Chinese Works of Art

Auctions of Chinese export porcelain have regularly featured in the New York schedule in January for many years, running alongside the traditional string of Americana sales and the long-running Winter Show.

Two Chinese blue and white dishes, recognised by bidders as examples of the bleu de Huế porcelain, flew to £20,500 at a sale in Dorset on January 26.

The Asian art sale at John McInnis in Massachusetts on February 25 includes this pair of Qing ‘official’s hat’ type huanghuali armchairs.

The market for ‘after’ or ‘attributed to’ works is often rather unpredictable. While some works will inevitably fall flat at auction, others sometimes take off.

Strong provenance helps seated guardian figure estimated at £100-150 to stand out at Derbyshire auction

A record for Peranakan or Straits Settlement porcelain was set at an auction in Singapore when a Guangxu kamcheng took Sin$74,000 (£46,000).

On January 24 Bonhams in New York will offer a single owner-sale of more than 150 lots of Chinese export porcelain from the renowned specialist dealer in the field, Cohen & Cohen.

A major draw to a recent Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) sale of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art was a cache of Qing porcelain and hardstone carvings previously owned by Anthony de Rothschild (1887-1961).

The sale at Kinghams (23% buyer’s premium) in Moreton-in-Marsh included a 12in (30cm) carved cinnabar lacquer dish dating from the late Yuan or early Ming period – c.1350-1400.

Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) ‘part II’ sale of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art at the end of last year included Chinese export porcelain from ‘the china store of a Somerset country house’.

By illustrating and combining popular folk songs with scenes of dramas of the time, the artist or workshop named Ding Liangxian created a new type of woodblock print for urban Chinese audiences in the second quarter of the 18th century.

Creative examples featured in recent UK auctions show the influence of religion and culture on the Manchu rulers of the Qing

A large reticulated ‘dragon and phoenix’ censer came for sale at Mallams’ (25% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham from a Herefordshire vendor whose family had lived in Shanghai in the 1930s.

Neolithic jade congs – the inspiration for many pieces of Qing and later porcelain – are probably some of the most intriguing objects from ancient Chinese culture.

Sir Michael Butler (1927-2013) was part of that post-war generation of ‘gentlemen in the professions’ who chose collecting as their primary leisure activity.

The second tranche of the collection of Hong Kong property investor Sir Joseph Hotung (1930-2021) generated some strong competition at Sotheby’s in London with a number of high-value pictures, as well some exceptional pieces of furniture, ceramics and decorative art, on offer last week.

A multitude of fabulous creatures are an integral part of traditional Chinese mythology. Among them is the Bixie, whose name translates as ‘to ward off evil spirits’.