Trade prove themselves wide awake to Asian sleepers

Buried in amongst a group of ten 18th and 19th century Japanese paintings consigned from an overseas collection was a gem by the renowned 18th century Japanese
literati-style artist and haiku poet Yosa Buson (1716-1783).

Famous for his sketchy and spontaneous style of painting known as haiga, Buson was one of a group of Japanese artists that aspired to the scholarly ideals of the Chinese literati. One of the landscape paintings he worked on with Ike Taiga is now a National Treasure.

Catalogued in the manner of Yosa Buson with an estimate of £300-500, this hanging scroll ink painting on silk measuring 3ft 6in by 201/2in (1.07m x 50cm) depicted a river landscape lined with willow trees and was signed Sachoko with two seals.

As the market for Japanese paintings is mainly based in America and Japan, paintings by Buson are usually sold in New York and this was an auction first for CSK. A recently auctioned landscape scroll by Buson came under the hammer at Christie’s New York in March 2003. It was one of a set of three scrolls offered as one lot (the other two were by Ike Taiga and Minagawa Kien) that sold together for US$28,000.

More than one buyer thought the CSK scroll painting was by Buson himself and it sold in the room to a Japanese dealer for £11,000. Overall, the sale was 72 per cent sold by lot and totalled £192,285.

A week later on July 17 it was the turn of Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) to field a 567-lot Chinese and Japanese auction, a solid offering of predominantly privately-entered material (around 70 to 80 per cent according to their Chinese specialist Michaela Coultard).

As at CSK’s Asian sale a week earlier, it too had its sleeper and a Japanese work also stole the top slot. The biggest money was reserved for an intricately carved ivory okimono group shown here depicting three entwined dragons locked in combat, signed Nihon koku Maruki sei and Yoshiaki. It is unusual to find ivory works signed by the artist (Yoshiaki) and by the company, so although Maruki is better known for the production of Meiji bronzes and the ivory was not produced by a sought-after Tokyo School artist, it sold to a UK dealer for £10,500.

The fresh-to-market appeal of a finely painted famille verte Kangxi brushpot consigned from a private UK collection (together with a group of 17th century Chinese ivories) made this scholarly entry the most sought-after Chinese work. With mainland Chinese buyers starting to take an interest in these freely painted transitional and early Kangxi ceramics, prices have been buoyant of late and although there was no Chinese interest in this work a UK dealer, possibly bidding on behalf of a collector, went to £9500 for ownership against modest pre-sale £1000-1500 expectations.

The sleeper was a privately consigned zitan box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and hardstone. The tiny rounded lidded box, measuring 3in (7.5cm) diameter, was catalogued as late 19th century but most probably dated to the 18th century. Estimated at £800-1000, it sold to a UK dealer for £5400. The sale boasted a 64 per cent take-up by lot and totalled £377,025.