kittycat1

I'm quite tempted by a few of these- collectors items of the future perhaps;

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-b...ates-kk-outlet

Ethos83

Not bad. Nice humour without being tacky. These are probably more likely to be collectibles than any official royal memorabilia.

One caveat is that in this day of cheap knock-offs from China, it's hard to see how any ceramics is going to noticeably appreciate in value over time.

Norm_uk

Sort of ironic that the world goes to China and demands cheap tat then laments the quality...yet anyone who can get their hands on any ceramics made in China more than 150 years ago will probably need to insure it as they will have a small fortune on their hands. Likewise if anyone was actually willing to spend property money they could get fantastic ceramics from China or anywhere else for that matter.

N.

Ethos83

You can pick up antique Chinese ceramics fairly cheaply. A hundred quid or so for a few pieces of early 19th century blue and white canton ware. For something made for the internal market where the quality tended to be higher, prices are a bit higher. Imperial stuff, of course, command the best prices and are probably a good long term investment as the Chinese are starting to buy back whatever heritage they didn't destroy through their own cultural revolution, and are are paying wildly inflated dollars for it.

Note: the quality of Chinese ceramics declined noticeably from the late 18th century into the 19th century. European porcelain took off in the 18th and produced stuff that was much better quality than what was being imported from China up to that point. It crippled the Chinese ceramics industry which didn't have much of a market outside the imperial household.

Even today English and continental porcelain are the best in the world, so should you wish to buy new. But not many people do so the whole industry's suffering.

Norm_uk

You won't find anything of European origin that can match the prices of Imperial Chinese Ceramics, especially anything before the 1700s that wasn't mass produced - stuff like that will command thousands and in some cases millions for one item or small sets. (to be fair European high quality ceramics didn't really exist before the 1700s in any mentionable quantity... since the Roman era anyway - it was trips to China and imitation that kicked things off in Europe as with many other things Europe came to lead the world in - amazing how a crap, inward looking government and having your country deliberate hooked on opium by multiple foreign powers bent on breaking up your nation can ruin a country!).

But I agree (yes, the scathing hypocrite agrees) that the best modern standards of Ceramics are generally European. I feel this is only the case because most countries only want to use China to make cheap goods - but bitterly complain of the quality-if we made cheap stuff in Europe I am sure it would be equally rubbish). It reminds me of how we saw Japanese goods after the war up until the 1970s.

N.

Ethos83

Oh, European paintings exceed the prices of imperial Chinese ceramics. They are probably the most expensive movable items for sale on the market these days.

A small 18th century vase made for the imperial household recently sold at auction for around 68 million pounds. You and I, we both know no one piece of porcelain is worth that much money. But if it makes the buyer happy, it makes the buyer happy. It certainly made the seller happy in this case.

Chinese art and artistic tradition is fairly narrow when compared to the European spectrum. Their masters favoured reinventing and reinterpreting the old masters rather than branching out into new styles - that constant invention and innovation and challenging the old is a particularly European/Western approach. As it is, I have a keen appreciation for the styles of the plainer, earlier Chinese porcelain as well as the blue and white import ware and have picked up a few bits over the years.

co durham boy

Take a bow Hugh Scully & Arthur Negus....!

Spugsy

heh love the one where he has laser eyes!

Bahtatboy

Except for, err, ceramics, cameras and silk. (A bit out of context, I know.)

I well remember the dislike for (and quality of) most goods from Japan in the 70's. Now they've exported (or had stolen) most of their technology to China, I don't think it will be more than a decade before "Made in China" has a different ring to it. (My iPhone 4 says on the back: "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." I wonder about the processes between design and assembly--are they embarrassed to say, or are there too many countries involved?)

Norm_uk

OK this is all very interesting but we're not talking about paintings so it's going off topic a bit now.

China is just one country...Europe is many and has only ever come close to unification by the Romans (which failed - China was unified over 2000 years ago in one form or another) so we can expect more variety in many art forms. That said China has a far older and continuous culture and heritage than Europe - and I am sure China has a lot more variety than most outsiders are aware of. For 2500 years China was the world leader in almost every field of technology and that only ended around 250 years ago with Chinese internal strife, bad government and the unprovoked imperial designs of Western powers.

Yet today China is one of three nations who can put a human in space independently - the US and Russia being the others.

So basically if they don't produce high quality vases anymore I'm sure they won't collapse as a civillisation Same goes for paintings and our assumed arrogance that Western paintings are different or more diverse or better (because people pay tons of money for them) when it's a common fact that most western artists studied and were inspired by everything from Chinese and Indian to Aztec and Arabian Art for the last 500 years. We all learn from each other if we're honest enough to admit it.

N.

Norm_uk

There's a lot of countries involved these days in many things so we can't point fingers quite like we used to. If we look at the big picture we'd all have to bow to China because overall more inventions in human history came from China than anywhere else. I see China as recovering from a bad patch in it's 4000+ year history and getting back to the business of leading the world in innovation after a 250 year break.

N.

Ethos83

You're giving too much credit to China. It may have had technology innovation but most of what various Chinese inventors produced never made it to the general population at large. They were kept as amusing objects by the emperor of the day and usually destroyed at his death. With a few exceptions such as paper money or gunpowder, most of what was "invented" didn't lead to greater scientific, social, political or cultural advancements.

Our tradition in Europe is one of a continuous progress, whereas China is historically a static society. Very, very little changed within China for the 2500 years, whereas one absolutely cannot say the same about Europe. Likewise this is reflected in the artistic tradition of Europe, that we are willing to be inspired and influenced by artwork and technology from elsewhere whereas China has historically shunned them, until quite recently. Anyone in the art world knows this so I don't buy the ignorance you're implying here.

As it is, China is the factory for the world. It may produce quality products but it also produces endless acres of cheap crap. No shame in saying that.

Ethos83

[QUOTE=Norm_uk;9041847] overall more inventions in human history came from China than anywhere else. [QUOTE]

That's bullshit, Norm. Almost everything relevant to the modern day came out of the West. Modern engineering, modern technology, the modern economic system, modern medicine, all came out of the West. Very little of it has influences from China given the inwardness of the Chinese region and the huge distance between China and the West.

Bahtatboy

[QUOTE=Ethos83;9041864][QUOTE=Norm_uk;9041847] overall more inventions in human history came from China than anywhere else. What did the Romans ever do for us?

Millhouse

aqueducts Sir.