SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.
Offered in their latest Asian art sale on May 18, an exceptional
Imperial Qing Dynasty white jade teapot and cover, shown here, was
taken to £1.75m by a Hong Kong phone bidder against a
£200,000-300,000 estimate, while a white jade vase and cover from
the same period took £1.02m against a £100,000-200,000
estimate.
The seven-figure barrier - a once unimaginable milestone for
salerooms outside London - has now been passed 11 times in six
years.
Eight have been posted for Chinese works of art sold by the
Salisbury rooms, who in 2009 sold a Qianlong spinach-green jade
buffalo on its original gilt-bronze stand at £3.4m, bettering the
firm's previous provincial record of £2.6m hammer for a 14th
century Yuan dynasty porcelain double-gourd vase in July 2005.
The latter was the first £1m-plus price in the regions.
There was also the pair of Fra Angelico panels at Duke's of
Dorchester (£1.7m in April 2007) and a Rembrandt self portrait at
Gloucestershire's Moore, Allen & Innocent (£2.2m in October
2007), but the £43m sale at Bainbridges last November of the yang
cai reticulated vase holds the provincial record by some
margin.
Although speculation has abounded that the item may not be paid
for, it has now been reported that a £2m deposit has arrived from
the buyer with the rest due to follow shortly.
By Alex Capon
The buyer's premium at Woolley & Wallis was
19.5%
A full report on the recent London and provincial Asian works of
art sales will appear in a future issue the printed version of ATG.
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