Song dynasty fidget spinners and scholarly playthings: a history lesson from a Hong Kong-based art dealer
Taiwanese Maria Kiang had Hollywood dreams but a career detour to explore her roots landed her in the ancient Chinese fine art business
Hong Kong-based art dealer Maria Kiang is fiddling with a palm-sized tactile toy at the Fine Art Asia fair, but this is no ordinary children’s contraption and she is not using it to kill boredom at her booth.
“You remember those things kids were all playing with a year ago?” she asks. “Fidget spinners? This is basically an 11th century fidget spinner. You can’t stop playing with it.”
At the art fair in the convention and exhibition centre last month, Kiang was one of very few exhibitors to specialise in these curious and whimsical items. Scholar’s objects are exquisitely crafted for China’s literati scholars, an ancient class of highly educated artists, who collected these for personal, practical and inspirational reasons.
