Ceramics 11
Lion-shaped incense burner, celadon, Goryeo dynasty, 12th century, Deaseom Island, Taean-gun, Chungcheongnam-do province, Treasure, National Marine Heritage Research Institute. This incense burner differs from other celadon pieces through the omission of some features and exaggeration of others on the lion, demonstrating the range in expression in sculpting during this period.
degree. Beth McKillop and Jane Portal write, ‘Te colour of the glaze on Goryeo celadons differs from that on Chinese celadons. Tis is because the small manganese content is slightly higher than the small titanium content. Te glaze also contains about 3 per cent iron. Much scientific research has been carried out in recent years both in Korea and in the West on the chemistry of clays and glazes, giving rise to new discoveries about the material qualities of Goryeo ceramics.’ From the late 11th to 13th centuries,
domestic style to produce wares with a unique ‘Korean’ sensibility. Te superior workmanship and distinctive designs of sculpted celadons from Goryeo also began to be recognised by an international audience beyond China. In Precious Beyond Measure: A History
of Korean Ceramics, Beth McKillop and Jane Portal note that as these [celadon] wares were expensive to produce, they were made by closely controlled communities of potters under local government
supervision and
transported to the capital for the enjoyment of the elite. Most of the celadons produced would have been used for eating and drinking, such as
ASIAN ART
asianartnewspaper.com
ewers, bowls, cups, cup stands and dishes. Other types of containers were also used by aristocratic women for cosmetics and toiletries. Te scholar would have used celadon water droppers and inkstones in the sarangbang (study) with many of the scholar’s objects being in the form of auspicious animals, such as ducks, toads, turtles, or lions. Brush stands and rests were also popular items made in celadon for the gentleman’s study. Te translucent bluish glaze is a
distinctive trait of Goryeo celadons, which adds a sense of vitality to the figural forms, elevating the artistry of sculpted celadon to an unparalleled
like climbing kilns built on slopes, fired in a tightly
controlled low-oxygen
atmosphere to bring out the characteristic blue-green glaze. Tey were often over 10 metres, built of clay and brick on hillsides so the flame and heat could travel up through multiple firing chambers. To create Goryeo celadon’s distinctive blue-green colour, potters created
a reducing
atmosphere by sealing the kiln and restricting airflow so that
consumed available oxygen and altered
(low-oxygen) the fire
THE NEWSPAPER FOR COLLECTORS, DEALERS, MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
ASIAN ART
asianartnewspaper.com
In each issue, our features play an important part in the mix, so why not explore the arts of painting, ceramics, metalwork or lacquerware, as well as specialised histories, the list is huge EXPLORE THE ARCHIVES
Immerse yourself in the world of Asian and Islamic art in Asian Art Newspaper’s complete archive, from the fi rst issue in November 1997
You’ll fi nd a wealth of information at your fi ngertips, including a host of features on ceramics, textiles, furniture, paintings and print, as well as travel articles, the best books and exhibition catalogues published over the last 20 years. And an archive full of Asian Contemporary Voices – interviews with celebrated artists, architects, writers and academics, and more from the Asian and Islamic art worlds. T ere’s over 200 artist profi les, historic auction information, and a host of blockbuster exhibitions from past years. An index to all back issues can be found on our website,
asianartnewspaper.com/index
IN DECEMBER, Chinese archaeologists uncovered a 2,500-year-old tomb thought to contain the remains and burial rituals of an ancient royal family in Luoyang City, Henan Province in Central China. Four out of the eight great ancient capitals of China are located in the province and the region is known for its ancient archaeological discoveries. Tis latest tomb is believed to originate from the little-known Luhun Kingdom, which lasted 113 years between 638-525 BC. It is thought to be the tomb of a Luhun nobleman, as copper belts and ceremonial pots were discovered along with a second burial pit nearby that yielded 13 whole horse skeletons and six chariots. Te designs of the objects show the stylistic influence from the surrounding regions during the Spring Autumn period (722 to 481 BC). Te horses are arranged on their
celadon production was concentrated in the coastal Jeolla Province, especially in Buan and Gangjin. Te most concentrated production areas were found in villages such as Sadang-ri, Yongun-ri, and Gyeoyul-ri. Te Gangjin kiln sites formed a huge complex of about 188 kilns near the sea. Te raw materials needed to produce these ceramics, such as fine clay, silica, and an abundance of firewood, were found in the nearby mountains. Te area was also linked to trade routes that exported and transported wares across Korea, China, and Japan. Archaeological and textual evidence has identified the Sadangri kilns at Gangjin as key producers of the highest quality celadon for the aristocracy during Goryeo’s peak demand in the 12th century. Tese Goryeo kilns were long, tunnel-
Mandarin duck-shaped incense burner lid, celadon, Goryeo dynasty, 12th century, Gaeseong, Gyeonngi-do province, National Museum of Korea
celadon market at the time and then transhipped via the maritime route along the coast of the West Sea of Korea. As previously mentioned, it was
during this period that Goryeo celadon attained a sophistication in style and techniques to rival the celadons produced in China. Apart from objects for religious use, meiping or prunus vases, jars, ewers, bowls and water droppers were also highly revered and produced to serve the demands of the court and religious institutions. Te Gyeongju exhibition explored the height of this sophistication mainly in the sculpted forms of animals, plants, and flowers. Mythical beasts were popularly represented by dragons, girin (qilin in Chinese), as well as less exotic animals such as birds, monkeys and ducks. Te mythical
beasts were considered
auspicious animals that symbolised the authority and prestige of the royal court and their nobility. Animal forms were often produced as incense burners, water droppers, and pillows. A centrepiece of the exhibition was
the dragon-carp shaped ewer that forms a hybrid imaginary animal with a dragon head and body of a fish. Tis fish-dragon (also known as a makara in some cultures) would have been highly valued,
requiring
Lion-shaped incense burner, celadon, Goryeo dynasty, 12th century, National Treasure, National Museum of Korea
the iron in the glaze to produce the soft greenish tone. Te Korean mud-built kilns, adapted from Chinese brick kilns, were highly valued because their smaller, clay-dominated structure made temperature and reduction easier to control to attain an even and pure glaze. Finished pieces were then shipped to the capital, Gaegyeong, the largest
200+ ARTIST
PROFILES highly skilled
craftsmen to execute the complex and intricate forms showing the diverse techniques needed in making figural ceramics. It is miraculous that it has survived for centuries, allowing the modern
viewer to discover the
• Sculpted Celadons of the Goryeo Dynasty, exhibition catalogue available
• Precious Beyond Measure, A History of Korean Ceramics,
published by Reaktion Books
sophistication and taste of the people of Goryeo and contemplate them quietly sitting with dignity in the modern world.
Xu Bing January 1999
Shazia Sikander June 2021
Lee Ufan March 2014
Nalini Malani Dec 2017
SEE WHAT ARTISTS SAY ABOUT THEIR OWN WORK, THEIR VIEWS ON THE ART WORLD, AND WHAT INSPIRES THEM TO CREATE NEW WORKS
ASIAN ART The newspaper for collectors, dealers, museums and galleries june 2005 £5.00/US$8/€10 The newspaper for collecTors, dealers, museums and galleries • �anuar� 201� • £5.00/us$10/€10
Tomb of Ancient Royal Family Discovered in Henan, China
sides, with the decorations placed on their carcasses. Te first excavations in this area were in 2009, after government archaeologists were tipped off after a spate of grave robbing. Tese excavations have been carried out since 2013 and apart from the tombs, a city dating back to the Han dynasty (202 BC- AD 220) has also been discovered. Te tomb contained copper bells and ceremonial pots and is the largest site out of about 200 tombs in the area and includes roughly eight horse and carriage burial pits, 30 ash pits and 10 kiln sites over 200,000 square metres in the Luoyang area. Due to the tomb’s size,
which is at 21 feet long, 17 feet wide and 28 feet deep, archaeologists believe it to be the resting place of a royal family who, however, wielded little political power. Te tomb has suffered in the past from
water damage and robberies, but the interior coffin was protected by plaster and a coffin board. In a corner of the pit, there were also found large quantities of cow and sheep heads and hooves. Te Luhun Kingdom has been mentioned in historic texts in the past, but little was known about the kingdom since it only lasted for a short period of time. It is known that the Rong people, an ethnic minority group who made up the population of the kingdom, had a tradition of burying cattle parts in the horse burial pits, which has not been documented in other burial sites of the same period. It is hoped this discovery will
enable historians to have a better understanding of the movements of these ancient migratory people and a more detailed picture of the Luhun kingdom and culture.
Chinese archaeologists have found tombs from the short-lived Luhan Kingdom in Louyang, Henan province, including ‘a royal’ tomb and a horse burial pit which contains several whole horse skeletons with trappings, as well as chariots and other ritual objects
NEWS IN BRIEF REMEMBERING
KATŌ YASUKAGE (1964-2012): Ceramic Works from the Katō Family Collection
HISTORIC MAO LETTER, LONDON In December, Sotheby’s in London sold the late Chinese leader’s signed message to British Labour politician Clement Attlee for £605,000 to a private Chinese collector, against a pre-sale estimate of £100-150,000. Te letter, signed by Mao Zedong and dated from 1 November 1937, before Attlee became Britain’s prime minister, is one of the first communications between the Communist leader and any Western politician. Written from Yan’an, a remote part of north-western China where the Communists had set up headquarters after the Japanese invasion of the country, it calls for urgent assistance from the British in the war against Japanese imperialism. It is only the second document signed by Mao to appear on the international auction market in recent decades.
NOGUCHI MUSEUM HONOURS TADAO ANDO, NEW YORK Te Noguchi Museum has announced that the architect Tadao Ando and artist Elyn Zimmerman are the recipients of the third annual Isamu Noguchi Award, given to recognise individuals who share Noguchi’s spirit of innovation, global consciousness, and East-West exchange. Te awards will be presented during a special ceremony at Te Noguchi Museum’s annual Spring Benefit on 10 May. Jenny Dixon, director of Te Noguchi Museum says, ‘With the Isamu Noguchi Award, the museum honours the enduring links between the work of Isamu Noguchi and the many artists and designers he continues to inspire. We are pleased to present this year’s Isamu Noguchi Award to architect Tadao Ando and artist Elyn Zimmerman, whose approach to their profound and beautiful work shares much with Noguchi’s’.
Tall Flower Vessel, 2007 18 1/2 x 12 x 8 in. Oribe-glazed stoneware
JOAN B MIRVISS LT D JAPANESE ART Antique - Contemporary
39 East 78th Street, 4th Floor | New York NY 10075 Telephone 212 799 4021 |
www.mirviss.com
12-2-15 Asian Art Newspaper Ad 1 Untitled-2 1 15/12/2015 10:09 12/8/15 4:35 PM
JAPANESE ARMOUR, PARIS Te Guimet Museum in Paris has announced that it has acquired an important suit of Japanese armour thanks to the launch of a public funding campaign. Te armour, dating to the Edo period,
Continued on page 2
Inside 2
6 8
10 12
14 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23
Profile: the artist Zhang Hongtu This year marks the
150th anniversary of the Scottish photographer, John Thomson, visiting Angkor Wat Interview with Ryoichi Kurokawa, the audio-visual artist The opening of the Mu Xin Museum, in China Sotatsu: Making Waves, the first major exhibition of the artist’s work outside Japan
Asia in Amsterdam, Luxury in the Golden Age, at the Rijksmuseum Tibet’s Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism Living for the Moment, Japanese prints in Los Angeles Japanese exhibitions in Paris, Geneva, and New York
Locarno International Film Festival Exhibitions in New York & Baden Gallery Shows: New York & London Listings
Islamic Arts Diary
Next issue February 2016 Annual guide to West Coast US museums and exhibitions
Contact us See page 2 for details
Visit us online
www.asianartnewspaper.com Follow us on twitter Asianartpaper Join our Facebook page Asian Art Newspaper
Scan this code with your smartphone. QR reader available from App Store
EVERY COPY FROM 1997 Our cover stories refl ect major events in the Asian and Islamic art worlds si Contact us for more information on pricing and how to access Thousands of book recommendations at your fi ngertips
asianartnewspaper.com
info.asianart@
btinternet.com
ASIAN ART | MARCH 2026
Asian Art hires logo 15/8/05 8:34 am Page 1
The newspaper for collecTors, dealers, museums and galleries • winTer 2025 • £5.00/us$10/€10 STARS IN LONDON AND HK O
n 28 October in London, Christie’s sold exceptional paintings from the Collection
of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan. Te couple collected most of the works between the 1960s and 1980s, when there was a wealth of material on the market. Te lots on offer from their collection included a series of paintings by 17th-century Isfahani masters such as Reza Abbassi, as well as Ottoman, Mughal, Deccani, Company School, and Rajput works. It also included eight Company
School works from the Fraser Album, commissioned primarily by William Fraser, a British civil servant, between roughly 1815 and 1819, which documented the late Mughal empire. In many ways, this collection would be impossible to assemble today, as the variety and quality of works available on the market has changed. Te top lot in the auction was A
Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape, attributed to Basawan, circa 1575-80, which sold for £10.2 million (est £700,000 to £1 million) – making it the most expensive
classical Indian or Islamic painting sold at auction – setting a new world auction record for the genre. It was a white-glove sale, 100% sold, which realized a total of over £45 million, six times its presale estimate. Tis also makes it the highest-value sale of South Asian art to date. Further notable results include
Maharao Umed Singh and Zalim Singh Hunting Tigers, from 1781, which sold for £5,052,000 (est £200-300,000), over 25 times the presale estimate. A Prince Hawking, attributed to Muhammad Ali, Mughal India, circa 1610, achieved £3,954,000 (est £700,000 to £1 million), while the 16th-century portrait of Shah Abu’l- Ma’ali of Kashgar by Dust Muhammad sold for £2,734,000 (est £500-700,000). On the same day, Christie’s Hong
Kong held its Fine Chinese Classical Paintings and Calligraphy auction. Among the highlights was Ni Zan’s River Pavilion, Mountain Colours, from a prominent North American collection. With its provenance, publication, and exhibition history,
the work attracted strong interest and finally sold for HK$159,950,000 – with a hammer price close to seven times its low estimate. At the opposite end of Chinese art, Li Hei Di, a 27-year-old artist, set a new auction record for his work when a 2023 canvas sold for HK$2.7 million, more than doubling its high estimate. Tis series of auctions, held from 28 October to 3 November during Hong Kong Asian Art Week, achieved a grand total of HK$954,583,170, up by 13% on last year’s sales. Mainland China was the top buying region, accounting for half of the overall sales, with buyers from Southeast Asia continuing to grow, with this spending up 88% year-on-year. Back in London at Sotheby’s, the
Arts of the Islamic World and the Indian and Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern sales brought a combined total of just under £12 million with many works selling for multiples of their high estimates. Highlights included a pair of silver- mounted pistols made for Tipu Sultan, which sold for £1.1 million (est £60-
80,000), a set of albums of 52 paintings of Indian costumes, which achieved £609,000 (est £50-80,000), and a jade
‘horse-head’ hilted dagger and scabbard, which went for £406,400 (est £20- 30,000). Tere was also a record set for any Sikh artwork – a painting of
‘Maharaja Ranjit Singh in a procession through a bazaar’ by Bishan Singh, which sold to an institution for £952,500 (est £200-300,000) Finally, Sotheby’s in Hong Kong is
A Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape, attributed to Basawan, Mughal India, circa 1575-80, sold for £10.2 million, (est £700,000- £1 million), Christie’s London
NEWS IN BRIEF
INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2025
A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS
In what ways does the Jain tradition constitute the modern—which stories do we continue and embellish, and what is it that
the
Worlds of Jain Art 17th–21st Centuries
changes? Connected with narratives of karma, rituals, biographies, lineages and spiritual quest— the essays reflect a remarkable openness to ideas, new styles and performances, and even new forms of religious practice.
Independent publishers swept the board for the long list of the International Booker Prize this year, which is awarded for translated fiction. Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi won the award for Heart Lamp, the first collection of short stories to win the prize. Te book was translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, who is also the first Indian translator to win the International Booker. Written between 1990 and 2023, Heart Lamp’s twelve stories chronicle the lives of women and girls in patriarchal communities in southern India. It is also the first book translated from Kannada to be entered for the prize – a language spoken by an estimated 65 million people. Te judges have whittled down their shortlist from a longlist of 13, selected from 154 books submitted by publishers – the highest number since the prize was launched in its current format in 2016.
SILK MANUSCRIPTS RETURN TO CHINA
Step into the visual worlds of a diverse Jain community and explore artworks never published before.
Te Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art has deaccessioned fragments of the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts (4th–3rd century BC) from its collection and formally transferred them to the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) of the People’s Republic of China. Known by scholars as Volumes II and III, these fragments and the bamboo basket that contained them, which was also deaccessioned and transferred, are associated with the primary Eastern Zhou Zidanku Silk Manuscript (Volume I), which is privately owned. Te manuscripts, which are a kind of divination guide that illuminates key concepts in ancient Chinese philosophy, are exceptionally significant in helping scholars uncover aspects of early Chinese beliefs. Tey were also the first ancient silk manuscripts
Continued on page 2
For orders and subscription write to
foundation@marg-art.org
https://marg-art.org asianartnewspaper.com #AsianArtPaper | asianartnewspaper | asianartnewspaper | Asian Art Newspaper
selling the Okada Collection, formerly housed in the Okada Museum of Art in Japan, ordered to be sold by a Japanese court on behalf of its financially troubled owner. Tis landmark sale features over 125 masterpieces spanning more than a millennium of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean art, including rare ceramics, paintings, screens, and bronzes. Te sale is notable for its breadth and depth, featuring works from the late Shang dynasty (1250- 1046 BC) to the Qing dynasty (1644- 1912), Korean works, as well as Japanese masterpieces from the Muromachi (1336-1573), Momoyama, (1573-1615), and Edo periods (1603-1868).
Inside 2
6 8
10
12 14
ASIAN ART PAINTINGS ARE AUCTION
22
23
Profile: the painter Yan Pei-Ming Mongolia: A Journey through Time, in Switzerland A History of China in SIlk, textiles from the Chris Hall Collection, in Hong Kong Korean Treasures, from the 1st century BC to the 20th century, in Washington DC The Bon Religion, the art and culture of TIbet Our annual survey of books published in 2025 from the Asian and Islamic worlds, including history, reference, fiction, and social history The Art and Design of Asian Games, including chess, chaupar, xianqi, carrom, and mahjong, in Singapore; Art of the Rajput Courts, in Minneapolis; Ogata Korin’s Karuta Playing Cards, in Kyoto; Radiance: Ancient Gold Ornaments, in Hong Kong, and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, in Chicago Islamic Arts Diary
March 2026 with a guide to Asia Week New York
Next issue
To visit our home page. For contact details see page 2
Scan me
VOL. 76 NO. 4 MARCH - JUNE 2025
D500
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
