No Bull - The very serious market in Chinese
Polychrome Chinese Figures
We shoulda seen it coming, this crazy boom in the Chinese market. Signs and records starting to occur in 2007, but like other boom markets, some that don’t get mention without eliciting pain (real estate, oil, tech stocks…) we tend to ignore it until it has becomes white hot, and then we (WHAT?) want to jump in and buy. WHOA - if anything, it is time to take deeps breaths, ask important questions, and perhaps sit on the sidelines. If we own any white hot material, the hour has come to sell, but buy? This bull market is not for the faint of pocket. A strong Chinese economy has allowed a huge Chinese middle class to acquire all the attributes of success. After the companies, the huge houses, the limo-like autos and the ivyleague schools, the Chinese, like the rest of the world, see art as status and investment. In the last five or six years, art has become both an attribute and investment. It is a smart choice. The Chinese are investing in their future, as well as in their past, repatriating the things of their heritage. The boom in Chinese buying is for things Chinese, and not for items made for the “China Trade” - those of European tastes and markets of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The Chinese are buying things made for the Chinese people, both humble and imperial, items of their past and Chinese contemporary art. Authenticity/Originality is the most important value feature. However, as far as the Chinese are concerned, sometimes the value of a fine reproduction of an original
114 slmag.net
Written by Diane C. Wachs
Chinese Cinnabar Wedding Box, Qing Period or Earlier
work, by a good old hand, may far exceed the value of an original new work by a less talented soul. Authenticity is also paramount - auction houses and dealers who sell to the Chinese have to be absolutely rock steady in their pronouncements. If it isn’t what they say it is, a reputable house has to/will take it back. Nevertheless, there is still a minefield of fakes to toe through, and no one can fake better than the Chinese. For this reason, most Chinese buyers of important pieces are having their prospective treasurers found and vetted by knowledgeable dealers. Did I say there’s a boom in Chinese art consulting as well? The press has a profusion of stories of every major, secondand third-tier auction house, selling small porcelains, rhino cups or jadeite pieces for millions, when they were only estimated in the hundreds or thousands. No one feels shame here, as this is an unpredictable market. No one really knows where this market can go, or for how long, and whether this buying rampage is real or, like the all-too-brief surge in things Russian, just an attractive blip on auction sales screen. The Chinese government has a stake in its continuance, as a ‘buying’ Chinese public is a stable public and this is good. The moral of this tale is to sell, even if you have no idea what you have. Go and find out; it is that important. If the allure and charm of this frenzy in things Chinese has put visions of Peking glass on the mind, then it is time to learn
