Asian Art

Asian Art in London, the event that promotes London as the centre of the global Asian art trade, has increased the number of its auction house participants for the 21st edition (November 1-10).

Brian Morgan was a leading Oriental art dealer, a president of the British Antiques Dealers’ Association and set up the Friends of the BADA Trust, a charitable organisation.

Stuttgart auction house Nagel (33% buyer’s premium) held its summer sale of Asian art in Salzburg having acquired an impressive array of quality pieces from European and other collections.

“The best piece in the sale,” enthused auctioneer Richard Harrison in reference to a Meiji Kazaridana cabinet sold for £11,000 at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) at Cockermouth on June 13-15.

A long-running legal dispute over a Fatimid rock crystal ewer that had been due to sell at Sotheby’s has been settled in court.

The 195-lot collection of mask netsuke amassed by Swiss entrepreneur Peter Müller met with mixed success when offered by Matthew Barton (24% buyer’s premium).

"He had taken a taxi from Heathrow to Easingwold. After fierce bidding on the phones and internet he bought it, put it in his suitcase and the taxi was still waiting outside the saleroom with the meter ticking to go back to Heathrow.”

Chinese art specialist Priestley & Ferraro has moved to a new location in St James’s. The new address is 3 Bury Street, not far from 17 King Street where it had been located since 1996.

Results for Kakiemon and Meiji metalwork underline stronger market for Asia’s ‘second tier’

Among several runaway lots at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) Asian Art sale in Dorchester was a 19th century Indian watercolour depicting the Mughal Emperor Akbar II on an elephant.

Well-provenanced Chinese monochromes dominated bidding at recent Asian art sales across the UK regions.

Chinese ceramics tend to dominate Asian sales in the UK, but occasionally other mediums get to share the limelight.