Then & Now | The proud, cultured Chinese consumers whose taste for rosewood and blackwood carved Cantonese furniture has revived a traditional craft
- Cantonese furniture carved from rosewood and blackwood was once a marker of Chinese craftsmen’s skills, until shoddy copies of foreign styles became popular
- Now one positive aspect of resurgent Chinese nationalism is confidence in, and demand for, such talismanic native products, and old skill sets are being revived
One pleasing consequence of increasing affluence in China in recent decades has been an enhanced appreciation for traditional Chinese craftsmanship.
A positive outgrowth of resurgent and, sadly, often rebarbative national confidence has been the decision to buy everyday items that reflect who the individuals feel themselves to be; confident, modern citizens of their own country.
Being surrounded by shoddy Hong Kong copies of a Taiwanese take on some stylised Japanese version of a once-upon-a-time French original does not satisfy people whose self-image no longer requires external validation filtered through several layers of other people’s tastes.
In tandem, once threatened traditional skill sets have been revived by the patronage of cultured persons prepared to pay for top-quality products made by highly skilled artisans. Furniture manufacture reflects this gathering trend.
From 1758 until 1842, Canton was the only city in China open to foreign trade. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, overseas awareness of Chinese furniture mostly came from exposure to Cantonese interior design tastes.
