Copiers Forge Ahead With Thai Artifacts

It’s late afternoon. The sun, still steaming, casts a long shadow off the boy working in the dusty courtyard. He is crouched over a monumental stone head of the Khmer goddess Uma. Arms swinging back and forth in a rhythmic, mesmerizing motion, he saws away at Uma’s ear. Fragments of stone ricochet from the sculpture and stir up tiny puffs of dirt where they land on the ground.

Satisfied that the ear looks sufficiently chipped and worn, the boy rests. A broad smile reveals chipped front teeth, bright white against his amber-colored skin. When asked about the dental damage, he laughs and replies, “A hazard of my trade.”

By age 16, he is already a skilled forger, one of Thailand’s growing legion of masters of “new antiques.”

Like most such artisans working in northern Thailand, his training has been on the job rather than in school. Yet he produces beautiful artifacts that appear authentic enough to fool the experts.

Fakes are prevalent in Thailand’s antique shops. Experts claim that about 70% of objects sold as antiques are really copies.

The boy’s specialty is aging stone statues, copies of monumental gods and goddesses once abundant around jungle-clad ruins of ancient temples, and now increasingly rare and precious.

He works in a studio that produces only two or three pieces each month. Other, less precise copiers turn out more than twice as many statues and sacrifice detail in their hurry.

“The test is in carving and aging,” the boy explains through a translator. “We copy from pictures in a book. We rub and file the stone until the edges are worn down and we chip pieces of the hands, nose and ears, too.”

The statue is then soaked in sulfuric acid to pit the stone or placed in other acids to darken it.

“Sometimes we can bury it for a while, so dirt gets into the pitting or crevices, and sets. Some buyers don’t want a statue unless it has dirt,” the boy says.

Tourists who pass through Ayutthaya to marvel at the magnificent ruins of the ancient Thai capital (1350-1767) will not see antique forgers at work. Yet they will undoubtedly discover the fruits of such labors displayed in Bangkok’s antique stores, where the question of authenticity is always appropriate . . . even with reputable dealers.

“We honestly cannot always tell if objects are genuine antiques,” confessed a Bangkok dealer who insisted on anonymity. “Even experts and museum curators have difficulty.”

Stone statues are not the only “new antiques” on the market. Shops display delicately carved reproductions of Burmese-style wooden figures, rain-soaked for several seasons until they take on the smooth gray finish that imitates centuries of weathering.

Bronze artisans age their pieces by covering them with ammonium nitrite that makes the patina look weathered and discolored. Also here are fake antique Chinese porcelain, Thai celadon clay ware, silk tapestries, finely woven lacquered baskets and carved teak furniture in the Thai, Burmese and Chinese styles.

Whether the pieces are fakes or real antiques, many are lovely. If you love the piece, the most important thing, then, is to know what you are buying and to not pay for authentic art when you are getting a copy.

A genuine 12th-Century monumental stone statue, for example, may cost $100,000 while a fine copy might be priced at about $8,000 to $10,000.

But how do you tell the difference when even the experts have difficulty doing so?

Nancy Hock, Ph.D., who is Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Foundation curator of Southeast Asian art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, has studied Thai art fakes extensively and says it’s safest for buyers to assume that most objects are copies.

“Shops display fakes next to genuine antiques in a way that adds ambiguity to the issue of authenticity,” Hock said. “But there are clues: Surfaces of antiques aren’t consistent. Stone is pitted, wood and ceramic glazes wear unevenly and antiques usually have cracks and chips in places that stand out, such as noses, fingers and headdresses on stone and wooden figures, handles on ceramics.

“Of course, skilled artists can duplicate these characteristics. When a high-quality copy is set next to the real antique, it takes a very well-trained eye to tell which is which.”

One tip-off that objects are copies would be finding a dozen Khmer-style pieces together in one shop. Such art is extremely rare.

Copied textiles often are easy to detect. Pieces colored with bright purple dye (most textiles have it) cannot be older than the late 19th Century, when that type of aniline dye was introduced.

The best way to protect your pocketbook while collecting pieces you like is to research before shopping. Study art books and visit the Bangkok National Museum to get an idea of what the best pieces look like and to develop a sense of the subtleties of style.

Buyers should be wary when an antique dealer glosses over the subject of export. If he insists that an object is more than 100 years old yet shows no concern about export, something may be wrong.

Thai law strictly regulates the export of antiques more than 100 years old, and most copies of antiques. Permits are necessary. Antiques and antique copies without them will be confiscated at the border.

Reputable dealers will provide permits or you can get them on your own. Take a front-view photo of the object or objects (not more than five objects per photo) and a photocopy of your passport to the Department of Fine Art at the Bangkok National Museum. For more information, call the museum at 224-1370, 224-1402 or 224-1396.

Thai law also prohibits the export of Buddha images or fragments of Buddha images, whether they’re authentic or copies.

To help guarantee authenticity, deal with reputable shops. In Bangkok, Rama Antiques (30/1 Oriental Plaza Shopping Center, near the Oriental Hotel) and Peng Seng (942/1-3 Rama IV Road), near Jim Thompson’s Thai Silk Co., are both reliable. Although they sell copies, copies usually are labeled as such.

Stock changes constantly, but during recent visits, shops offered beautiful celadon bowls dating from the Sukhothai period (AD 1260-1350) for about $200 to $1,000. Gold-lacquered, Burmese-style wooden figures were priced from $400, and Thai-style, carved teak tables began at $700.

If you are looking for textiles, porcelains, wooden furniture and statues, try Bangkok’s River City Shopping Center (near the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel). Dozens of antique shops line the second and third floors. This tourist-filled complex is filled with inferior fakes, but several shops display quality objects.

Prices quoted in this article reflect currency exchange rates at the time of writing.