Chinese Works of Art

Chinese trick or surprise cups were made to deceive a drinker and illustrate the classical paradigm that modesty brings gain and arrogance results in loss.

Bidders deem Yongzheng Guan ware to be of the period as estimate is demolished

A private Scottish collection was the source of the-top selling lot at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow on July 2.

This small Transitional porcelain vase came for sale at Gardiner Houlgate (22% buyer’s premium) in Corsham, Bath, on July 1.

Very much to current collecting taste is the 6½in (16.5cm) ‘peach bloom’ saucer dish shown here, offered by Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on July 3.

Aficionados of later Chinese porcelain who happened to stumble on a lot of ‘collector’s plates’ at Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Lincoln would have been excited to spot two fine artist-signed Republic period pieces.

Mallams’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest Asian art sale was topped at £27,000 (estimate £3000-5000) by a Qing jade double gourd form snuff bottle.

Based on Warring States (475-225BC) archetypes, archaistic bronze ritual wine vessels, zun, formed as tapirs became popular during the Northern Song period, remained so through to the Qing dynasty, and are major draws in Western salerooms today.

Stuttgart auction house Nagel called it ‘beyond doubt one of the most important gilt-bronzes to appear on the market for many years’ – and the monumental Ming dynasty Sino-Tibetan figure of the wrathful deity Vajrabhairava did not disappoint.

Li Keran, who died in 1989, is considered to be one of the most influential Chinese Contemporary painters. He not only taught a generation of young artists; he is credited with the revival of Chinese landscape painting.

The three-day sale at Lindsay Burns in Perth on July 20-22 includes this Qing porcelain blue and white vase decorated with five dragons contesting a flaming pearl amid cloud scrolls.

A tobacco pipe which opened the series and an opium one which ended it – interspersed by a cigar stub – met keen demand at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

A pair of Chinese Qianlong Period coffee cups commissioned by portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) are included in Tennants’ Summer Fine Sale on July 16-17.

Included in the Cheffins Fine Sale in Cambridge on June 30-July 1 are more than 50 lots of furniture, antiques, ceramics and collectors’ items from the famous Hertfordshire estate, Julians Park.

A highlight from the Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 27 is this set of four porcelain plaques by the celebrated Republic period artist Wang Qi (1884-1937).

Copenhagen auction house Bruun Rasmussen achieved a house record with the sale of an early Ming porcelain dish.

Asian art specialist Gerald Davison has released his fourth and final book and it is a heavyweight work – literally.

As part of its spring sale series in Hong Kong, Bonhams’ Fine Chinese Art auction will open with a section titled Beauty and Beyond Women in Chinese art.

A double-gourd dragon vase was one of two excellent Chinese pieces to emerge from a deceased Hampshire estate into Selborne auction house Hannam’s (23% buyer’s premium) rooms on May 4.

Porcelain on offer in Swiss saleroom catches the eye of international bidders.