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 • ocTober 2025 • £5.00/us$10/€10


SOUTHERN SONG GUAN DISH STAR OF THE SHOW


O


n 9 September, a selection of rare Chinese ceramics from the Ise Collection came up


for sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. A Southern Song guan celadon lobed dish sold for HK$55.88 million to set a new auction record for Chinese ceramics. Te dish was formerly in the collection of Sir Harry M Garner (1891-1977), a respected collector and scholar of Chinese ceramics, who had served as Honorary Secretary and President


of the


Oriental Ceramic Society in London. Tere was only one unsold lot out of 182, with six lots each selling for over HK$10 million, demonstrating the strong market for top-tier Chinese ceramics. A blue and white stem cup from the Yuan dynasty sold for HK$11.3 million,


more ‘gardenia’ than


doubling its low estimate. Notable pieces unsold were the Ming-dynasty Chenghua


palace bowl and the Yongzheng famille-rose


‘peach-tree’ bottle vase. Te total realized was just under HK$359 million (US$46 million). Te Ise Collection was amassed by


noted collector Mr Hikonobu Ise over the past half-century, concentrated between the early 1990s and late 2010s. A noted connoisseur and tea master, he represents the refined Japanese sensibility and taste for Chinese ceramics.


Art dealer Tadashi


Kawashima, president of Mayuyama Ryusendo Co Ltd explained, ‘From the 1960s to the 1980s, world-class Chinese ceramic collections were established in Japan, such as those by Ataka, Matsuoka, and Idemitsu. It is against this backdrop of history that the Ise Collection can be considered the last truly great collection to inherit this tradition’. Guan ware, especially produced


for the imperial court of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) in Hangzhou, has remained highly celebrated and sought after since its production for the emperors nearly a millennium ago. Celebrated for its seemingly modest crackled celadon- coloured glaze as well as its smooth, pleasing tactility, guan ware encapsulates the aesthetic


Guan lobed dish, Southern Song dynasty, diam. 19.2 cm, est HK$25-50 million, sold for HK$55.8 million, Sotheby’s Hong Kong


sensibilities of the Southern Song


dynasty (1127-1279). Following the relocation of the


Song capital to Hangzhou, guan ware became to the south what ru was to the north: the preferred choice of the imperial court. Southern Song aesthetics were largely influenced by two contrasting Confucian schools of thought – one was conservative and promoted adherence to classical


models while the other was reformist and advocated clarity and minimalism. Te recently auctioned dish, with its clean, graceful silhouette and mesmerising crackled celadon glaze, embodies the fresh modernity and at the same time a continuum of the imperial taste and style of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). Song ceramics were a major part of the Ise Collection, reflecting a taste


NEWS IN BRIEF


CHINESE AND JAPANESE WORKS OF ART AUCTION: WEDNESDAY 5TH NOVEMBER, 11AM


PUBLIC EXHIBITION: Sunday 2nd November, 12–4pm Monday 3rd November, 10am–8pm Tuesday 4th November, 10am–5pm


A large Chinese famille-rose ‘Nine peach’ bottle vase, tianqiuping, circa 1900


Estimate: £8,000–£12,000


CHINA INSTITUTE, NEW YORK China Institute in America has announced the appointment of Dr Charles A Riley II as the new Director of China Institute Gallery. Most recently, he was the Director of the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, NY, from 2017 to 2023. Dr Riley has a long track record in the international art world as a museum director, curator, journalist, author, and professor. He has curated exhibitions in museums and galleries in Beijing, Taiwan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Lausanne, and throughout the New York area. He was a foreign expert at the Hebei Teachers’ University in Shijiazhuang in 1984-85, and has remained a frequent guest lecturer at universities and educational organisations in Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Nanjing, Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Jinan, and other locales. He visits China regularly to teach and to recruit


students for secondary schools and universities in the US. He is married to Liu Ke Ming, a noted translator of Chinese poetry into English and a professor of linguistics at the City University of New York.


NEW CERAMICS MUSEUM FOR VIETNAM A new ceramics museum dedicated to Vietnam’s nation-founding period opened in July in Ho Chi Minh City’s An Khanh Ward, showcasing over 400 ancient artefacts from cultures like Phung Nguyen, Dong Dau, Go Mun, and Dong Son. Te main highlight of the museum is the Dong Son ceramic steamer, officially recognised as a national treasure in 2024. Te museum offers both permanent and thematic exhibitions, focusing on Vietnam’s early ceramic traditions, their technological advances, and their role in shaping prehistoric and early state societies. It serves not only as a research hub


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for simplicity and elegance, reflecting the desire for ceramics to enhance the tea ceremony. Since tea drinking was introduced to Japan from China in the 8th century, karamono (imported Chinese objects) have held a revered status in Japanese culture. Prized Song wares, treasured for centuries as essential tea vessels, had been collected by Mr.


Ise as a


practising tea master and alongside his interest in Chado, the way of tea. On the same day, but elsewhere in


the auction world, records were seen for Vietnamese art in Paris. Agutte’s sale of Modern Asian Art of 33 lots totalled over Euro 6.2 million. Te main interest in this modern and contemporary paintings sale centred on the lots by artists who trained at the Indochina School of Fine Arts, including a world record for a lacquer painting by Le Pho, (1907-2001), Paysage du Tonkin, circa 1930-35, which sold for Euro 1.23 million; and there was a world record for Mai Trung Tu (1906-1980) with his painting on silk, Le concert (1978), which sold for Euro 1.79 million.


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Profile: the artist Nour Jaouda Flourishing India, textiles from Mughal India, in Switzerland Ming Myth, the development of blue and white ceramics Flora Indica, Indian botanical paintings and contemporary art at Kew, in London Nusantara, six centuries of Indonesian textiles, at Yale Surimono, luxury prints from Japan, in Zurich Asian Art in London, gallery shows London auction previews Hong Kong auction preview Ancient India at the British Museum; Hiroshima at Daiwa Foundation; Pat Suet-Bik Hui paintings at the Ashmolean Museum; Mieumwanbo, Korean gardens at the Korean Cultural Centre; and Ghost Objects at Leighton House Modern South Asian art at the Royal Academy; Karl Singporewala at Brunei Gallery; Do Ho Suh at Tate Gallery shows Isamic Arts Diary


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