I never imagined that Ming-style furniture was shipped to Hong Kong after being disassembled

Hong Kong (Hong Kong), the full name of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is located in southern China, east of the Pearl River Estuary, west of China and Macau across the sea. Hong Kong is a highly prosperous free port and international metropolis. Hong Kong is the financial center of Asia and the capital of global art transactions. It is also a distribution center for Ming-style furniture. Maybe you do n’t know that many national treasure furniture that has been lost overseas landed in Hong Kong. Then do you know why Ming-style furniture needs to be transferred in Hong Kong? Today I will give you a popular science.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when we just started reform and opening up, Hong Kong's economy had already taken off, and a number of free and rich collectors were born.

They pursue piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, collect antiques to play, cultivate their sentiments, and cultivate themselves. There is a huge demand in the collection market.

At the same time, Hong Kong's demand has radiated to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. There are also compatriots overseas who like to collect and love to invest in Chinese art. However, due to political reasons, they cannot directly purchase collections on the mainland.

So everyone turned their attention to Hong Kong.

At this time, the situation in the mainland was that the "Cultural Revolution" had just ended and all industries were yet to be developed. The cultural relics shops in the Mainland had to sell cultural relics to complete economic indicators. In the absence of the necessary economic conditions in the country, they could only seek directions overseas. A good way out.

Hong Kong has a unique free trade and taxation policy, political, economic, geographical location and other factors. Cultural relics can be gathered, traded, collected and invested. Hong Kong has become the largest transit place for cultural relics and artworks.

The Ming-style furniture is naturally among them.

In 1985 and 1989, Mr. Wang Shixiang's "Appreciation of Ming-style Furniture" and "Research on Ming-style Furniture" were published in Hong Kong successively, setting off the climax of Ming-style furniture collection. No matter the number of collectors or the number of transactions, it has been the highest ever.

Accompanying this, the smuggling of furniture has become more severe. The two traders used Mr. Wang Shixiang's book to search for the furniture of Ming style in China and resell it to furniture merchants who came to Taobao.

The biggest difference between Ming-style furniture and calligraphy and painting porcelain is that it is bulky. In terms of the most common official hats, chair chairs or eight immortal tables, it is also much larger than large-scale porcelain.

As the volume becomes larger, you have to consider the issue of transportation. Coincidentally, the furniture is still a tenon-and-mortise structure, which can be disassembled and combined.

The craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty could not have imagined it anyway. The intricate structure of the tenon and mortise created by collective wisdom provided convenience for the relics of cultural relics.

Therefore, the merchants bought old furniture from the mainland, in order to save transportation costs, and at the same time, in order to avoid people ’s eyes and ears, each piece of furniture was disassembled, turned into a large edge, a hemp, and then tied with hemp rope and linen After that, it will be shipped to Hong Kong in boxes.

After these furniture parts arrived in Hong Kong, merchants came to select them before they were reassembled. It is necessary to be able to find the original pieces one by one in a pile of ancient furniture bulk materials and assemble them into a complete piece of furniture.

Therefore, Wu Jiaen once said that in the era of disassembly and transportation, only experts can first choose the best Ming-style furniture in the market, not the general antique dealers or collectors.

The peak of Chinese Ming-style furniture collection is also the peak of Ming-style furniture smuggling, which has to be sighed.

Next, we have to discuss the last question: Why do the exported and reflowed furniture show the same leather shell state? That is to say, why these furniture transited through Hong Kong look like new, with a bright yellow color ?

We have to understand a concept first, that is, the leather shell is encapsulated. "Leather shell" is a more professional term. In the field of antique collection, the traces of the use of the general artifacts in the history are called "bag", and in the woodware collection The middle habit is called "skin shell".

The original leather shell, also known as the "original head" in the industry, is a kind of leather shell paste formed naturally during hundreds of years of use. This leather shell is actually a story that happened on furniture, that is, history.

This kind of leather shell looks full of vicissitudes and a sense of history. The dirt we see is not dirty, but the natural beauty engulfed by years.

However, when the furniture is shipped to Hong Kong, the original leather shell will be cleaned and polished on the furniture, and then "waxed and preserved", so that the wood grain covered by the original leather shell is legible, and it looks old The furniture will also be refreshed.

The furniture transferred from Hong Kong, including the furniture of major foreign museums, is basically in the above-mentioned state. When this leather shell furniture is transferred back to the mainland via Hong Kong again, we call it "return leather shell".

The appearance of the "return skin shell" has a specific historical environment.

First of all, many pieces of furniture that existed in the Ming and Qing dynasties were incomplete, and after years of use, different parts would still be damaged, such as the panel being burnt by candlelight, and the legs and feet being cut by hard objects, etc., so it is common to repair and add new materials.

Such furniture is dismantled and smuggled to Hong Kong, and most of them are transferred to Europe and the United States, and their components will naturally be missing.

After repairing the missing components, they may not be matched with the same texture and materials, so it will be very uncoordinated on the same piece of furniture.

Many complicated situations lead to a lack of aesthetics in the appearance of the furniture, so I came up with this simple and easy way to polish all the original leather shells and wax them. Even the places that were repaired later were covered up and were not easily noticeable.

Second, Western collectors are the earliest followers of Huanghuali Ming-style furniture. On the one hand, they think they understand the aesthetic proposition of this simple shape, and on the other hand, they cherish materials with "ghost faces".

Under the original leather shell, many clear textures are invisible, and naturally require a full removal.

At the same time, the attitude of Western collectors to Chinese furniture is not only to hide, but to use. The original state of the furniture obviously does not meet the requirements of this daily furnishings. Only by removing the original leather shell can it be harmonious in the modern home environment.

The above two points are the most important reasons for the appearance of "reflow skin".

Of course, Huanghuali furniture, which was first exported to Western countries and incorporated into major museums abroad, is as clean as new. This once again confirms this treatment, and all subsequent collectors are somewhat of a benchmark and guidance role, but I do not know that this has entered a vicious circle.

After the 1990s, the mainland's reform and opening up had achieved certain results, and Chinese collectors had relatively loose funds and policies to collect.

But it seems to be a little late, because the precious Ming-style furniture in China has been preempted by foreigners. Someone once predicted that 70% of the existing Ming and Qing furniture is overseas.

Since the 20th century, the domestic collection of Huanghuali furniture has entered a peak, and the furniture that flowed out back to the mainland once again, and domestic collectors have shown enthusiastic enthusiasm.

However, the current state of returning and the state of the original outflow are beyond recognition.

All that bears witness to this is Hong Kong.

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