Culture, history and shopping conveniently come together in South America; an insider's guide to antiques tourism in Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Valparaiso and Buenos Aires.
There is something immediately authentic about the antique market on Rua do Lavradio. This is old Rio. A barrio (neighbourhood) far from the madding crowds of Copacabana, where baroque edifices crumble into cobbled streets, banana trees sprout from friezes and bands play lazy sambas. It was built in homage to Paris, intended to be the epicentre of the Brazilian Belle Époque. Now the former residences of the Brazilian elite are home to antique shops and throngs of street entertainers and hawkers clamour for the attention of the Brazilian buyer. Brazil is heralded as a new economic power, but the 18th-century French garden sculptures and 30-seater rosewood dining tables speak of a more leisurely past.
More than 500 years have passed since Europeans arrived on the shores of South America with dreams of tropical utopia. Hearts heavy with nostalgia, they built towns modelled on Lisbon, Paris and Barcelona and filled them with relics of their homelands. Coffee, cattle and gold booms paid for Mathurin Moreau sculptures, Villeroy and Boch ceramics and Royal Doulton porcelain, while elaborate examples of European architecture sprang up across the cities. Brazilian modernists labelled the South American habit of adoption, antropófago – the cannibalisation of European culture.
Once planted in the isolation of South America, European forms mixed with the local environment and indigenous influences to take on a distinctly South American style. Rio de Janeiro is now an internationally acclaimed cityscape of art deco, baroque and modernist forms; Buenos Aires is renowned for strong classical and neoclassical reproduction architecture, and the 19th-century architecture of Valparaiso in Chile earned it UNESCO World Heritage status. In curious correlation with South America’s recent economic resurgence, the trade in antiques is beginning to emerge. Specialist period shops have sprung up, auction houses are popular and no Latin American city would be complete without a sprawling antique market on the edge of town. The brave new world is getting older, and it is a collector’s delight.
Rio De Janeiro
The high-rise heaven of Copacabana may suggest that Brazil is a country of the future, but a walk in the old backstreets reveals a culture heavily grounded in history. Copacabana attracts the upmarket antique fairs and auction houses, but the vibrant market life is to be found in the street fairs. Baroque-style street festivals are part of daily life, antique markets are popular trading places and locals flock to the old town on weekends.
Traditional barrios such as Lapa, Centro and Gávea are not tourist traps. They are part of the living heart and soul of the city. Auction houses sell the unwanted heirlooms of old Rio families, boutiques specialise in specific eras and flea markets bustle with the transactions of the informal economy. Highlights for the buyer will be Brazilian imperial rosewood furniture, 19th-century French furniture, modernist and art deco design objects, Chinese porcelain sculptures
and dishes, religious wood carvings and silverware.
Shop
Rua do Lavradio, Lapa
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Café da Lapa do Atelie Belmonte; Mobix Objetos de Arte; Mercado Moderno
34, 128 & 130 Rua do Lavradio, Lapa. +55 21 3970 0836, +55 21 2224 0244, +55 21 2508 6083.
Feira do Rio Antigo, Lapa
Rio Scenarium
20 Rua do Lavradio, Centro.
+55 21 3147-9005.
Roberto Haddad Leilão
27a Rua Pompeu Loureiro, Copacabana.
+55 21 2548 7141.
Shopping Cidade Copacabana
143 Rua Siqueira Campos, Copacabana.
Feira de Antigüidades
Praça Quinze, Centro.
Praça Santos Dumont Antiques Fair
Gávea.
Stay
Mama Ruisa
132 Rua Santa Cristina, Santa Teresa.
Hotel Santa Teresa
660 Rua Almirante Alexandrino, Santa Teresa.
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Buenos Aires
Under the ramshackle awnings of baroque terraces and art nouveau mansions, bohemians and sophisticates of the Paris of the South trade their wares. Streets are closed, stalls cover the footpaths and drums and accordions drift through the streets. It is hot, noisy and frequently desperate, but San Telmo is the only place to be on Sundays. With a rich European heritage and love of elegance, the Porteños (people of Buenos Aires) are South America’s strongest antiques aficionados.
Where Rio pursued modernism, Buenos Aires stayed faithful to classical design. They dreamed of Paris and Rome, and built magnificent homages. Neoclassical and gothic structures mark the promenades; Buenos Aires style is an intoxicating hybrid of 19th-century Europe, Spanish hacienda and its own 1920s Belle Époque.
The atmospheric San Telmo streets Balcarce, Defensa and Estados Unidos offer boutiques, stalls and hidden courtyards. Antique collectors will revel in their own individual fascinations, but highlights for everyone will be 19th-century French furniture, classic design items, chandeliers and lighting, religious art, baroque architectural elements, garden sculptures and fabulous vintage frockery.
Shop
San Telmo Antiques Fair
Plaza Dorrego & Defensa, San Telmo.
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Gil Antigüedades
412 Humberto Primero, San Telmo.
+54 11 4361 5019.
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Gabriel del Campo Anticuario
990 Defensa, San Telmo.
+54 11 4361 2061.
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Pasaje la Defensa
1179 Defensa, San Telmo.
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El Rufián Melancólico
857 Bolivar, San Telmo.
+54 11 4300 1027.
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Stay
Moreno Hotel
376 Moreno, San Telmo.
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Santiago & Valparaoso
Downtown Santiago is a little battered by 1970s development, but antiques lovers will be appeased by the nearby UNESCO Heritage-listed seaport of Valparaiso, renowned for its preserved architectural cityscape, early industrial funiculars and quirky old shops. The natural amphitheatre and labyrinthine streets inspired poet Pablo Neruda, who lived in the house La Sebastiana, and writer Isabel Allende, whose novel Daughter Of Fortune is set here.
Shop
Feria de Antigüedades y Libros
Paseo Estado, between Plaza de Armas & Alameda, Santiago.
Plaza O’Higgins Market
Opposite National Congress, Calle Victoria, Valparaiso.
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Plaza Perú Antiques Market
Isidora Goyenechea, Augusto Leguía Norte & Las Condes, Santiago.
Antigüedades El Abuelo
2071 Independencia, Valparaiso.
+56 32 221 7032.
Stay
Hotel Casa Higueras
133 Calle Higuera, Cerro Alegre, Valparaiso.
Source: Qantas The Australian Way October 2009