As befits today's post-boom economy, antique Chinese furniture stores in Taipei are offering more affordable and diverse items than when they first emerged about 10 years ago.
Taiwanese consumers began to show fervent interest in antique Chinese furniture in the early 1990s, when the country's stock index reached dizzying heights and generated a new class of nouveau riche among whom collecting antique furniture became something of a fad.
The interest in antique furniture has not waned, but the lavish spending on the most expensive pieces has tapered off considerably, according to local antique dealers.
Most antique furniture pieces currently on the market originate from the Ming (1368-1644) and Ching (1644-1911) dynasties, the most coveted being from royal and wealthy families and made of such rare hardwoods as red sandalwood, called Zitan (紫檀), and golden rosewood, called Huanghuali (黃花梨).
"It's hard to estimate how big the market is, but it started 10 years ago, and it's getting more mature," says Jeffery Chen (陳仁毅), general manager of Art of Chen (雅典集) in downtown Taipei. Chen said Zitan and Huanghuali items are several times more expensive than when they first showed up on the market, because they are now so scarce.
When the store opened 12 years ago, Art of Chen focused on fine Zitan and Huanghuali items, but as prices soared and the economy slowed, the store responded by opening a branch with more affordable pieces made mostly of softwoods like elm. Instead of paying over NT$500,000 for a piece of Zitan furniture, lay collectors could pick up a Ching dynasty elm chair for just NT$15,000.
Like other local dealers in the field, Chen travels monthly to China to pick up items like chairs, tables, cabinets, stools and boxes, as well as larger items such as canopy beds, screens, wooden windows and door carvings.
Chen says the softwood furniture has dropped in price by about 10 percent and is popular among younger, middle-class customers.
Aiming for the higher end of the market is Jeff Hsu's Oriental Art (觀想文物藝術), which manager Jessica Hsu (徐盼蘋) says has been hit by a more sluggish economy. Nonetheless, the store carries almost exclusively Zitan and Huanghuali items, which usually cost more than NT$1 million apiece.
"I don't really advertise," says Hsu of her limited clients. "My customer list is quite selective. Whenever I have new pieces coming in, I phone a couple of people, and I also mail the information to a few museums and foundations overseas."
Despite high prices, some private and public collectors still purchase quality antiques.
The preferred Ming furniture is simple and fluid in design, while Ching furniture features extravagant designs with intricate carving and other accessories like inlays of stones and gold.
Each type of furniture also has several distinct styles. For example, there are several types of chairs, such as the chuanyi (圈椅), a chair with a crest-shaped back, or, an official's hat chair, which has a tall yoke back and lower armrests, or a lady's chair, which usually does not have armrests and has carvings of flowers or women. Different types of tables include waist tables (束腰桌), which feature an indented edge and Kang tables (炕桌), which are low rectangular tables normally no higher than 65cm used on the brick beds common in northern China.
RSS