Hanging behind Rudy van Thiel Jr’s desk is a sign that reads: “We buy junk and sell antiques.” He came across the placard in a tiny shop in Newcastle, England, and it struck a chord. “I liked it so much that the proprietor gave it to me,” he recalls.
It's an adage that applies to van Thiel's own family business, which started in 1969, when Rudy van Thiel Sr opened his first antiques shop in the leafy town of Delft in the Netherlands. Today, Van Thiel & Co operates a 300,000-square-foot workshop in Beijing, employs more than 700 people and is one of the world's largest sources of decorative antiques and vintage furniture.
Despite its size, the impetus behind the business is the same as it was 45 years ago: a desire to travel the world and discover hidden treasures. The father and son team has developed a rare knack for scouring small auctions, local markets and other unlikely sources, and identifying potential where others see only decay and disrepair.
It’s a process driven largely by emotion. “We sell furniture for a living, but the trouble is that we always feel like we are selling our own personal pieces. Every item has a flashback and a story,” says van Thiel Sr. “Today, supported by my sons [Rudy and Frederik], I am still travelling the world to find the unknown.”
The move to China nine years ago saw the company expand its operations. In addition to finding and restoring antiques, the van Thiels began manufacturing exact replicas of the treasures they had gathered from Europe, India and Indonesia – although choosing which pieces to recreate from an inventory of over 25,000 items was a daunting task, they admit.
Each piece is an exact replica of an antique original, complete with imperfections – whether they be claw marks, wormholes, variations in colour or random dents and dings.
It’s a painstaking process, conducted by skilled artisans who patiently recreate the hand-distressed edges, hand-painted details and hand-applied patinas, using reclaimed wood sourced at Beijing’s markets and from torn-down buildings in the city’s older neighbourhoods. Each piece is hand-finished by an expert team of antique restorers. “The finishing is really our strength,” notes van Thiel Sr. “The finish is everything.”
A selection of pieces from the Van Thiel collection will be available at Bloomingdale’s Home, The Dubai Mall, from this month.
sdenman@thenational.ae
