Timingwise, they clashed with Sotheby’s Olympia’s Chinese sale in the morning, but by the afternoon, when they were offering their ceramics, buyers had all made their way to the Old Brompton Road rooms and the Asian trade were doing battle for the best mark and period pieces, with the same ardour as elsewhere, paying out prices like £18,000 for a Qianlong mark and period underglaze blue monochrome dish or £11,000 for a famille rose yellow ground Daoguang mark and period bowl with the added bonus of an old 19th century provenance that had come from Tyntesfield, home of the late Lord Wraxall.
Specialist Ingrid Collingridge had deliberately kept the less popular classes of early Tang and Song ceramics to a minimum with attractively pitched estimates. Most sold, many of the Song pieces aided by an old Bluett’s provenance.
Things were harder with the works of art in the morning, although this part of the sale yielded what proved to be the day‘s top price of £36,000. The auctioneers were offering a pale celadon jade openwork carved bi based on an archaic design which they had dated cautiously as 18th/19th century with a modest £800-1200 estimate. The piece was set into a wooden book and a Qianlong seal mark was later found on the side which the auctioneers duly announced in a saleroom notice. Judging by the final price, paid after a bidding battle between the Hong Kong trade, it seems that the piece was regarded as a Qianlong mark and period piece.
Dual effect of packed sales calendar
The upside of Asian art in London is that the volume of sales pulls in all the Asian and international buyers. The downside of this concentration is that scheduling without overlap is difficult and buyers inevitably pick their way through all those goods selectively. Christie’s South Kensington, who fielded a marathon 600-plus lot Chinese auction on November 14, felt both effects.
