Yesterday, I went to the Panjiayuan antique market with Hang Hai, super guru of all things Chinese and antique, Hu Xiaomei and Zhang Rui, the super negotiators. I bought some amazing textiles. The indigo wax prints are from artisan Shou (I am sure I an writing this wrong) in Southern China. He draws the image in black wax and then it is died indigo and the wax melted. This was the highest quality ones we could find. There was a stall in which they had painted on the pattern, but kept trying to tell us it was wax.
The other piece the seller said she bought ten years ago from a woman. It is probably 20-30 years old. Hang Hai explained that there are not a lot of antique textiles as they dissipate in the Southern climes where they are made. Also with all the cultural upheavals in China, it is rare to find something over 100 years old. Thus it would be extremely expensive. The late Ming textiles Hang Hai was looking at were over $5000 Aud.
↧