Chinese Works of Art

A legal dispute that explored how long it is ‘fair and reasonable’ to wait for a buyer to pay for a six-figure purchase has concluded.

Estimated at £400-600, this 7in (17cm) high Chinese export silver dragon handled tankard sold for a much higher sum.

Doyle’s Asian art auction in New York on September 20 will include porcelain from a collection assembled over many decades by department store heiress Sarah Belk Gambrell (1918-2020).

Stamford Auction Rooms set a house record when a Chinese pottery tripod censer shot over its £500-800 estimate to bring £320,000.

On April 14, 1746, two days before the battle that would seal his fate, Charles Edward Stuart held a lavish meal at Culloden House, the highland estate owned by Hanoverian loyalist Duncan Forbes (1685-1747) that had recently been commandeered by Jacobite forces.

Collection of distinctive pre-war glass produced in Perth impresses at local saleroom

Hannam’s in Selborne, Hampshire, has achieved a new house record with the sale of this Qing famille rose vase for £520,000 (plus buyer’s premium).

Chinese trick or surprise cups were made to deceive a drinker and illustrate the classical paradigm that modesty brings gain and arrogance results in loss.

Bidders deem Yongzheng Guan ware to be of the period as estimate is demolished

A private Scottish collection was the source of the-top selling lot at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow on July 2.

Very much to current collecting taste is the 6½in (16.5cm) ‘peach bloom’ saucer dish shown here, offered by Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on July 3.

Mallams’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest Asian art sale was topped at £27,000 (estimate £3000-5000) by a Qing jade double gourd form snuff bottle.

Aficionados of later Chinese porcelain who happened to stumble on a lot of ‘collector’s plates’ at Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Lincoln would have been excited to spot two fine artist-signed Republic period pieces.

This small Transitional porcelain vase came for sale at Gardiner Houlgate (22% buyer’s premium) in Corsham, Bath, on July 1.

Based on Warring States (475-225BC) archetypes, archaistic bronze ritual wine vessels, zun, formed as tapirs became popular during the Northern Song period, remained so through to the Qing dynasty, and are major draws in Western salerooms today.

Stuttgart auction house Nagel called it ‘beyond doubt one of the most important gilt-bronzes to appear on the market for many years’ – and the monumental Ming dynasty Sino-Tibetan figure of the wrathful deity Vajrabhairava did not disappoint.

Li Keran, who died in 1989, is considered to be one of the most influential Chinese Contemporary painters. He not only taught a generation of young artists; he is credited with the revival of Chinese landscape painting.

Included in the Cheffins Fine Sale in Cambridge on June 30-July 1 are more than 50 lots of furniture, antiques, ceramics and collectors’ items from the famous Hertfordshire estate, Julians Park.

A highlight from the Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 27 is this set of four porcelain plaques by the celebrated Republic period artist Wang Qi (1884-1937).

The three-day sale at Lindsay Burns in Perth on July 20-22 includes this Qing porcelain blue and white vase decorated with five dragons contesting a flaming pearl amid cloud scrolls.