Chinese Works of Art

The US staged a raft of dedicated Asian auctions in New York salerooms and beyond last week. Top lot as ATG went to press was this 2ft 10½in (88cm) high fencai vase from the Qianlong period with a six-character turquoise Qianlong mark to the base when it sold for $22m (£14.2m) hammer at Skinner (23/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Boston on September 17.

The opening lots of a recent sale at Reeman Dansie of Colchester comprised a collection of Chinese porcelain which included a rare bowl that was apparently a favourite resting place for the family cat.

There was huge pre-sale interest from the Far East in this Qing jade table screen at the latest fine art sale held by Tennants of Leyburn.

It’s only recently in the decade-long boom in Chinese works of art that Far Eastern buyers have come to appreciate once again the merits of Export silver. Once a neglected area, academic interest has been piqued in the subject as the marketplace moves in leaps and bounds.

The most highly regarded piece of Chinese porcelain offered during the recent round of Asian sales was seen in Edinburgh where Lyon & Turnbull sold this blue and white dragon charger for £355,000.

This Imperial Qianlong white jade ‘hinge-fitting’ achieved the highest price of the round of Asian sales held this month in London and the regions, selling for £410,000 at Bonhams New Bond Street.

6in (15cm) long Chinese white jade carving of a Buddhist lion dog, Qianlong 1736-95, with a paper label for Queen Amelia of Portugal Collection. Estimate £30,000-50,000. Sold for £110,000 hammer at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury, May 21, 2014

The latest Asian art sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet was led by this massive 9½in (24.5cm) high Chinese calligrapher’s brush pot dating to the late 18th or early 19th century.

A new auction high for Chinese porcelain was set last week when Sotheby’s sold a tiny Chenghua period ‘chicken cup’ for a hammer price of HK$250m (£21.5m) as part of their latest Hong Kong sale series.

This Qianlong mark and period hat or wig stand sold for a massive £360,000 at a recent Cheffins sale in Cambridge.

A group of private collectors from China’s Hunan province have privately purchased the famed Min Fanglei, a bronze ritual wine vessel from the Late Shang or Early Western Zhou period due to be sold in New York last month.

Marchant, the eminent Kensington Church Street dealership, have signed up for Brian and Anna Haughton’s ‘Art Antiques London’ from June 12-18 in Kensington Gardens.

Estimated at just £200-300, a set of four early 20th century Chinese famille rose porcelain plaques depicting the four seasons in mountainous settings were bought by a phone bidder from Shanghai for £420,000 at Charterhouse of Sherborne in Dorset.

Optimism permeated the UK’s regional auction market across much of the last year.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has been given an important private collection of modern and contemporary Chinese art.

The sale by Christie’s of 24 items of Chinese ceramics from Croydon’s Riesco Collection will go ahead after a legal challenge failed through lack of funds.

This Yongzheng yellow and green enamel vase was the highest-selling lot from the week-long auction series of Asian art held in London.

An 18th century casket made from fragments of Chinese porcelain has been bought by the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

Among the highlights of the New York Asia Week series of sales at Doyle New York was this Qianlong white jade phoenix ewer.

The London Borough of Croydon has chosen Christie’s as the auctioneers for its controversial sale of 24 Chinese works of art from its collection.