東洋の骨董（こっとう）品を見定める
Mundy Has a Sharp Eye for Asia's Most Exotic Antiques

By Matthias Ley, Photojournalist

江戸時代に作られたお気に入りの仏像とRhett Mundy

　A crisp autumn morning in Kyoto. It is just after 5 a.m., and the first rays of the morning sun are bathing the top of the pagoda of Toji Temple in a golden light.

　Below, on the usually tranquil temple grounds, dealers are setting up their stalls and shops for the monthly flea market.

　American antique dealer Rhett Mundy, 49, sporting his trademark GI-style haircut and leather jacket, is already moving quickly from stall to stall, scanning today's offerings with hawkish eyes. He's already got some temple bells, a Meiji Era bronze vase and a large Shigaraki frog from the early Showa Era.

　Now, near the north gate, he spots a pair of kitsune, Shinto shrine foxes. He swiftly circles in on them, pulls out some cash, talks to the vendor and closes the deal.

　"A great buy," Mundy smiles happily. "My customers will love them." Mundy's love affair with Asian, and especially Japanese antiques, started way back in the early 1980s.

　He was working then in Tokyo's Meguro Ward as an English teacher. In his free time, he visited shops and bought used kimonos and other items, "as many as I could carry," he recalls. After completing his time as a teacher, he traveled throughout Asia, buying more antiques along the way. Upon returning home to his native Boston, "I sold everything very quickly," Mundy says. "That was the beginning of my antiques-dealing business."

　In 1986 he traveled to Japan and Asia again, and later that year he opened his first antique shop in Boston, Asia Galleries. In 2000 he moved his business to San Francisco.

　"I always had a passion for traveling and arts," Mundy says. "I had visited the Louvre in Paris and other museums before.

　"But the beauty of Asian traditional art objects simply blew me away. I studied and learned about Asian arts from books, other dealers or collectors like some Harvard professors who were customers of mine."

　Quickly he gained a reputation for finding and getting valuable items from very remote areas, from the tropical jungles of Myanmar to the snow-capped Himalayas.

　During these travels, he has to fight off diseases such as malaria or dengue fever, deal with corrupt customs officials, nurture his network of contacts and arrange the shipments of his goods in containers back to the U.S.

　Twice he has been arrested, in Nepal and by Myanmarese rebels for entering their territory illegally, but someone from the Thai side of the border was sent in and negotiated his release. No wonder then, that a magazine called Mundy the "Indiana Jones of Asian antique buying."

　Mundy, however, is very strict about the sources of his antiques.

盗品には要注意

　"I never buy stolen goods," he confirms. "Most museums are full of stolen artifacts," he says, so he buys directly from the source, often from monks, or auctions in Japan. His most favorite item is a nearly 3-meter tall black-faced Buddha statue from Myanmar, made of teakwood covered with black lacquer.

　"This statue had some damages at the feet," Mundy explains, "so the monks decided to sell it to me." Actress Gillian Anderson of the TV series "X-Files" and rock musician Carlos Santana were both interested in this Buddha, but so far the item remains on display in his warehouse and on his Web page.

　The secret to his success, Mundy says, is "the ability to translate your passion and eye for beautiful and old treasures into someone else's passion, so they will buy them. You have to know what you are buying, that is the trick."

　Since opening his shop in 1986, he spends six months each year on the road in 15 Asian countries buying, the other six months selling his pieces to museums, antique shops and collectors.

　Asia Galleries specializes in high-end Buddhist artifacts and Asian antiques, "with more and more emphasis on Japan," Mundy explains.

　"Kyoto is a great place to relax after the hard travels in Asia, and is my first choice to be in the world. It is so easy here, the food is great, it is safe and has a great business environment," Mundy says. "As I have to take care of my customers in the U.S., so I cannot live permanently here."

　For a couple of years he has owned a four-story warehouse on Imadegawa Street, and he just bought a second huge warehouse in Yase, a short drive away. Although he has just shipped a container full of Buddha statues, screens and textiles to San Francisco, the warehouse is still full of furniture.

　"This one will ship to Boston soon," Mundy says. "I still have many customers there, so I plan to make an annual month-long show of my antiques there, too."

• on...grounds　普段は静かな寺の境内で
• flea market　ノミの市
• sporting...jacket　彼のトレードマークである米兵のようなスポーツ刈りの髪型と革ジャン姿で
• scanning...eyes　今日売りだされたものをタカのような眼で調べている
• Shigaraki frog　信楽焼のカエル
• started...1980s　始まりは1980年代にさかのぼる
• simply...away　ともかく私を圧倒した
• fight off diseases　病気を寄せつけない
• dengue fever　（熱帯病の）デング熱
• for...illegally　領土に違法に侵入したとして
• made...lacquer　黒の漆（うるし）で塗装されたチーク材でできた
• translate...passion　自身の情熱と古美術や骨とう品を見る眼を他の人の情熱に置き換える
• artifact(s)　工芸品
• has...warehouse　４階建ての倉庫を所有している