The newspaper for collectors, dealers, museums and galleries • june 2005 • £5.00/US$8/€10 The newspaper for collecTors, dealers, museums and galleries • november 2022 • £5.00/us$10/€10


HONG KONG AUTUMN SALES


Two lots in Sotheby’s autumn sales series went for over HK$100 million in the Chinese Works of Art sales in October. Te pieces came from two well-known private collections – Dr Wou Kiuan and Sir Joseph Hotung. A ruby-ground yancai ‘Trigram’


reticulated vase dating to the Qianlong period, from the Dr Wou Kiuan Collection, sold for HK$177,463,000 (US$22.6 million), against an estimate of HK$60-120 million. Te vase had been


corroborated by


contemporaneous court archives and made either in 1743 or immediately thereafter. It is a tangible testament to the unprecedented and unparalleled culmination of technical virtuosity in porcelain production between 1741 and 1743, fuelled by an earlier imperial reprimand from the Qianlong Emperor. It


provenance


also comes with an illustrious –


from the outstanding ‘Fonthill


heirlooms’ of Alfred Morrison (1821- 1897) of Fonthill House in Wiltshire, located in the southwest of England. Morrison’s


collection comprised not only superb Chinese


imperial works of art, but also Western historical


documents, horseshoe-back armchair, paintings,


sculptures and other works. In 1861, he bought a substantial group of Chinese porcelains and enamel wares from Baron Loch of Drylaw (1827- 1900), to which this vase may have belonged, but he had added Chinese porcelains to his collection already prior to this major purchase and continued to do so afterwards. Dr Wou Kiuan purchased the vase


at Christie’s sale of the Morrison collection in 1971, after which it remained in the Wou family for over half a century. Te reticulated vase was part of the sale of six masterpieces from the 18th century illustrating the technical mastery in the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, including a group of enamelled porcelains formerly from the Fonthill heirlooms which have not surfaced the market in around half a century. A world record for Chinese classical


furniture was achieved in the Chinese works of art sale, when a lot from the personal collection of Sir Joseph Hotung, a huanghuali folding


jiaoyi,


from the late Ming dynasty, sold for HK$124,609,000 (US$15.8 million), well above its pre-sale estimate. Te previous world record for a Chinese folding chair at auction, was achieved in May 2021 during the Chinese Works of Art sale at Christie’s, Hong Kong, when a folding armchair, from Heveningham Hall in the UK, sold for HK$65,975.000. Horseshoe-back


perhaps the most highly sought after of all items of Ming furniture, are among the most striking and most highly celebrated designs created by Chinese carpenters. Te folding chair with horseshoe-shaped back was a unique invention of China’s furniture makers from around the early 12th century. Conceived to be folded for easy transport, these portable chairs were naturally more prone to damage than other pieces of furniture; few, therefore, could withstand the test of time, making


extant examples


extremely precious. Jiaoyi, the term for ‘folding chairs’ in Chinese, literally means ‘crossed chair’, with reference


to their intersecting legs. Te sale offered over 400 works of art from Sir Joseph’s personal collection and the total achieved for the sale was HK$469,226,800, giving a sell- through rate of 93%. Elsewhere in the series, Vietnamese


armchairs,


art continued to attract attention with all but one of the 31 Vietnamese works offered in the Modern sales series finding new homes. It was led by Le Pho’s masterpiece, Té et Sympathie, in the Modern Evening Auction on 7 October,


selling for


HK$10.7 million (est HK$3.8-6.8 million). Te top three prices achieved in the Modern Day Auction, on 6 October, were Mai Trung Tu’s Melodie achieving HK$4.78 million and his Te Sewing Box selling for HK$2.77 million. Vietnamese art was previously offered in dedicated sales of Southeast Asian Art


at


Ruby-ground yancai ‘Trigram’ reticulated vase, seal and mark and period of Qianlong, height 31 cm, sold for HK$177,463,000, at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October 2022


NEWS IN BRIEF


BROOKLYN MUSEUM, NEW YORK Te museum’s floor devoted to the Arts of Asia and the Islamic World, including the newly installed collections of the Arts of South Asia, has reopened to the public in October. Te 10-year renovation project celebrates the diversity and encyclopedic scope of the museum’s collections across more than 20,000 square feet of space. Renovated for the first time in 40 years, the floor now features nearly 700 objects, including newly conserved and rare works of art. Te new home for the Arts of Asia and the Islamic World creates cross-cultural dialogue among collection areas and highlights diverse aesthetic, creative, social, and intellectual accomplishments across Asia and around the Mediterranean, from ancient times to the present day. Te renovations created greater flexibility, facilitating the rotation of installation objects to showcase a wider range of materials. Arts of South Asia and Arts of the Islamic World is


the final gallery on the floor to reopen and now able to display artworks from across these collections, which comprise more than 17,000 objects, including sculptures, textiles, paintings, ceramics, drawings, prints, carvings, decorative arts, metalwork, and other artefacts. Previous openings include the Arts of Korea gallery in 2017, the Arts of China and Arts of Japan galleries in 2019, the Arts of Southeast Asia gallery in 2021, and the Arts of Buddhism and Arts of the Himalayas galleries in 2022.


YAYOI KUSAMA’S PUMPKIN RETURNS TO NAOSHIMA Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin (1994) was washed away from its location by strong winds and rushing waves caused by Typhoon Lupit on Naoshima Island in August 2021. A new installation of a similar work has now been reinstalled at the original location on


Continued on page 2 Modern Master of Kabuki Prints asianartnewspaper.com #AsianArtPaper | asianartnewspaper | asianartnewspaper | Asian Art Newspaper


Sotheby’s, but is now presented on the international stage in the Modern Art sales, finding new audiences amongst East Asian and Western collectors beyond the Southeast Asian region.


Inside 2


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10 12


14 16 18 19 20


ASIAN ART AUCTION RECORDS AT


Celebrating 25 Years


21


Profile: the Korean artist Kim Soun-Gui The new initiative at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, in Perth A Japanese Bestiary in Paris The Power of Clay, Shigaraki pottery as diplomacy A Carpenter’s Line, the history of woodworking in Gifu Prefecture, Japan Benibana, the culture and use of Japanese safflowers Little Wonders, the art of netsuke, in Ohio Auction previews in Hong Kong and the UK The history behind the sale of the VSW Collection in Paris Exhibitions: Bamboo baskets in San Antonio, Japanese female artists in Denver, and Shoji Hamada in the UK The Korean Wave in London, Japanese prints in Washington DC, and Yayoi Kusama in Hong Kong


22 23


Gallery shows Islamic Arts Diary


Next issue December 2022


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