WriteAntiques

the Ca Mau was engulfed by an intense fire while sailing 90 miles south of Canton on its way to the Malaysian archipelago.
The fire, burning at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, may have started in the kitchen as cast iron cooking pots were found welded together.
The heat was so intense that it fused together some pieces of its precious cargo.
The junk lay undisturbed for more than 280 years until, in 1998, two Vietnamese fishermen snagged their nets on some of the porcelain and began to haul it from the deep.
Before the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information stepped in, the fishermen had managed to bring to the surface over 30,000 pieces.
In 2005, the Vietnamese government decided to sell a proportion of the 130,000 pieces that had been salvaged and sent 76,000 to auction at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam.
The sale over three days in January 2007 saw the Ca Mau finally unload its cargo to an eager market in the West after a gap of two centuries.

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by Christopher Proudlove©Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português Collectors of ancient Chinese artefacts owe everything to the death rituals of society during the period. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese held strong beliefs about the afterlife. The wealthy and privileged members of Tang society, a Golden Age which lasted from 618-907 AD, took [...]

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by Christopher Proudlove©Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português So, welcome to the Year of the Dog and if, like us, you marvel at the celebrations for the Chinese New Year, you’ll know the highlight of the colourful spectacle. Performed as a prayer for a good harvest and household safety for the year, [...]

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Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português by Christopher Proudlove©Fate found me in New York the other week … looking at rocks. No, I wasn’t on a geology field trip – although the boulders and outcrops in Central Park looked fascinating from the back of my taxicab – I was there to attend [...]

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