EACH time antiquities expert Caroline Barkes goes shopping with a client, she waits for the sign that will tell her if the item they are surveying is the real thing or not.
'If I suspect that it is a fake, I get an itchy feeling on the back of my neck. In this business, a lot of it is gut reaction,' she says.
The art aficionado, who is also a private restorer and dealer, says her natural instincts have rarely let her down. And in the five years that she has been in Hong Kong, she has taught countless people that this is only a bargain-hunter's paradise if you know where to look - and exactly what to look for.
Barkes believes that many lovers of Chinese antiques should be better educated in the area, and that their naivety often results in their being taken advantage of, although they think they know what they are doing. Often, buying the real thing at the right price is simply a matter of common sense.
'If you are shown an antique that is caked in mud, and you think that makes it look old and therefore genuine, look again for tiny ears of barley. If you see them, you know the mud has been put on recently. If the piece is more than 1,000 years old, any roots left on it would have been carbonised,' explains Barkes, whose area of speciality is in 19th century decorative porcelain and antiquities from the Han and Tang dynasties.
She originally came to Hong Kong to teach art-lovers restoration work; she had closed her restoration school in London after eight years, but a number of her former Hong Kong students encouraged her to bring her skills to the territory. Short courses and practice sessions ran periodically from private clubs and her home. Before long, Barkes was being asked to start collections and source pieces on behalf of aspiring collectors.
