Chinese Works of Art

Mainland Chinese buyers bidding on jade, porcelain, wooden and textile offerings dominated the leader board at an Asian & Islamic sale at Cheltenham.

The Chinese government has written to a UK auction house to demand a halt to the sale of a silver hunting flask, taken from the Summer Palace when it was sacked by British troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War.

Swaythling auction includes more than 80 pieces of 18th century English origin

A big surprise was in store for the owner of a Chinese lacquer plate consigned to Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Grasbrunn, just outside Munich.

Asian art ‘circus’ moves to French capital for dealer shows and auctions in early June

Christie’s is holding an Asian art sale in Paris on July 6 and will be exhibiting works from the auction at the Pagoda during the Printemps Asiatique.

French capital follows the examples of New York and London for a dedicated week of events

One of the highlights of Sotheby’s Asian art auction to be held in its Paris room on June 16 will be this jade seal carved with the imperial symbol of a dragon, estimated at €100,000-150,000.

Chinese emperors certainly got the message when it came to artistic advances

Aponem is holding a sale at Drouot on June 15.

One of the potential top lots in Artcurial’s Asian art auction in its Paris saleroom on June 8 will be a large 5ft 7in x 2ft 11in (1.72m x 89cm) lacquered wood panel by the Vietnamese lacquer artist Nguyen Khang (1912-89).

A £1.2m house record at Dreweatts was the highlight of the recent round of UK Asian art sales.

Pictured here are two examples of provenanced Chinese imperial works of art that achieved high prices in the French capital this spring.

Translating simply as ‘a box with drawers’ but so much more exotic than that, a rare Spanish Renaissance caja con cajones was the outstanding lot at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (25% buyer’s premium) quarterly fine art sale in Exeter.

This rare doucai porcelain vase, with Qianlong marks and probably of period, provided a classic tale of discovery in the saga of the Chinese boom.

It was during the Song dynasty that tea parties became the vogue and tea houses flourished.

A soapstone seal used by the emperor Qianlong to express his approval of paintings and calligraphy in the imperial collection sold at auction in Hong Kong for HK$131m (£13m) on April 29.

The top-selling lots at Hansons’ April 1 Fine Art Sale were two pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain.

Alastair Gibson Auctions has secured a remarkable Chinese imperial object with a Second Opium War provenance for a sale in London in the summer.