Chinese Works of Art

The recent Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) live online sale of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art in Cheltenham included Chinese works on paper and textiles from a relative of Katherine Talati (1922-2015).

Two lost folios from the 'Yongle Dadian', the Ming dynasty encyclopaedia that has assumed national treasure status in China, surfaced for sale in Paris last week.

A highpoint of the Dreweatts (25% buyer’s premium) ‘lockdown’ sale of Asian art in Newbury was provided by this 19th century Chinese export silver gilt and enamelled box.

The latest sale of Asian Works of Art held online by Skinner of Marlborough, Massachusetts included this blue and white bottle vase with a Yongzheng (1722-36) mark.

A Qing dynasty (1644-1911) embroidered silk hanging scroll topped Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) Asian art sale on May 28, selling online for £21,000.

These two 21in (52cm) fan leaf paintings, one with a panel of calligraphy, the other with an ink and colour landscape, are by Zhang Daquian (1899-1983).

Sotheby’s July Hong Kong series will include ‘a lost masterpiece’ of Qianlong yangcai porcelain recently found in a Dutch country house.

Hindman will holding Asian art sales in Chicago over two days on June 25-26.

Estimated at just £50-70, this Chinese porcelain saucer dish sold online for £7850 at Edinburgh saleroom Franklin Browns (15% buyer’s premium).

The first sale held by Bonhams Australia (22% buyer’s premium) behind closed doors in Sydney was devoted to Asian art,

It was not just the great and good of 18th century Europe and North America who commissioned the Thirteen Factories at Canton to embellish Chinese porcelain blanks with family armorials or subjects copied from prints.

Scotland’s key role in the 18th and 19th century China trade has a legacy. Some of the nation’s country houses remain the repository of important Far Eastern works of art.

A Beijing enamel vase from a Scottish country house topped the Asian art sale held ‘behind closed doors’ by Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium).

A Chinese blue and white vase achieved a hammer price of over £3m at an online auction that closed in Singapore last week.

For centuries, China was a rewarding market for European clock and watchmakers who created extravagant timepieces for their Oriental clientele.

As a rule, musical boxes, which were the favoured mode of reproducing music by mechanical means in the salons of Europe and the US during the 19th century, were more or less portable mechanisms.