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Owner Marga Snoeij, a knowledgeable and welcoming woman of Dutch and Indonesian extraction, whose last name is pronounced "snowy," will guide you through the Bantam shop. She and her husband, Robert, have been fixtures in the Litchfield County antiques world since 1996, and are the parents of two grown children.
As a young woman in Holland Mrs. Snoeij worked in the travel business, roaming the world to find and test out destinations for her clientele. On her travels she found herself drawn to the various material cultures she discovered in Asia. Subsequently she and her husband began to collect statuary and other objects, starting with antiques from Burma.
As many collectors do Mr. and Mrs. Snoeij decided they should become dealers as well; the couple's first shop was in the Bantam building that used to house Linsley Antiques. "At the end of 2004 we came here to this location," said Mrs. Snoeij.
Many of the antiques offered at the Four Winds shop spring from the Chinese vernacular tradition, furniture made in the countryside for everyday use rather than fine classical wares made for the rich and the well placed. Writing in "Friends of the House: Furniture from China's Towns and Villages" Nancy Berliner and Sarah Handler note that "the vernacular often displays a spectrum of intriguing and fanciful tangents" that depart from the more formal furniture.
Country artisans had to please their clientele with well-made furniture that local people could and would buy. Because their output had to be affordable, ex-urban woodworkers constantly stretched their imaginations, drawing on folk tales and other artistic traditions to include images and decorations that were far more forthright and earthy than those available to the classical traditions.
The cabinets, cupboards, chairs, stools, tables and other furniture displayed at Four Winds reflect this "country look"-nice old pieces with appropriate wear and the worn yet lustrous surfaces that only time can produce. Across from Mrs. Snoeij's desk in the shop stands an excellent example of this kind of country antique, a rectangular two-drawer table that would fit nicely into a hall or could be used as a sideboard in a small dining room. The piece, whose tag reads $700, sports a nice set of old brass pulls. Its four straight legs end in what Mrs. Snoeij called "mati" feet, a squared-off shape that on Anglo-American furniture would be called "Marlborough" feet.
Nearby in the shop stand a pair of "terracotta warriors," eight-foot-tall copies of two of the thousands of funerary statues dating from 210 BC and discovered in China's Shaanxi province in 1974. This was the mausoleum of China's first emperor Shi Huang Di, one of the most astonishing archaeological finds of the 20th century. Current estimates say the terracotta army comprises more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, most of which are still buried in the pits. The figures, averaging six to six and a half feet tall, include warriors, generals, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.
But wait, there's more. Contemporary accounts say the first emperor was buried with palaces, scenic towers, officials, valuable utensils and "wonderful objects" with 100 rivers fashioned in mercury, and above this, heavenly bodies, below which were "the features of the earth." The word is that a lot of the craftsmen who made this monument were sealed up alive when it was finished, so they couldn't reveal any secrets.
The terracotta warriors at Four Winds Chinese Antiques can be yours for $2,995. If you prefer less martial figures, Mrs. Snoeij can show you an attractive pair of antique Javanese wedding dolls, three feet high and marked $595. Across the way sits a calm and serene alabaster Buddha figure, meditating. And around the corner is an equally interesting antique saddle from Tibet, reflecting the wide range of the Snoeij's interests.
Many of the shop's customers have furnished whole houses there, perhaps because the best Chinese antique furniture is almost Shaker-like in its classic simplicity and derives from the designs of the Ming period, 1368-1644.
The Ming Dynasty was a time when superb esthetic impulses reigned in China, and its direct influence on furniture makers continued from the 14th through the 18th centuries. The furniture from this period reflects clean lines, proficient craftsmanship and the most efficient use of materials. Many motifs from Ming Dynasty objects found their way into Western furniture as well, the claw-and-ball foot and the cabriole leg being two notable examples of this migration.
Furniture historian Wang Shixiang wrote "Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture," a classic text on the subject. Commenting on Ming Dynasty output he writes, "The Chinese term Ming Shi Jiaju has both broad and narrow meanings. In the broad sense it refers to all types of furniture made during the Ming Dynasty, including examples in softwood used daily by ordinary families and those in rare and fine cabinet woods with carved decoration made for the wealthy classes. It also includes Ming-style furniture made subsequently."
Esthetes of the Ming period used the word "gu" to mean "antique" and the word "jin" to mean "modern." As furniture historian Craig Clunas writes, gu does not simply mean "chronologically old" but implies "morally ennobling" as well. To the late Ming elite, a piece of furniture made the previous day could be antique if it came up to certain standards. One writer of the period put it this way:
"When the men of old made tables and couches, when placed in a studio or room they were invariably antique, elegant and delightful. The men of today make them in a manner which merely prefers carved and painted decoration to delight the vulgar eye, while the antique pieces are cast aside, causing one to sigh in deep regret."
Sighing in deep regret is still an antiquarian habit today; collectors regret the ones that got away and yearn for those golden times when shops were crowded with great stuff at low prices, eras recalled as fact but never actually experienced.
Four Winds Chinese Antiques is located at 931 Bantam Road in Bantam, the old red brick factory building facing on Route 202.The shop is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. on. The phone number is 860 567-5607. You can also shop online at www.culturalliving.com, where you'll find thousands of items to choose from, and where you'll learn that the proprietors can also have furniture made for you, to your specifications.
