Asian Art

Rare Japanese Meiji gold coin emerges at auction in West Sussex

Multi-estimate bidding is no longer just the preserve of Chinese works of art. During the recent Asian art sales, Vietnamese market objects excelled.

Indian talismanic shirts or Qur’an jama were believed to carry protective powers.

Perhaps the most identifiable production of the Daoguang period (1820-50) of the Qing empire is the medallion bowl.

Bezoars (from the Persian pād-zahr meaning ‘poison antidote’) are the calcified concretion found in the stomachs of some animals. Prized for their supposed medicinal properties, until the Enlightenment science at the beginning of the 18th century they could sell for more than their weight in gold.

The market for Chinese furniture has come on leaps and bounds in 20 years.

Leading a recent Woolley & Wallis' (25/12% buyer’s premium) sale in Salisbury were two scroll paintings by well-known 20th century Chinese artists that came by descent from Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883-1950).

This Kangxi (1662-1722) period blue and white brush pot was offered at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Many Chinese export porcelain forms were inspired by European silver or ceramic forms.

Qianlong moon flasks of this type are based on Ming dynasty prototypes that in turn were inspired by early Persian drinking vessels traded along the Silk Road.

The scene on this 19in (43cm) Yongzheng famille rose dish depicts the Daoist immortal Magu on her way to celebrate the famous peach banquet of the Queen Mother of the West, Xi Wang Mu, who rules over the garden of the peaches of longevity.

The highest single price posted in the regions during the autumn series of Asian art sales was the £380,000 bid at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dorchester for a monumental Sino-Tibetan gilt bronze devotional figure of Tara broadly dated to the Qing period.

This Qing bronze fragment measuring a substantial 19in (47cm) across was once part of a magnificent sculpture of a crane that adorned an imperial palace.

Japanese antique ivories have been gradually disappearing from the catalogues of prominent dealers and major auction houses but good examples are still being sold in the regions.

Early Japanese porcelain models of animals are very rare, and this elephant form koro, c.1700, offered for sale as part of the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) Japanese works of art sale appears to be unrecorded.

This Japanese cloisonné casket bears the mark for the Ando Company of Nagoya.

The outstanding jade offered in the regions in the October-December period was this pale celadon teapot and cover that came for sale at Duke’s in Dorchester on December 8 from a Dutch private collection where it had been since the 1980s.

Chinese and Mughal jades believed to have been stolen more than four years ago are still at large and the family and police have made a plea for information as to their whereabouts.

Estimated at £40,000-60,000, a lacquer cabinet from Edo period Japan sold for £105,000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on November 23.

The descendants of the Belgian collector Jef Vanderstraete have consigned this 20in (51cm) high gilt bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Ekadashamukha to Lempertz in Cologne, where it is coming up for sale on December 11.