16 AAL Gallery Shows ASIAN ART IN LONDON 2025


Asian Art in London (AAL), the 28th edition, runs from 27 October to 6 November. Again, this year AAL has reorganised to group the majority of gallery shows in Sotheby’s in Mayfair, complementing the shows in the permanent gallery spaces around central London. For an up-to-date list of participants, visit asianartinlondon.com. Late evening viewings have always been part of the event, with opening nights for evening viewing of Asian art on Kensington Church Street (Saturday, 1 November), in St James’s (Sunday, 2 November), and in Mayfair (Monday, 3 November). Check the guide to see which galleries are participating. Tis year for the first time, Asian Art in London is hosting a


Joint Private View with the V&A of Dimensions: Chinese Contemporary Studio Crafts on Tuesday 28 October 2025. Te event will bring together participants, collectors, museum


directors, curators, journalists, and friends of Asian Art in London. It will also feature curator-led talks in the museum’s Asian galleries, providing guests with deeper insights into the extraordinary collections. Visit the event’s website for further information on tickets.


Galleries at Sotheby’s


SOTHEBY’S, MAYFAIR 1 to 5 November


Several new dealers are showing alongside last year’s participants in Sotheby’s gallery spaces: Anrad Gallery, Hanga Ten, Japan Print Gallery, Lloyd Choi Gallery, Susan Page Snuff Bottles, Simon Pilling, Jacqueline Simcox, Schoeni Projects, Slaats Fine Art, Anastasia von Siebold Japanese Art, and Tang


Long Art. The Anrad Gallery is presenting Te


Living Tapestry: India’s Natural World Trough Timeless Traditions, which brings together sculpture and painting from across India to celebrate centuries of artistic dialogue with the natural world. Te exhibition features work from four rich traditions – the metal sculptures of the Gadhwa Kam community of Chhattisgarh, the narrative scrolls of Orissa’s Pattachitra painters, the jewel-like refinement of Bikaner miniatures, and the naturalistic studies of the Mughal atelier. Together, these works illuminate how artists have rendered flora and fauna with reverence and imagination, underscoring nature’s enduring place in India’s cultural and artistic heritage. Japanese art is well represented


this year with Hanga Ten’s exhibition From Late Showa to Reiwa: Te Evolution of Japanese Prints showcasing a selection of Japanese prints from the 1960s to the present showing evolving printmaking techniques and featuring artists including Tadashi Nakayama,


Clifton Karhu, and Daniel Kelly. Japan Print Gallery specialises in


Asakusa Rice Fields and Torinomachi Festival (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, woodblock print, Japan Print Gallery


ukiyo-e from the 18th to the 20th centuries. A highlight of their show is the well-known Asakusa Rice Fields and Torinomachi Festival (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) as part of his series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,


Meisho Edo hyakkei. Simon Pilling’s offering this year is


Road of the Butterflies (1983) by Tadashi Nakayama, woodblock utilising 18 boards, 25 colours, and 33 stages of printing, Hanga Ten


ASIAN ART | OCTOBER 2025 |


20th Anniversary: Te Magic of Lacquer. Te dealer is celebrating 20 years of study and exhibiting artworks produced using Japanese lacquer, urushi. Over that time, he has sought out dedicated artists who are working today and found modern and contemporary pieces, celebrating artistic continuity in this quintessential Japanese art form. Urushi’s production processes are


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Dawn Cloud, Gyoun, by Hattori Shunsho (1943-2018), Heisei period, circa 2000, gold and coloured lacquers, silver leaf, and mother-of-pearl inlays, yogai, 18.1 x 18.1 x 16 cm, Simon Pilling


so time-consuming and demanding that it can be hard to appreciate the amount of work that goes into producing a single piece of fine lacquer. In the exhibition, visitors will see art that exemplifies the best of that achievement. Most familiar is perhaps work in the gold maki-e technique – creating designs through the sprinkling and polishing of metallic powders on to a lacquer ground. Other works complement that technique through the addition of shell inlays, while, for some artists, the pieces are created through the carving of lacquer. Finally, we see lacquer used as trompe-l’oeil, creating works that play with our senses in the imitation of other materials such as metal and


leather. Anastasia von Siebold is pairing


Woodpecker by S Shakir Ali (b 1956), mineral pigments on paper, 30.5 x 40.6 cm, Anrad Gallery


different period artworks in Edo to Showa: Fine 18th - 20th Century Japanese Prints and Contemporary Paintings. Te exhibition features a selection of fine Japanese ukiyo-e prints from the Edo period (18th and 19th centuries) alongside a


group of shin-hanga (new prints) from the late Meiji-Showa periods (early-mid 20th century). Amongst the ukiyo-e are two first


edition prints by Hiroshige from his iconic series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. One of these is Spiral Hall, Five Hundred Rakan Temple, published in 1857, depicting visitors enjoying the view over bright green fields on the eastern fringe of Edo (Tokyo) from the Sazaido (Turban- shell Tower), owing to its spiral staircase); a three-storey tower built in 1741 as a temple dedicated to the 500 rakan, legendary disciples of Buddha. Further ukiyo-e highlights include a group of late 18th- and 19th-century prints depicting bijin (beautiful women) by Suzuki Harunobu, Isoda Koryusai, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Shin-hanga prints emerged during


the early 20th century as a response to the decline towards the end of the 19th century of ukiyo-e and the influence of Western art. Enjoying ever more popularity amongst collectors in recent years, fine examples featured in the exhibition include landscapes by Kawase Hasui, including Asahi Peak seen from Mount Hakuba (1924), and prints of beautiful women by Ito Shinsui, Torii Kotondo, and Takahashi Shotei, such as Shinsui’s delicate 1922 print Bathing in Early Summer, depicting a woman crouched amongst the swirling steam of her bath, from the series Twelve Images of Modern Beauties. Further shin-hanga prints featured include works by Western artists who were equally integral to the shin-hanga movement: Charles Bartlett and Elizabeth Keith. Chinese dealers include Susan Page


Asahi Peak seen from Mount Hakuba (1924) by Kawase Hasui (1853-1957), from the series Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series, woodblock print, Anastasia von Siebold


who specialises in bottles made for use during the 18th and 19th centuries, and inside-painted examples from the 20th century. In the exhibition Treasured Keepsakes, she is offering 80 snuff bottles, including two jade bottles, circa 1780-1850. Many pieces come from a single collection formed over the last 40 years and feature examples in jade, hardstone, glass, porcelain, inside- painted, and organic materials, showcasing the craftsmanship and materials used in the 18th and 19th


centuries in China. As usual, Jacqueline Simcox is offering a range of Chinese textiles. She specialises in silk textiles from China and Central Asia, together with some works of art. Textiles for sale include court costumes, palace furnishings, silks for Buddhist and Daoist use, as well as wall hangings, pictorial subjects, and other decorative pieces. Tis year’s show includes a Ming-dynasty silk kesi rank badge for an empress or high-ranking noblewoman, woven with a gold- wrapped thread background and polychrome silk decoration of two phoenixes (fenghuang): the male, with serrated tail feathers, perched on a rock while the female, with curled tail feathers, is in flight above. Te mythical birds aare depicted with clouds above and peony blossoms, emblematic of wealth and feminine beauty, across the centre of the badge. Te foreground features water and


waves, a large rock, and lingzhi fungus. Slatts Fine Art’s exhibition is entitled


Bathing in Early Summer (1922) by Ito Shinsui (1888-1972), from the series Twelve Images of Modern Beauties, woodblock print, Anastasia von Siebold


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Ancient Echoes, New Perspectives, showing archaic vessels and scholar’s objects alongside the modern ink paintings of T’ang Haywen (1927-91) and plique-à-jour enamels of


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Mid-Autumn (2025) by Vu Cong Dien (b 1976), oil on canvas, 120 x 120 cm, Thang Long Art Gallery


Two jade snuff bottles, circa 1780- 1850, Susan Page


Rank badge, fenghuang, Chinese Ming dynasty, circa 1500, 36 x 31.5 cm, Jacqueline Simcox


Yinglong Li, to bridge centuries of Chinese art in a vivid dialogue between tradition and innovation. Mark Slaats is giving a talk on 4 November at 1pm: Painting with Light: Yinglong Li and the Beauty of Plique-à-Jour Enamels. Contemporary art is represented by


Schoeni Projects Interiors who are showing works that explore the intersection of heritage and contemporary interiors in Heritage as a Living Dialogue, a curated exhibition that brings antiques and contemporary artworks into conversation, highlighting enduring values of craftsmanship, materiality, and cultural storytelling across time. Contemporary Vietnamese art


specialists, Thang Long Art Gallery, based in Hanoi, are showing works in London by Vu Cong (b 1976) and Hong Viet Dung (b 1962), including Mid-Autumn (2025) by Vu Cong.


A curated dialogue between antiques and contemporary artworks, image courtesy of Schoeni Projects Interiors. Artworks © The Artists, Schoeni Projects Interiors


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