauty of a CNC machine is that every detail of the piece can be defined to absolute perfection in the CAD/CAM software and allowing time for the operator to do something else while the machine produces the part.While the CNC machine isn’t perfect, the accuracy of the machines is far beyond what can be achieved by hand.However, every piece made will be just as good as the first one such that each piece coming off will need little hand finishing.
While programming is a labour-intensive process similar to cutting out the first piece by hand, …
Read the full article here : “CNC machines bring down carving costs”