Asian Art

Many Chinese export porcelain forms were inspired by European silver or ceramic forms.

Qianlong moon flasks of this type are based on Ming dynasty prototypes that in turn were inspired by early Persian drinking vessels traded along the Silk Road.

The scene on this 19in (43cm) Yongzheng famille rose dish depicts the Daoist immortal Magu on her way to celebrate the famous peach banquet of the Queen Mother of the West, Xi Wang Mu, who rules over the garden of the peaches of longevity.

The highest single price posted in the regions during the autumn series of Asian art sales was the £380,000 bid at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dorchester for a monumental Sino-Tibetan gilt bronze devotional figure of Tara broadly dated to the Qing period.

This Qing bronze fragment measuring a substantial 19in (47cm) across was once part of a magnificent sculpture of a crane that adorned an imperial palace.

Japanese antique ivories have been gradually disappearing from the catalogues of prominent dealers and major auction houses but good examples are still being sold in the regions.

Early Japanese porcelain models of animals are very rare, and this elephant form koro, c.1700, offered for sale as part of the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) Japanese works of art sale appears to be unrecorded.

This Japanese cloisonné casket bears the mark for the Ando Company of Nagoya.

The outstanding jade offered in the regions in the October-December period was this pale celadon teapot and cover that came for sale at Duke’s in Dorchester on December 8 from a Dutch private collection where it had been since the 1980s.

Chinese and Mughal jades believed to have been stolen more than four years ago are still at large and the family and police have made a plea for information as to their whereabouts.

Estimated at £40,000-60,000, a lacquer cabinet from Edo period Japan sold for £105,000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on November 23.

The descendants of the Belgian collector Jef Vanderstraete have consigned this 20in (51cm) high gilt bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Ekadashamukha to Lempertz in Cologne, where it is coming up for sale on December 11.

The opening 27 lots at Nagel’s sale of Asian works of art on December 7 in Stuttgart come from the collection of an aristocratic German family and have been in their possession since before 1904, when they were purchased in China.

The highlight of Bonhams’ Chinese art series conducted in London last week was the sale of the Parry collection of Chinese art.

Multi-estimate sums are not confined to Chinese works of art.

A fascination with buying depictions of the elephant-headed deity has inspired a new book

Fashioned into a recumbent billy goat or deer, this diminutive Qing dynasty rhinoceros horn carving goes under the hammer in the inaugural live auction of Asian art from St James’s dealer Alastair Gibson of Gibson Antiques.