The Chinese and Asian Art Forum. For Fans, Collectors and Dealers.
Basic Rules For the BidAmount Asian Art Forum: Talk about whatever you want. You can even discuss and offer things that are for sale if they are authentic. Maximum image file size per post is 2 MB. Images of 700pxl x 700pxl are optimal if saved at a medium resolution. Be respectful of others and enjoy yourself. Click the YouTube link for a brief tutorial on using the forum. You can also EMBED Videos by cutting and pasting from You-Tube, Vimeo etc.
NOTE: To post an item or add a new post, click open the category title from the FORUM LIST, and CLICK the Blue ADD TOPIC button.
A pretty dandy collection coming up September 12th in New York City at Christie's.
Looking forward to it.
Best Peter
Peter
Great collection, especially like the puddingstone bottles.
James
Dear Peter,
I take the opportunity to vent out what I am repeating in other places too, that the snuff bottles market is a shame. I did come to the snuff bottles field some years ago, after many years of interest in Chinese ceramic. I was expecting that the related worlds, especially under the market point of view, were similar. I was completely wrong!
In the porcelain field, there are some well settled points. If you have a Kangxi vase, it is Kangxi to anyone, regardless if you have found it in the rubbish or if it has been property of the Pope. If it has a good provenance, that’s fine, it will add something to it, but the important point is that it is a Kangxi vase.
It is not the same in the snuff bottles field. First at all there are much less knowledge there, less historical references. Probably in part due to that, the fact is that the snuff bottles World gravitates around a small group of 4 – 5 dealers who “makes” the market. Even the big Auction houses are totally depending from them, they are whom decide if a bottle is good or not, how much valuable and so on, based solely in their discretion.
If you have an imperial bottle and you want to sell it to either one of the big London’s Auction houses, you have absurd request (I will not be surprised if they will ask you a photo of yourself together with the emperor Qianlong holding the bottle?) while average bottles coming from famous collection, which in turn comes from one of those dealers, are sold as imperial.
It is a real shame. In the snuff bottles field, provenance is all. It has more importance than the object itself. Which in my opinion is an admission of ignorance (I don’t know what it is, so you have to prove that it belongs from XY). And who says that XY was competent and not just someone with a pocket big enough to accomplish the request of avid sellers?
In that upcoming auction there is the following bottle, attributed to the Imperial workshop:
I am happy with that attribution, because I have a very similar one, that you see here below in the attached pictures.
I do not know if these bottles are really Imperial workshop or not, may be yes because the quality is really good.
But for sure the two following bottles, lot 675 and lot 750, are not:
Those two bottles are an example of what I meant: NOT finely carved, NOT well polished, with all evidence good but average bottles. To call the lot 750 as Imperial a really shameless face is needed I think.
Giovanni
Hi Giovanni,
I concur with your post, sentiment and frustration.
I am no expert with imperial quality snuff bottles. Having posted that I am not new at it either.
Lot # 675 and #750 are not imperial. They are a joke that would never have passed the stringent test at the workshop.
I am in the same boat as you. Having to constantly bash my head up against the brick wall with dealings with the likes of christie's etc.
Last year I sent them some pictures of a large nephrite jade boulder carved with scholars and incised with imperial qianlong marks dating back to the year of dingmao (1747).
The pictures I sent were not of the highest quality etc. I did get a call from them and they told me that it was in their opinion unlikely to be imperial given the lack of high-quality in both carving and calligraphy that would be expected from the imperial jade workshop.
When I asked what do you mean by unlikely, they replied without appropriate provenance etc it would most likely not be genuine.
I have now just recently been able to decode the whole rock and it appears that this was a tribute item produced at or near that date by the salt merchants in Yangzhou and not done in the imperial workshop. The Yangzhou merchants along with the huizhou head merchants interacted with the most precious and expensive jade objects and other in the 18th century. These businessmen produced and procured objects for imperial use through the tribute system and manufacturing.
This I learned only recently after reading and then talking with the author of 'luxurious works: salt merchants, status and statecraft in the 19th century' by Yulian Wu asst professor history department Michigan state university.
The date, month, marks and poem on said piece match what the emperor qianlong was doing at the time in renaming a palace/residence 'a tranquil place'. I can't remember all of it but I do have a record of it.
Mark
Dear Mark,
that books looks interesting, I didn't know about that.
Your one with the Auction house is one of the many cases. I had some really bad experience, one of which is a real shame for Sotheby's.
Giovanni
Hi Giovanni,
If you get the chance it is a very good read on the salt merchants interaction with the qianlong period dynasty.
It puts a whole new viewpoint to the matter of trade and tributes etc.
The author is now in the process of gathering info etc for upcoming new book on jade during said period. She is very approachable and answered all my questions promptly.
Regards
Mark
Latest Post: Sotheby’s AAL pieces seen:handled Our newest member: Claude Bailey Recent Posts Unread Posts
Thanks for visiting "The BidAmount Asian Art Forum | Chinese Art"
If you sell on eBay, or have a shop feel free to post images and descriptions and links.
Check back often for discussion about the latest news in the Chinese art and antique world. Also find out about the latest Asian art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams and Tajans.
Auction results for: fine porcelain, ceramics, bronze, jade, textiles and scholar's objects. As well as Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and other Asian cultures.
Thank you,
Peter Combs
Topics and categories on The BidAmount Asian Art Forum | Chinese Art
Kangxi vases, Kangxi dishes and chargers, Kangxi ritual pieces, Kangxi scholar's objects, Qianlong famille rose, Qianlong enamels, Qianlong period paintings, Qianlong Emporer's court, Fine porcelain of the Yongzheng period. Chinese imperial art, Ming porcelain including Jiajing, Wanli, Xuande, Chenghua as well as Ming jades and bronzes.
Join the BidAmount Chinese and Asian art discussion board and forum today
The BidAmount Asian Art Forum | Chinese Art
A free Asian art discussion board and Asian art message board for dealers and collectors of art and antiques from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the rest of Asia. Linked to all of the BidAmount Asian art reference areas, with videos from plcombs Asian Art and Bidamount on YouTube. Sign up also for the weekly BidAmount newsletter and catalogs of active eBay listing of Chinese porcelain, bronze, jades, robes, and paintings.
The art of calligraphy - and for the ancient Chinese it certainly was an art - aimed to demonstrate superior control and skill using brush and ink. Calligraphy established itself as one of the major Chinese art forms during the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE), and for two millennia after, all educated men were expected to be proficient at it.
The Museum’s collections of Asian art span nearly five millennia and encompass the cultures of China, the Himalayas, India, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. In 2007, the Museum launched an initiative to create dedicated galleries for the collection, beginning with a gallery for the arts of Korea ...
Chinese art is full of symbolism, in that artists typically seek to depict some aspect of a totality of which they are intuitively aware.
China Online Museum is the finest online museum of Chinese art. It features Chinese calligraphy, painting, ceramics, bronzes, carving, and other artworks.
Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Overview Upcoming auctions Contacts Auction results ... Christie’s sales of Chinese ceramics and works of art showcase centuries of Chinese history. Held throughout the year in London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong, they attract a wide audience of collectors and connoisseurs vying for pieces as diverse as ...
Explore Asian Art Week. Contact the Specialist Department. Chinese Paintings ... Senior Specialist, Head of Sale. [email protected]. Tel:+1 212 641 5760. Bid in-person or online for the upcoming auction:Fine Chinese Paintings on 10 September 2019 at New York. Bid in-person or online for the upcoming auction:Fine Chinese Paintings on 10 ...
Discover an abundance of must-see art from all corners of a vast continent at Christie’s NY Asian Art Week. From contemporary classical and Chinese paintings to works with exemplary provenance from the Art Institute of Chicago, our Rockefeller Paza galleries will be full of ancient treasures and contemporary masterworks in a salute to the vibrant arts of Asia.
Sold to benefit The Art Institute of Chicago’s Asian Art Acquisition Fund, the sale features 84 lots with a focus on Ming and Qing porcelains, and offers a rare insight into the taste for collecting Chinese ceramics and works of art in the Midwest from the end of the 19th century through the 1980s. Highlights include two Wanli wucai garlic-head vases, a Qianlong mark and period, blue and ...
Specialist, Chinese Paintings, Christie's London Dr Malcolm McNeill is a Specialist in Chinese Paintings at Christie’s, based in London. He previously worked as an assistant curator of the Chinese collections and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as a researcher at the British Museum, and as a translator and tour guide at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The Christie's Education 2020 Conference: The Chinese Art Market 18 Jun 2019 Christie’s Education is delighted to announce our first international academic conference in Asia which will take place in Hong Kong from 26-27 November 2020 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and will run in parallel with Christie’s Hong Kong Autumn Auctions.
The summer Chinese Art sale in Hong Kong will feature works of art from several private collections, including Qing porcelains and textile from the collection of the legendary Chinese art dealer A. W. Bahr (1877–1959), fine gilt bronze Buddhist sculptures from an old Hong Kong collection, an East Asian collection of Qing dynasty wine cups and jades, and a Japanese collection of Song ceramics ...
Sotheby's Chinese Works of Art Department holds two auctions each year in London, New York, Hong Kong and Paris.
Chinese Art - View Auction details, bid, buy and collect the various artworks at Sothebys Art Auction House.
With more than 340 Chinese works of art dating from the Neolithic to the Republic periods, highlights of this sale include a selection of Qing Imperial monochromes from the collection of Arnold and Blema Steinberg, early ceramics from the Art Institute of Chicago and Chinese porcelain and works of art from the collection of Henry Arnhold.
Results: Sotheby's Asia Week achieved $52.4 million in six strong auctions, exceeding pre-sale estimates. With 76.5% of lots sold and 60.3% of lots surpassing high estimates, the Asian art sales at Sotheby's indicate continued collector interest in the finest works of art from China, India and and the Himalayas.
Today's sale of Important Chinese Art will proceed as planned with sessions at 10 AM and 2 PM EDT. Sotheby's will be monitoring the weather conditions throughout the day and will be available to coordinate alternative bidding options should conditions make it difficult for clients to attend the auction in person.
Bonhams Chinese Art department is renowned for offering the finest works of art representing the richness and breadth of China's artistic heritage, particularly Imperial porcelain, white and spinach green jades, cloisonné and Buddhist art. Specialised international auctions are held globally, including London, Hong Kong and San Francisco.
Bonhams : Chinese Works of Art We use cookies to remember choices you make on functionality and personal features to enhance your experience to our site. By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies. Please refer to our privacy and cookie policies for more information.
Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers: auctioneers of art, pictures, collectables and motor cars. We use cookies to remember choices you make on functionality and personal features to enhance your experience to our site. By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies. ... Chinese Art (US) General enquiries
Bonhams : Fine Chinese Art We use cookies to remember choices you make on functionality and personal features to enhance your experience to our site. By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies. Please refer to our privacy and cookie policies for more information.
Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers: auctioneers of art, pictures, collectables and motor cars Bonhams : Asian Art We use cookies to remember choices you make on functionality and personal features to enhance your experience to our site.
Bonhams are international auctioneers of fine Chinese and Japanese art. We specialise in rare Imperial and Export Chinese ceramics and works of art, as well as Japanese ceramics, fine and decorative works of art from the Neolithic Period to the 20th century. View on map
Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers: auctioneers of art, pictures, collectables and motor cars. We use cookies to remember choices you make on functionality and personal features to enhance your experience to our site. By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies. ... Asian Art Bonhams. Work. 22 Queen St.