Asia Week: Demand Met, Prices Stay Strong

September 21, 2011 Updated: October 1, 2015

 

A rare blue-and-white Ming-style moon flask, Qianlong seal mark in underglaze blue, of the period (1736-1795) sold for $2,658,500. Its pre-sale estimate was $500,000 to $700,000. (Courtesy of Christie's)
A rare blue-and-white Ming-style moon flask, Qianlong seal mark in underglaze blue, of the period (1736-1795) sold for $2,658,500. Its pre-sale estimate was $500,000 to $700,000. (Courtesy of Christie's)
NEW YORK—Meeting the demands of the Asian art market, prices met or exceeded estimates when the leading auction houses held their fall 2011 Asia Sales last week, from Sept. 13–16. Christie’s and Sotheby’s focused on providing strong collections in ceramics and works of art.

Christie’s

Christie’s Asian art sales brought in a total of $75.8 million for the week. The results include sales of fine Chinese ceramics and works of art ($38.8 million), jade carvings from a European collection ($8.6 million), A Connoisseur’s Vision: Property from the Xu Hanqing Collection ($13.1 million), Japanese and Korean art ($3.8 million), Indian and Southeast Asian art ($4.1 million), and South Asian modern and contemporary art ($7.4 million).

The Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale was led by a rare blue-and-white Ming-style moon flask from the Qianlong period (1736–1795), which sold for $2.7 million, soaring beyond the pre-sale estimate of $500,000 to $700,000.

 

“Christie’s leads the Asian art market,” said Jonathan Stone, chairman and international head of Asian Art, in a press release. “Across all categories and all epochs of Asian art, Christie’s has dominated the market both this season and for the year, achieving an annual sold total of $193 million for 2011 in New York.”

“This represents nearly a 50 percent growth year on year and is a testament to the strength of the market and the quality of the sales that Christie’s presented,” Stone said.

Sotheby’s

An album of calligraphy in running script, ink on paper, by Dong Qichang, 17th century, sold for $782,500.  (Courtesy of Sotheby's)
An album of calligraphy in running script, ink on paper, by Dong Qichang, 17th century, sold for $782,500. (Courtesy of Sotheby's)
Sotheby’s focused only on Chinese art sales, which brought in a total of $29.2 million. That was a combination of the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale, which achieved $22.7 million, and $6.5 million from the Fine Chinese Classical Paintings sale.

Leading the ceramics and works of art sale was a “rare and important gilt-bronze votive stele of Buddha, Northern Wei Dynasty, dated A.D. 471, which fetched $1,022,500, comfortably exceeding the $600,000 to $800,000 estimate,” according to the press release.

The dedicated sale of Fine Chinese Classical Painting was a first for Sotheby’s after a decade of grouping them together with the other sales. Leading this sale was the Running Script Transcription of an Epitaph, which sold for over double the estimate at $782,500.

According to Sotheby’s, it was written “by Dong Qichang (1555–1636), who is known as the most influential artist of his time.” “The eight-leaf album … was appraised by its then-famed collector Kong Guangtao as ‘genuinely stately and thoughtful in spirit, so fluid and elegant as if executed with divine power.’”