Although many of the pieces were damaged, the auction generated wide interest from private and trade buyers in the UK, Europe and Asia.
The interest from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong dealers, as well as from the UK and European trade, in Chinese blue and white Transitional wares, made this one of the most buoyant sections.
The Chinese material only slightly outperformed the conservatively-priced Japanese material. Kensington Church Street-dealers J.A.N. Fine Art were one of the most active bidders in the room for the Japanese porcelain and secured at least seven of the 67 lots including the top Japanese entry: a Ko-Imari blue and white baluster vase from the mid-17th century (shown right).
This full-bodied vase had a wonderfully ripe and fecund form and it was this, coupled with its unusual grape and vine leaf design, which took the winning bid to £19,000 against £6000-8000 expectations.
William Chak outbid Kensington Church Street dealer Richard Marchant – who had originally sold many pieces to the family – on a number of lots including a boldly painted vase, c.1640, with a design of peony, lotus, prunus and iris in vases which made £23,000 (£3000-5000 estimate) and a blue and underglaze red vase from the Kangxi period painted with a continuous scene of Immortals beneath a copper red sun which fetched £35,000.
Marchant had to go to £7500 (£800-1200 estimate) to secure a small ovoid jar finely painted with four horses against competition from St James’s dealer Nader Rasti, while London-based Richard Littleton outbid an Asian rival for a sleeve vase which sold at £5500 (£2000-3000).
Mainland Chinese dealers took home some of the lesser value entries, such as a vase and cover, c.1635, estimated at £600-900 which sold to a Beijing dealer at £2000.
A Hong Kong dealer secured the star entry: a vigorously painted underglaze blue, copper-red and celadon vase, Kangxi mark and period, depicting two fiery red
dragons emerging from crashing waves.
Notwithstanding the haircrack to the neck and a rim chip, it leapfrogged its £6000-8000 estimate to fetch £55,000.
Digby items spark dealers’ duel
Totalling £533,120, the Wingfield Digby collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain offered at Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 12 may not have been the highest grossing sale of the London Asian series but it fielded the fewest casualties and was full of the type of fresh-to-the-market provenanced material at low estimates which the trade crave.
