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Reasons to be very vigilant regarding fakes.

by Barry
(UK)

Peter

I visited a fine Asian art auction yesterday and among the fine true antique Chinese porcelain there were the few dubious examples of which I duly noted.

One piece in particular was a laughing buddha listed as early 20th century, to me it did not look right but it sold for £390 including commission. It stuck in my mind and blow me down with a feather if I saw the same item on ebay for sale from Shanghai China. Obviously brand new, the seller not trying to say it is old, antique or vintage. In fact not saying much at all about it. You can buy it for £180, yes it is decorative and finely made as are most of his items.

For obvious copyright reasons I cannot post the pictures but I will add the link to the ebay item and this seller who is doing nothing wrong or ileagal.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200782258276?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648

The problem is the quality of some of the copies coming out of China is beautiful and the price I guess reflects this as purely fine decorative pieces. The trouble is some auction houses are having extreme difficulty identifying these as new and list them as early 20th century.

So be very very careful. It is worth having a look once in a while at Ebay, especially some of the items listed from China. Please remember the Chinese know this so have agents from all over the World who sell items, which may add a little legitimacy that they may be antique.

Barry

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continued
by: peter

Sorry, text length was limited and I had to break up my comment into two parts.
............................


I had a look at a view items of the seller's items at the link you posted.
The 'Japanese' imari show that the painter did not have a good idea of how Japanese attire and especially hairdo did look in the past. There are differences that are easy to spot by anyone acquainted with Japanese art and culture. And, the faces on all other items with people in the decoration (I looked at a few only) are generally painted in a second half of 20th century fashion, showing that they are likely fake.
But, there are items that are more difficult to discern. Item 190713555961, a rectangular blue and white platter for export, shows an all correct Kangxi decoration. But there is no closeup of the bottom. However, I guess it is fake. In fact it is probably easier to see on a small picture, in this case. The brown bottom looks as if the brown dark "dirt" was rubbed on to make it look old.
Another thing is that there are lots of items with European crests. A couple of years ago there were much fewer being sold, and mostly by western sellers. Apparently, the fakers in China have picked up on the fact that items with crests command good prices.
As all items with crests or initials were made to order, in the past, how would it be possible that any quantities of such could be in China today?
If only the buyers would consider this first, such Ebay sellers would probably make much less business.
fakes
by: peter

Hi Barry,

The laughing Buddha at the link given could be vintage, but it is difficult to tell. I've seen many vintage items of this type of Buddha figurine, perhaps 20-50 years old, and they look similar, age-wise. At this relatively young age it is more difficult to tell when porcelain items were made. As you mention, the figurine is very carefully made, especially the painting of the clothes. What I also would like to draw your attention to is that it was at least made partially by hand. That is often not the case anymore as they are now often formed in moulds. That is, the front and back half are separately made and then the two parts are stuck together.
With this Buddha figurine you can see the finger impressions in the clay, which probably means that it was pressed into the mould by hand. The foot and hands seem to be stuck on afterwards. Solely from the point of workmanship it still may have some collecting value, but depends on someone's preference. It just may not be antique.

Of course, all said above does not mean it could not be all new. It just means that a lot more work went into this than with the usual fakes. That makes it more and more difficult to differentiate fakes from authentic antiques, nowadays.
Actually, many figurines I have seen made in the early 20th century do have a closed bottom (those of Dehua kiln are open), and sometimes there is a mark.

>The trouble is some auction houses are having >extreme difficulty identifying these as new and >list them as early 20th century.

Many list 20th century items today, and often they don't even say "early"... If you look at their catalogues, you see that top tier auction houses usually know their stuff. While 2nd tier or 3rd tier auction houses have more items that seem problematic. The further down the ladder the more new or fake items there are, perhaps, and this is not limited to porcelain. They just don't have the experts to check for authenticity, or perhaps, they don't care because they can't get enough of the real stuff.

Ebay has a number of sellers with good, authentic pieces, but it is best to avoid all sellers based in China. Some Chinese based in the west may also sell fakes. If you limit yourself to professional sellers from the UK or the Netherlands/Belgium, the chance that you get the real thing is much better. But of course they mostly sell export porcelain.

(...continued in 2nd comment)

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