A consortium of master conservators dedicated to the preservation of China’s most precious hardwood objet d’art, approached with scholarly rigour, invisible intervention, and a collector’s eye for proportion, surface, and provenance.
We advise collectors, institutions, and the trade from London, combining traditional workshop practice with close connoisseurship.
Our practice
An editorial, object-led approach to conservation.
Founded by specialists shaped by the Christopher Cooke lineage, the practice brings together expertise in structural repair, surface preservation, authentication, and provenance research. We treat each object not as inventory but as a work with biography, presence, and consequence.
01
Conservation
Stabilisation, structural repair, and surface work carried out with restraint, legibility, and fidelity to original material and intent.
02
Authentication
Close analysis of timber, construction, mounts, and wear patterns, informed by decades of handling exceptional works.
03
Provenance research
Contextual research, collection histories, and object documentation that support scholarship, valuation, and confidence.
Selected works
Furniture with presence, surface, and memory.
Furniture with presence, surface, and memory. Each piece tells a story through its form, its patina, and the evidence of age and handling.
Featured object
Medicine cabinet with original internal order.
Opened fully, the cabinet reveals the discipline of its interior architecture, the quiet rhythm of drawers, and the restrained dignity of its mounts.
Continuous grain
Read as sculpture before furniture.
The uninterrupted sweep of grain becomes the composition itself, with hardware held in deliberate reserve.
“The finest conservation leaves no trace, but it restores the object’s authority.”
Atelier principle
Services
Invisible intervention, visible confidence.
01
Conservation and restoration
Joinery, structural repair, sympathetic replacement, surface stabilisation, and conservation-led finishing for hardwood furniture and related works.
02
Condition assessment
Detailed reporting for collectors, institutions, auction houses, and dealers, with attention to old repairs, movement, finish, and mount integrity.
03
Authentication and dating
Comparative object analysis drawing on timber character, hardware, patina, wear, and construction logic across Ming and Qing precedents.
04
Collection management
Advice on handling, display, environmental risk, and documentation for private collections and institutional holdings.
Study room
Context matters as much as craft.
A room full of objects, scholarship, and judgement. We believe the best conservation happens when craftsmanship meets connoisseurship — when technical expertise serves the object's story.
Carved splat detailJoinery and wearPortable cabinet with paktong mounts
Object gallery
Scattered, but with intent.
A curated selection of details, objects, and moments. Each image chosen to illuminate some aspect of material, craft, or history.
Interior architecture
Curves and carving
Leg and apron detail
Frame connection
Paktong lock plate
Chair against painted screen
By appointment
Collectors, institutions, and the trade.
We work privately from London on conservation, assessment, and advisory matters concerning Chinese hardwood furniture and related works of art.
