Asian Art

Offered as a job lot, these 2¾in (7cm) tall Chinese cloisonné stemmed cups and tea bowl pictured here were entered into the August 15 sale at Stamford auction house Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) by a private vendor content with the £50-70 estimate.

The British Museum’s big summer exhibition on Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai is over, but more art from the Land of the Rising Sun is in the offing (also see International Events, ATG No 2305).

London dealership Marchant is to sell Chinese artworks at a dedicated auction in New York.

The final session of James D Julia’s three-day sale of more than 1600 lots to be held in Fairfield, Maine, from August 16-18 is devoted to Asian art.

A large Qing blue and white bottle vase with a Yongzheng (1723-35) mark sold for £150,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Halls in Shrewsbury.

Dealers in and collectors of Asian art were spoilt for choice around the middle of June in Europe. As well as the Asian sale series in Paris (see last week’s ATG, No 2300), a vast selection of works came up for sale in Zurich, Cologne, Brussels, Salzburg and Stuttgart.

One of the earliest examples of the lucrative tartan tourism, which dates back to George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822 and was turbo-charged by Queen Victoria’s love of the Highlands, were the sycamore boxes and trinkets made in small factories in the little Ayrshire town of Mauchline.

Like many of the world’s major art markets these days, Paris concentrates activity in the Asian art field into series at specific times of the year in an attempt to attract those all-important buyers from Mainland China.

At the Drouot auction centre in June around 3000 items of Asian art went under the hammer in a series of 20 auctions that were either dedicated sales or featured substantial Asian sections.

This Chinese gilt-bronze figure of Guandi is the catalogue cover lot for the next auction at Veritas in Lisbon, on June 27-28.

German salerooms move series to Austria and Belgium in the wake of cultural goods law...

Asian art dealer Gerald Davison has taken a selling space in The Emporium in Berkshire, which he plans to run as well as his current space at Acreman St Antiques & Interiors.