Chinese Works of Art

A Qianlong teapot which made £800,000 in Dorchester provided the stellar result among some exceptional Asian art lots offered for sale in the UK regions and Ireland last week.

Duke’s latest Asian art sale had been headlined by items from a local resident and well-known auctioneer, academic and collector, Anthony du Boulay. The 249 lots from early classic wares to Cantonese enamels generated plenty of saleroom energy and a total of around £800,000.

Dismissed a generation ago as decorative export wares, Qing and later silver is today the focus of lively academic and commercial attention.

The most important example of Qing glassware to appear at auction sold for HK$180m (£18m) – the highlight of Sotheby’s recent series in Hong Kong.

A Qianlong period export plaque decorated after a scene by Louis-Marin Bonnet (1736-93) was among the Fine Art Asia highlight sales.

A generation ago pieces such as this splendid 20in (50cm) famille rose ‘dragon’ charger from the Guangxu period (1874-1908) were valued chiefly as decorative objects. However, appreciation of the best quality porcelain produced in the last years of the Qing continues to grow.

At the budget-price end of the Chinese boom – which tends to get overlooked – profits are there for the keen eyed, such as the vendor of this twin-handled censer shown here.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Estimated at £400-600, a Chinese porcelain vase was bid to £1.3m at an auction in Hampshire last week.

Sotheby’s opened its September Asia Week auctions in New York on September 10 with the $8.3m sale of Chinese art consigned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Japanese carved ivories of a tiger and an elephant soared far above estimate at Chorley’s (22% buyer’s premium).

Purchased for £1 from a Hertfordshire charity shop earlier this year, a Qianlong famille rose wall vase will carry an estimate of over £50,000 at Sworders in the autumn.