22 23rd June 2012 auction reports asian art sales in the regions
continued from page 19 Kensington-based S. Marchant and
Son – the source of many of Tony Evans’ purchases four decades ago – were able to buy back five pieces. Bidding on the telephone, Marchant’s
most valuable purchase was the £140,000 Yongzheng mark-and-period doucai stem bowl. It is decorated to the exterior with ba jixiang – the eight Buddhist emblems, the interior with a chrysanthemum medallion incorporating a “shou” character for good luck. It was purchased by Mr Evans from Marchant in 1962 for £25 and had been estimated at £4000- 6000, reflecting the fact that it has a hairline crack to its rim. The Evans collection raised a total of
£898,290. “It took me nine years to build the annual turnover of our saleroom to £1m and we doubled that two years ago,” auctioneer Tony Pratt commented. Here they chalked up a million before
lunch.
A QUIET word of advice: don’t ever play Peter Bainbridge at cards. For the second time in three years the
Middlesex ‘minnow’ turned up the most talked-about consignment of the recent Asian art sales. The 31-lot sale of the Gertrude
Harriman collection, until recently on loan to the Nottingham Castle Museum, generated £2,977,350 at Bainbridge’s
West Ruislip saleroom on the afternoon of May 17. Such was the buzz around the collection that many London dealers chose to skip the concurrent sale at Bonhams Bond Street to attend the sale of this eminently buyable and well-provenanced collection. Gertrude Harriman (1903-70) had
worked with her husband Otto Herrmann (1900-50) in the paste jewellery trade in Bohemia, but moved to London before the war where they had a wholesale jewellery business. In 1945 they established Ulster Pearls
Ltd, a factory making artificial pearls in Co. Antrim whose success allowed for the purchase of a varied collection of Chinese wares from venerable London dealers such as Bluett’s and John Sparks. When Gertrude died in 1970 the collection was loaned initially to the Bristol City Museum and from c.1989 until this year to the Nottingham Castle Museum. It was the majority of these pieces that were offered for sale by the family at Bainbridge’s. The auctioneers produced a scholarly
catalogue, aided in their quest by both former cataloguers and the multiple paper labels and original documentation affixed to most pieces detailing their exhibition and purchase history. In a marketplace littered with fakes,
many Mainland devotees can seldom be sure of their purchasing. The opportunity to buy with such confidence was seized with both hands.
Left: the plethora of exhibition and dealer labels seen to the base of the Xuande mark and period dice bowl sold for £1.4m at Bainbridge’s of West Ruislip on May 17.
One of the many pieces to return to
China was the 10in (26cm) diameter Ming dynasty Xuande (1425-1435) mark-and- period, blue-and-white dice bowl, painted with five-clawed dragons among cloud scrolls, pictured on the front page of ATG No 2042. It was slightly misshapen but was in
good condition with a slight fire crack to rim and some ground-out chips to count against it. The Harrimans had bought it from Bluetts in 1948 for £65. Here an out-of-date probate valuation
provided the £20,000-30,000 estimate, although the auctioneers were aware of the very similar bowl sold by Sotheby’s for just shy of HK$10m in 2006. In a packed Ruislip saleroom bidding
opened at £100,000 before settling down to a contest between Alastair Gibson bidding for stock and the agent for an established mainland China collector who was also in the room. The latter won his prize at £1.4m – and two lots later took an 8in (20cm) diameter Hongwu (1368-
RHINOCEROS HORN Despite the recent changes in legislation on the export of rhinoceros horn, libation cups fashioned in a material revered by the Chinese for its aesthetic and purported medicinal properties, provided some solid sums during this spring series. Three were on offer. Doubtless prices are down on those
Above: rhino horn libation cup, £25,000 at Sworders.
paid prior to the European Union export ban on all rhino horn works of art, but it was still possible for Mallams Cheltenham to field bids up to £64,000 for the 8¾in (22cm) high Qing (19th century) cornucopia form vessel offered as part of their £390,000 sale on May 16. In a horn of toffee tones, it was carved as a lotus on a
98) period underglaze copper red bowl, painted with a peony within a broad band of scrolling chrysanthemum. The colour ranged from grey to a
pleasing pale pink and it was in fine condition. Purchased by the Harrimans from Bluett’s for £57 in October 1944, it sold at £850,000 – the estimate again set very low at £40,000-60,000. Bonhams recently sold a similar bowl in Hong Kong for a price in the region of £500,000, although it had some hairline cracks. With the sale bringing a fraction shy
of £3m, it appears lightning did strike twice for Peter Bainbridge, who famously shattered the world auction record for a Chinese work of art when a Qianlong yang cai reticulated double-walled vase fetched £43m (£51.6m including buyer’s premium) in November 2010. With that ‘sale’ still yet to be concluded
(the feeling is a deal will be done but not with that ‘buyer’ and not at that price) few will deny Bainbridge his second helping of good fortune.
long stem and decorated with chihlong and the head of a dragon holding a peach to the inside. It was sold on a carved wooden magnolia stand by a Gloucestershire vendor. Another smaller 3¾in (9cm) high Kangxi cup from an
Oxfordshire vendor and again sold with an Animal Health Pre-sale Approval Licence, fetched £19,000. Carved as a plum tree and blossom, representing winter
and longevity, the front was engraved with an archaic poem by Lin Bu (967-1028), based on the theme of plum blossom. Pictured here is a mid 17th century libation cup in the
form of a lotus leaf clambered over by five chihlong offered by Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet on May 15. There it made £25,000 despite a chip and restoration to the lip.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88