Well, another case of experts not agreeing on the same item, unheard of in the world of Chinese porcelain collecting.  ?

in deffence of Xin’s vase, would it not be possible for many of the same pot to be made under imperial order and quality for the imperial court to hand out as gifts.  

Peter, do you have any input to add, you just might be the swing vote.

Hello,Ronm

way I'm reading his post is the pictures and auction pictures are the same pot take by a person at 

the auction house.  And yes if it two different vase painted by same person they would be slightly 

different. John

I don't get the point of this thread  - guessing the age of vase from pictures , without showing the base, and then revealing a catalogue with clearly a different vase. ??  look at the fence-posts in the two side-by side pictures shown by numismarts.

Anyway, the game obviously entertained some of you!

Perhaps obviously, I  would not trust any item on a chinese auction site , except maybe poly auctions. I can imagine a bait and switch scenario where the auction house substitutes a copy for the real (catalogued) item. 

Posted by: John steward

Hello,Xin

tell me why the picture in the auction page is different 

John

Hi John,

The list of in the picture is reference, not provenance. Sorry, my mistake.

The one on the black and white photo is from a reknown collection, as reference.

WBR

Xin

Good morning Xin. ?

So the black and white is another one (in the Palace museum).  I have to apologize for mentioning the reference/litterature as thinking it was provenance. 

Although i am curious if the reference to sale at Sotheby's (Hong Kong, 19 May 1987 lot.243) is the real provenance of the very piece or just another one that resembles this one?

- Adrian 

Hi friends,

I shared this with you because I doubted about this object days ago. Not because I want to fool you all here.

Sorry Tam for failing to entertain you :P. I'm not good at that. Recently I made a couple of mistakes.
And this one is one of them. You will learn more if you make mistakes. Giovanni, Peter, Alan Fletcher and other members corrected me a lot directly or indirectly.
I learned a lot from them. They have a lot of experience then me. Tam, I found out you have a lot of experience too. Thank you for helping me and us.

All pictures are taken by a friend who is reknown expert in the Chinese ceramic world. No doubt.
He comfirmed the authenticity. Otherwise I would not post those on the forum and share with you.
About the auction house I can't tell if it is reliable. But good feedbacks from collectors in China.

Thank you Ronm, you understood me well.

Giovanni, just like me, my first impression is, should be new or an unusul piece because of the painting style (but not the decoration).

Sorry again for hurting somebody's feelings.

Let's make it clear again. The list on the photo is literature / references. (My mistake, I thought it's provenance.) Hope this time it is correct.

The one on the black and white photo is from the collecion of a famous Hongkong collector T. Y. Chao (趙從衍) (as reference I think).

Thank you all for comments and critics.

WBR

Xin

you are right, and I should apologise to you , we can only learn by our mistakes .

I would say, however,  beware of ' renowned chinese experts' , even if you know them, simply because they are often working for the vendor or auction house and are not independent. There have been horror stories in China of rich buyers being duped in this way. In my view,  one person's words can never 'certify the authenticity' of anything ...

Dear Xin,

when you provided the name of the auction house, I saw since the beginning that they are rarely mentioning the provenance, while mentioning related literature in a way that could be interpreted as provenance.

About this jar, they do not mention the size of the reference. I suppose that it is bigger. I did ask about the caption in Chinese and you said that it says that the reference is in the Palace Museum.

That is supporting what I said, that a jar like this, if genuine, would not be on sale at so low price.

Just a note about the whole sale: if you browse the catalog, you will see that many items are sold in pair. That is not so common. Also, the large majority of those pieces was not found in China. If genuine, they must have been imported which means that the prices should be much higher.

Today’s fakes are VERY dangerous. A jar like that would not be accepted by one of the three major auction houses based in London without provenance.  

Since I mentioned provenance, I would like to say my opinion about this issue.

Today’s policy of the major auction houses is to accept only items with solid provenance. I think that this is a shame. Are them expert or not? I can understand this policy for some item, but not all them. If a Kangxi vase is clearly Kangxi, it is Kangxi, that’s it. In most cases, lack of knowledge is hidden behind lack of provenance.

Giovanni

I know that this had a logical explanation, and I now see more clearly the hownand why about this post.

The way the auctionhouse (mis) use and do writeups is very cruede and sophisticated.

I am not sure if Xin is comfortable to give details of this transaction and his personal opinions regarding this highly disturbing case.

I am very familiar with trust weighing high and that one can see past red flags that would otherwise would be obvious. 

Best regards

Adrian 

PS: I apologize that I stirred this a bit up with my confusion regarding the intension of this post. 

Good point, Giovanni. I agree with you. I'm also very careful in case of Chinese auction houses. They have huge problems. I know. Many fakes are so perfect. Even experts have to visit Jingdezhen frequently to see the newst fakes. Otherwise they have no chance. Provenance is very important nowadays. But I also agree with you that major auction houses controll the markets and refuse to take genuin pieces. What a shame. It's all about money. 

About the caption see below my words, not "Palace Museum". 

"The one on the black and white photo is from the collecion of a famous Hongkong collector T. Y. Chao (趙從衍) (as reference I think)."

Posted by: tam18

you are right, and I should apologise to you , we can only learn by our mistakes .

I would say, however,  beware of ' renowned chinese experts' , even if you know them, simply because they are often working for the vendor or auction house and are not independent. There have been horror stories in China of rich buyers being duped in this way. In my view,  one person's words can never 'certify the authenticity' of anything ...

Tam, you are right. Many experts work for auction houses and fool people. I just want to say my friend is an independent one and very critical one. He will not survive if he fool people in the publicity.

Thank you again for understanding. I appreciate that.

Xin and Giovanni both of you are indeed correct with your post regarding the major auction houses.

Christie's and Sotheby's both side on caution without proper paperwork. They also don't like to accept an item that is the same as one that they have sold before at a very high price. That way they keep the pretence of holding that prestigious high price that goes with the prestige of selling with them rather than the any other auction house.

That happened to me about 4 months ago when I approached Christie's to sell something.

Giovanni I could not agree with you more on your post regarding hidden knowledge. They have a large turnaround of so-called experts coming and going their rooms, some of them have only been there for a very short time and hence their knowledge is limited in viewing/assessment of hundreds of items over a very short time. They simply just come and go.

Only when an item of good/very high quality does come through the door then it is referred to someone with more experience.

I had a very strange encounter with Sotheby's (Melbourne) about 10 yrs ago when I approached the gem expert with an item for assessment that I would like to share with you.

The item in question is a 42 carat of imperial quality jadeite carving of guan yin and was surrounded with about 8 carats of diamonds..

She asked about provenance by which I played dumb. She then spent only 2 minutes using her loupe and told me that this was not imperial quality jadeite and also had doubts about some of the diamonds and hence was not interested.

Before I left I told her that she was incompetent and incorrect with her analysis of said item with only 2 minutes to examine it. She of course rebutted my claims etc. I then pulled out a receipt along with a HK lab report for that same item, from a very prominent and well known dealer. I then left and slammed the door!

I still have the jadeite pendant but did sell the diamond setting two years later when things got a lot worse for me at the time. Something I still regret today for the pitance I got for the diamonds.

Mark

Hello,Xin

No need to apologize , we are here to learn and share knowledge that why

i like to read the history of a piece before I commit on a piece. And Ronm is right 

when you can't get two expert to agree on pieces how can we.I watched a vase at Christie thy said was

a fake thene turn around and say it was real without a test and sold for millions. So if you don't ask 

questions you don't learn. John

Hi John,

I think from memory that peter had a similar experience with either Christie's or Sotheby's when they told him his item was not real.

He later sold it for a 6 figure sum.

This forum is excellent for both experienced and novice alike, that is why I am here and not elsewhere.

From time to time you hear where items have sold for x amount and then counter claimed by the buyer that they are fake. It's like hitting a brick wall.

Life is one long journey of experience and you are never too old to learn something new.

Today I was looking at a site www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com

Fascinating stuff, especially how the fakers get around the traditional TL testing etc by ageing porcelain using a xray machine.

Mark

Your right Mark,you are never to old to learn im 67 and collecting for almost 20year

and still learning some new everyday. John