Chinese Works of Art

Netherhampton Salerooms (12.5% buyer’s premium) celebrated their first ever fine antiques sale in Salisbury on April 10 with quite a coup. The quality of this pair of 19th century Chinese lacquer cabinets, right, was such that they were always going to take a respectable price.

This pair of Qianlong turquoise-enamelled Cong vases, 8in (20cm) tall, with coral trigram decoration in relief, made €320,000 (£221,000) against an estimate of €20,000 at the March 7 sale at Piasa Oriental sale (17.94/11.96% buyer’s premium).

“Is it 19th century?” a London dealer inquired of this unusual famille verte vase illustrated right which had been consigned to Woolley & Wallis’s sale with its partner, the more classical, yen yen vase, far right.

Altfield, who specialise in traditional craftsman-made furniture and objects imported from the Far East, have a well-established mainly trade outlet at the Chelsea Harbour Design Centre, but last November, they branched out with a new retail showroom at 320 King’s Road, SW3.

The upside of Asian art in London is that the volume of sales pulls in all the Asian and international buyers. The downside of this concentration is that scheduling without overlap is difficult and buyers inevitably pick their way through all those goods selectively. Christie’s South Kensington, who fielded a marathon 600-plus lot Chinese auction on November 14, felt both effects.

The results of Hong Kong’s October Asian series underscored the increasing polarity in this market in which there seems no limit to collectors’ and dealers’ insatiable desire for the best Qing dynasty mark and period porcelain or quality Chinese works with good provenance, but little interest in more standard Oriental fare.

Chinese Snuff Bottles: A Guide to Addictive Miniatures by Trevor Cornforth and Dr Nathan Cheung ISBN 0764315919 £55hb. Published by Schiffer Books and distributed by Bushwood Books Ltd, 6 Marksbury Avenue, Kew Gardens, Surrey TW9 4JF. Tel: 020 8392 8585. email: bushwd@aol.com Postage and packing is free within the UK, £5.50 per surface mail order.

After the spectacular HK$37m (£3,394,495) price bid for the Yongzheng (1723-35) peach vase in Sotheby’s Hong Kong May 7 sale, their New York rooms had high hopes for this yellow ground famille rose double gourd vase, Qianlong period (1736-95), consigned by the same private US vendor, in their Chinese outing on September 19. They were not disappointed by the outcome.

Chinese Classic Furniture – The Dr S.Y. Yip Collection: It may come as a surprise to some to learn that the Ming dynasty’s minimalist huanghuali furniture has traditionally been more prized in the West than it has been in the East.

A Chinese works of art sale held by Christie’s on June 18 included a set of S.W. Bushell’s Oriental Ceramic Art illustrated by Examples from the Collection of W.T. Walters, published in 10 volumes in 1897 and illustrated with 116 chromos by Louis Prang after J & J.C. Callowhill.

This vase may have come from relatively humble surroundings but the London trade had no doubt that it was fit for a king. The 18th century blue ground imperial vase, 133/4in (35cm) high, was offered at Bearne’s, Exeter on July 2.

Allen’s Authentication of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, by Anthony J. Allen, published by Allen’s Enterprises Ltd of Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand, www.allens.antiques.com and distributed in the UK by David Aldous-Cook: Reference Books on Antiques, Sutton, Surrey. Tel/fax: 0208 642 4842. ISBN 0473080451 £60hb

Christie’s King Street, may not have had their best ever sale but they did have the week’s most admired snuff bottle: a black and white jade inscribed example, signed Shixiang, 1740-1850.

THIS most unusual looking beast is expected to be the star lot at a sale to be held in Paris on July 4 at a most unusual location, the pagoda-like Maison Chinoise, rue de Courcelles, Paris 8.

Nanking means to most people the rape of that city by the Japanese; to ceramics collectors it conjures up memories of the Nanking Cargo, but in the specialist picture market it is the place where the 1842 treaty was signed opening up five ports to British merchants “without (molestation or restraint”.

Christie’s, Blanche B. Exstein Collection of Fine Snuff Bottles, March 21: Snuff bottles may not be to every collector’s taste, but Christie’s Blanche B. Exstein Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles achieved that rarest of auction phenomena: a 100 per cent sell-out by lot and by value.

AUCTIONEER Mark Bowman is hardly the first auctioneer to be taken aback by the price achieved by a piece of Oriental porcelain, and not just at provincial rooms like his operation at the Wotton Auction Rooms (10% buyer’s premium).

A large, gilt-copper altar statue of Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Life, on a lotus flower base, right, 3ft 2in (96cm) tall and hailing from Inner Mongolia/Dolonnor or China (c.1700), proved the main attraction at Nagel’s Asian Art sale in Stuttgart on November 10, selling for DM420,000 (£134,000).

COINCIDING with London’s Asia week, the 507-lot sale held by Gilding’s (12.5% buyer’s premium) at Market Harborough on November 13 featured this blue and white six-character mark and period Qianlong (1736-95) meiping, right, on its front cover.

Individual entries consigned to Sotheby’s and Christie’s Chinese sales were an encouraging reminder to any jaded dealer that if you look hard enough and long enough, sleepers are still to be found.