Furniture
To access the antique furniture contained within the browser please click on the STOCK LIST.
Every item of furniture on this site has been hand selected at source by the company’s director’s. Much of it purchased in a raw unfinished state, and sometimes looking like nothing more than an expensive pile of fire wood. Having been purchased, each piece is given an appropriate finish, in keeping with its age and origins.
For the most part we encourage the preservation of any original paint or lacquer finishes, and do not attempt to over restore or over polish the goods.
There is a careful balance between renovation and restoration. Done properly, we are able to offer you quality antique furniture that has been restored to its original glory. The market in Chinese antique furniture over the last few years has been expanding quite rapidly. It is our view that most of it has been over restored, and arrives on the market far too finished, and at times almost new looking.
Our stock is split between classical Chinese furniture in both wood and
lacquer, and painted furniture from both Tibet and Inner Mongolia.
A part of our stock is given over to totally unrestored pieces of furniture
from the early to mid 17th C.
These transitional pieces of late Ming and early Qing furniture mostly in Elm have given us the opportunity to show our customers something of how this early furniture was constructed. For instance, much of the Elm furniture from Shanxi province produced during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties was originally heavily lacquered. The lacquer being laid on a loose woven cloth glued to the elm surface of the table. Very little of this type of furniture has been offered in the market place in its original state, we believe that there is a lot of scope for this furniture to emerge in the coming years. And certainly we feel that this early elm furniture is undervalued and very collectable.
If you are already a collector of early Chinese Elm, or would like more information about it, and the stock we are holding please register with us, by going to the info section in the main menu.
The other mainstay of our furniture collection consists of painted Mongolian furniture, painted Tibetan furniture from the west of China, Mongolia and Tibet
A lot of this type of painting can easily be described as folk art and tends to be of a secular origin. Very often the using a “wet on wet" technique similar to that used by sign writers. It is vibrant, jolly and at times reminiscent of painted furniture from Eastern Europe. Birds and flowers, along side village scenes are all common designs.
Painted furniture of a monastic origin is also found in Tibet and Mongolia. This type of furniture is rarer, and is steeped in religious symbolism. Mongolia has for many years been a great patron and supporter of Tibetan Buddhism, so it is not unusual to find the same symbolism in furniture from both countries.
Tibetan furniture is at last starting to be seen as a valid art form, and the recent exhibition “Wooden Wonders” at the Asia pacific museum in Pasadena. Will only confirm its place on the international art market. New interest in this field will no doubt cause prices to rise, and will also advent the emergence of more and more newly repainted, and fake pieces on the market.
For the time being, painted Mongolian furniture has not caused the interest that Tibetan Painted furniture has. And a lot of what is available on the market has been altered in some way to make it a more commercial product, usually by cutting painted panels to create cupboard doors, and by closing the traditional lift top access to cabinets , that are so clumsy for modern western living.
Without doubt , the time for Mongolian furniture is not far off. And I would recommend it to anyone who is starting to find Tibetan furniture more and more expensive, and less and less available.
For the time being Mongolian monastic painted furniture is very well priced compared to its Tibetan counterpart. I do not anticipate this lasting for long.
A brief introduction to Tibetan painted furniture can be found on our EXTRAORDINARY and ANCIENT section of this web site. We have outlined the major types of furniture available , and the meaning of some the most important symbols to be encountered in both Tibetan and Mongolian furniture
It is our aim with in this site and our showrooms to show you some of the
best examples of these types of furniture.