here you can by the way find good resolution pictures of the snuff box for comparison :

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22882/lot/13/?category=list&length=10&page=2

Kind regards

Staartmees

Dear Staartmees,

I think, your'e 100% right. I like your explanation and I agree with the very accurate observations you have provided. I will study the 18th C European subjects on Chinese antiques with all your comments in mind. Apart of that, yes, the red warning lights were flushing there from all directions. 

All the best,

Adrian

Dear Adrian,

please look at the comparison image below. Do you really think that these are comparable?

Without considering the snuff box, that really is in 18th century style.

The true is that there is somebody that will cry for having paid more than 20,000 dollars for something worthless.

And it is a shame that a seller who has already been several times proven that deliberately sells fakes at high value continues making a lot of money that way.

Giovanni

PS: and there are other fakes sold in the same day by him.

Well, Giovanni, that is when people go for the bargains, or think that they have a bargain in sight.  They get all excited by the thought that they can buy something that is extremely rare, in perfect condition, at a bargain price. Yeah right !

Today's mentality of not wanting anything with some sort of wear, which to me seems perfectly normal for an antique item of about 400 years old, is killing the market. I hope one day especially chinese buyers will realize that if you want to understand true chinese art and learn, you can better buy an item with the correct signs of age and wear, than hoping that that perfect item you are buying is authentic ( which is not in 99.9% of the cases)

The authentic items with some wear are sold for nearly nothing while the perfect fakes are sold for loads of money. I really do not understand that. Is this also only about the money in the end ? or about artwork that you like ?

On this seller, I have serious doubts about the yongzheng vase. The quality does by far not reflect the quality you would expect for  yongzheng period, even being that small. Which items were you referring to ? ( i did not look at them all)

Kind regards

Staartmees

Hi all, 
I too am in agreement that the bowl is not correct - it all seems too perfect and very unusual to see such minimal wear. The painting is too tight and the figures in particular lack the fluidity and shading of period pieces that I have seen

It has taken me a while to find the time to read and digest this thread.  It has been very interesting and I agree: this item does not seem correct.

Thanks Julia for expressing exactly my thoughts. When I saw the item for the first time I thought the painting style looked strange. But as Peter had mentioned it I thought it was old. Also I didn’t know nothing about painting on metal so I didn’t speak up. European ladies from Qianlong have a typical Baroque style. As you said they were mostly copied from contemporary prints.  Or there are the Castiglioni items that were painted by Europeans in China. I saw some in museums, they look different too. This lady here with the blue eyes just looks ridiculous. 

Dear Giovanni,

I was blind but now I see. Thank you for putting me on the right track - again, I appreciate it a lot. There is still a long way in front of me and I am truly grateful for this opportunity to hear yours and others opinions. I have no problems with wearing sackcloth and ashes. Learning is always a bit painful process, but I enjoy it 🙂

Just wonder if Peter's gonna comment on this in his newsletter?

Best regards, 

Your humble follower

Adrian

Dear All,

By incident I found this in one of my catalogues ( Woolley and Wallis)....looks much more like the bowl we are discussing here and described by the auction house as a 20th century snuff bottle :

Kind regards

Staartmees

Hello, members 

This has been a interesting post I want to share this 19th century from Sotheby’s that 

selling now it not mark but you can see the difference. That’ll why research is so important and sites like this

are invaluable to have. Thanks John

 .

In case you guys havn't noticed, Peter is talking about the bowl in his latest video. He says: "this an extremely fine Qianlong mark and period enamel..." and that: "the quality of the decoration is superb..." I wonder if Peter has actually handled the bowl since chamberlain auctions is located in New England where Peter also lives. As you can see Peter had put a bid on it but got outbid at $15,200 three days before the auction ended.

As for authenticity it must be possible to contact the Clark Art Institue to hear if they can confirm the provenance cited.

https://www.clarkart.edu/

Hopefully Peter will talk about the bowl again in his next video.

Corey, that crossed my mind, too.  Besides, saying it once belonged to them doesn't necessarily imply a positive, but it is interesting that Peter bid on this. 

Edit:  Did you mean what he said about being outbid in the video - I assumed you could see from the stats that he had bid, but that's fairly anonymous, isn't it?  In the video he said he was outbid on a Persian bowl.  I remember hearing that when I watched it and wondering what the bowl was like.

Some contributors to this thread have mentioned Sotheby's, Christie's, and items sold in perfect condition (there and elsewhere).   

It reminds me of a seminar I attended several years ago by Bill Sargent (William R. Sargent), who was then then the Curator of Chinese Export at the Peabody Essex Museum, and in my view, one of the leading experts in the subject. 

He mentioned that about half the porcelain in Sotheby's and Christies auctions was in his view, fake.   He also mentioned that when he brought it to their attention, they didn't' want to know!

One scam I've seen more often than I can remember, is a fake porcelain item will be consigned to a prominent auction house with a solid reserve.    I've even been told by at least one auction director that the consignee will tell them, not to worry about the reserve, it will sell!  The item will sell (presumably to an associate of the cosigner).    The item is then taken back to China, with its new prominent auction house provenance, and resold based on having gone through that auction house.   The Auction house benefits by collecting the commissions, and the consignee/buyer benefit by making a valueless item appear valuable.

The end result is a lot of perfect items going through major auction houses and selling for high prices.    It is a costly error to use these records (pictures/prices) as your authorities.

As I mentioned elsewhere, porcelain that is hundreds of years old, is almost never undamaged.    For example, how often do you find a piece of 18th Century Meissen that is undamaged (aka like new)?

Also mentioned by Bill Sargent in that seminar is apparently individual pages from Sotheby's/Christies catalogues are sold in Jingdezhen markets, and used to create new fakes.   When the item in the catalogue was fake in the first place............you can see where this goes!

Posted by: Avionsunantiques

Some contributors to this thread have mentioned Sotheby's, Christie's, and items sold in perfect condition (there and elsewhere).   

It reminds me of a seminar I attended several years ago by Bill Sargent (William R. Sargent), who was then then the Curator of Chinese Export at the Peabody Essex Museum, and in my view, one of the leading experts in the subject. 

He mentioned that about half the porcelain in Sotheby's and Christies auctions was in his view, fake.   He also mentioned that when he brought it to their attention, they didn't' want to know!

One scam I've seen more often than I can remember, is a fake porcelain item will be consigned to a prominent auction house with a solid reserve.    I've even been told by at least one auction director that the consignee will tell them, not to worry about the reserve, it will sell!  The item will sell (presumably to an associate of the cosigner).    The item is then taken back to China, with its new prominent auction house provenance, and resold based on having gone through that auction house.   The Auction house benefits by collecting the commissions, and the consignee/buyer benefit by making a valueless item appear valuable.

The end result is a lot of perfect items going through major auction houses and selling for high prices.    It is a costly error to use these records (pictures/prices) as your authorities.

As I mentioned elsewhere, porcelain that is hundreds of years old, is almost never undamaged.    For example, how often do you find a piece of 18th Century Meissen that is undamaged (aka like new)?

Also mentioned by Bill Sargent in that seminar is apparently individual pages from Sotheby's/Christies catalogues are sold in Jingdezhen markets, and used to create new fakes.   When the item in the catalogue was fake in the first place............you can see where this goes!

Salvator Mundi was sold for 450 million... i am pretty sure in next 15-20 years they will 'discover' another painting of Leonardo that will score even more. They are laundering money there, that's it.
It's obvious they sell fakes, they always did. However they also sell items from privet collections of people who spent their lives on this subject and most likely they knew more about their own items then auction houses' experts - and those items' authenticity is, in my opinion, quite hard to question. Fact is, they are in very good condition as well... Apart from that - what else is there that could be a reliable reference? Museums only I guess...

@ Julia. You can see the pink line in the listing shown in the video where it says "You've been outbid", meaning Peter is logged in to his personal eBay -account while he makes the video. And he says: "oh, I've been outbid on the persian bow". I don't know why he calls it the persian bowl.

@Malka Art. The sale of  Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi at Christie's was extraordinary but there is also the case with Christie's selling a $150 million dollar masterpiece by Da Vinci for a mere $21,850.

https://www.mutualart.com/Article/Expert-confident-Da-Vinci-attribution-wi/8BB3526587045803