History lives on in hands of collectors
Rarities are the prize for any dedicated collector and Hollywood has woven this pursuit into celluloid dollars with adventures - from Indiana Jones to Tomb Raider - portraying heroes fending off evil-doers in pursuit of lost treasures.
In the real world, however, it's safer and more lawful to go along to an antiques dealer. And Hong Kong's Hollywood Road, and this weekend's AIAA Fair, is where the serious collector can find rare antiquities.
The odds of being able to emulate the stunts that millions of cinemagoers have seen Harrison Ford and Angelina Jolie go through are low, and certainly not encouraged. So perhaps public auctions are the nearest substitute where the adventure driven can obtain their adrenaline fix. But only if they're prepared to accept the limitations of discreet bidding and hushed environs.
Ceramics, jades and paintings are, according to local dealers, relatively easy to come across at auctions. What does get hearts aflutter among collectors are bronzes - particularly archaic Chinese bronzes - with authentic pieces seldom getting near the auctioneer's hammer.
Joyce Liang, of Joyce Gallery, said that this lack of an open resale channel could deter all but the most avid collectors. But there were still many collectors who looked for bronzes directly from antique dealers.
'These buyers are mainly private collectors and long-term investors from the mainland, Taiwan, Europe and the United States, and some of the world's leading museums and galleries,' Ms Liang said.
The fact that prestige mainland institutions, such as the National Museum of China, the Shanghai Museum and the Beijing Poly Art Museum, have laid down purchase plans for archaic Chinese bronzes makes the market all the more intriguing.
Archaic bronzes have been regarded as national treasures by the royal court and officials ever since the Song dynasty (960-1279).
'For instance, Emperor Huizong [who reigned from 1101-1126] of the Song dynasty and Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty [1736-1795], who were renowned for their excellent aesthetic tastes, possessed thousands of ritual bronze artefacts from the Shang and the Zhou dynasties in their private collections,' Ms Liang said.
'These bronzes truly reflect the state-of-the-art technology of the Shang and the Zhou dynasties, the Golden Age that has been praised by Confucianism for more than two millennia.
They affirm the social, political, economic, military, technological, religious and artistic achievements of ancient China, and reveal a glorious past in early Chinese civilisation.'
Early dynasties such as Xia (circa 2100-1600BC), Shang (circa 1600-1046BC), Western Zhou (circa 1046-771BC) and the Warring States period (475-221BC) were regarded as the Bronze Age of China. Little wonder then that mainland officials are keen to see such treasures returned to the motherland.
'Although bronze was widely used in other ancient civilisations, only China had filled it with a rich spiritual context by creating various forms and sets of ritual bronze vessels,' Ms Liang said. 'It is a splendour of ancient civilisation, an art masterpiece in world art history.'
Ms Liang said bronze was termed 'jin' (meaning 'gold') in the Shang and the Zhou dynasties, and it was considered an extremely precious metal by the state. It was far more difficult to cast a bronze vessel than to produce a piece pottery or a jade item at that time.
'In addition to ingenuity and endless creativity, bronze craftsmanship required a thorough understanding of alloying techniques, and lots of efforts in mining and smelting of metals including copper, tin and lead.'
