Chinese Works of Art

A highpoint of the Dreweatts (25% buyer’s premium) ‘lockdown’ sale of Asian art in Newbury was provided by this 19th century Chinese export silver gilt and enamelled box.

The latest sale of Asian Works of Art held online by Skinner of Marlborough, Massachusetts included this blue and white bottle vase with a Yongzheng (1722-36) mark.

These two 21in (52cm) fan leaf paintings, one with a panel of calligraphy, the other with an ink and colour landscape, are by Zhang Daquian (1899-1983).

A Qing dynasty (1644-1911) embroidered silk hanging scroll topped Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) Asian art sale on May 28, selling online for £21,000.

Sotheby’s July Hong Kong series will include ‘a lost masterpiece’ of Qianlong yangcai porcelain recently found in a Dutch country house.

Hindman will holding Asian art sales in Chicago over two days on June 25-26.

Estimated at just £50-70, this Chinese porcelain saucer dish sold online for £7850 at Edinburgh saleroom Franklin Browns (15% buyer’s premium).

The first sale held by Bonhams Australia (22% buyer’s premium) behind closed doors in Sydney was devoted to Asian art,

Scotland’s key role in the 18th and 19th century China trade has a legacy. Some of the nation’s country houses remain the repository of important Far Eastern works of art.

It was not just the great and good of 18th century Europe and North America who commissioned the Thirteen Factories at Canton to embellish Chinese porcelain blanks with family armorials or subjects copied from prints.

A Beijing enamel vase from a Scottish country house topped the Asian art sale held ‘behind closed doors’ by Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium).

A Chinese blue and white vase achieved a hammer price of over £3m at an online auction that closed in Singapore last week.

For centuries, China was a rewarding market for European clock and watchmakers who created extravagant timepieces for their Oriental clientele.

As a rule, musical boxes, which were the favoured mode of reproducing music by mechanical means in the salons of Europe and the US during the 19th century, were more or less portable mechanisms.

Among 83 lots of film and entertainment memorabilia offered at Lacy Scott & Knight (20% buyer’s premium) in Bury in St Edmunds was a British quad-size poster for 'Dr No', the first James Bond film starring Sean Connery released in 1962.

The timed sale of Oriental ceramics and works of art to be held by Hotlotz Singapore running until May 3 features a selection of items from the descendants of Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, GCMG, KCVO, KBE, KStJ, who was governor-general of Ceylon from 1954-62.