IHT, APRIL 8, 2006 The Chinese advance: More bids, many buys By Souren Melikian International Herald Tribune NEW YORK The phenomenal economic rise of China, and of Chinese communities around the world, is changing the face of the market for Chinese art. Literally so. Chinese dealers and intermediaries filled row after row in a Christie's room last week, bidding on every kind of object embedded in Mandarin culture, and, for the first time in American auction history, matched in numbers their Western counterparts. As the March 29 sale ended, $20 million had changed hands, with roughly two-thirds of the works of art going to Chinese bidders. The day after, at Sotheby's, the Chinese presence was larger still. In Christie's session, the inclusion of the porcelain collection formed by the late Evelyn Annenberg Hall, a noted New York society figure, attracted a wider attendance than the usual collectors and professionals in the field. Those who sat in Sotheby's room were there strictly for the sake of the art, and at least two-thirds of them were Chinese, driven by the ever intensifying yearning, whether in China or in overseas communities, to reconnect with their centuries-old tradition. Already, this Chinese search for roots through art has radically reshaped the makeup of Western auctions. A new aesthetic hierarchy dictated by Mandarin culture prevails. Until a few years ago, the tastes of the West and of Japan gave precedence to ancient bronzes recovered from tombs, Buddhist sculpture and Tang glazed pottery, from vessels to horses. Not anymore. Porcelain now rides a crest. As if moved by the same inspiration, Christie's and Sotheby's both ran blue and white porcelain vessels on their catalogue covers. While these all turned out to be the winning tickets, the competition they triggered reflected the transitional phase through which the market is currently going. The Chinese fought hard, but they are not all psychologically prepared to run the extra mile in the auction arena. The bottle painted with two dragons wriggling amid scrolls that Christie's ran on the cover of the Annenberg Hall catalogue had everything to satisfy them. The dragon and the imperial seal mark on the underside identify it as palaceware made early in the long Qianlong reign (1736-1795). But if some Far Eastern bidders were determined, so was the American dealer, who won the battle to the tune of $1.13 million, nearly double Christie's estimate. When the second-most desirable lot of blue and white porcelain came on the block, the Chinese again proved too timid. The pair of meiping vases, also with the Qianlong seal on the underside, probably made right at the beginning of the reign, are the finest of their kind. The Hong Kong dealer William Chak badly wanted them. So did the London dealer Stewart Marchant, who outbid him. But he in turn had to concede defeat. I wrote last week that Japanese collectors are back in the auction battlefield. It was one of them who picked up the $755,200 tab for the prize. However, when came the greatest rarity of the day, a blue and white vase in the shape of a double gourd from the mid-14th century, Chinese bidders felt sufficiently stimulated to hold on to the bitter end. Interestingly, the vase sums up the aesthetic revolution that took place when the Mongol dynasty called Yuan (1279-1368) by Chinese historians introduced an entirely new repertoire of shapes, sizes and patterns borrowed from Iran, which, like China, had been conquered by the Mongols. The massive form, the dense floral pattern that covers the entire surface, and the deep blue color known as "hui" ("Iranian," later understood more broadly as "Muslim") all have a boldness that would have horrified the literati of the Song age. These very qualities, on the other hand, hold an irresistible appeal to Western and Japanese collectors. The overseas Chinese, exposed to the wider world, are now beginning to share this approach. One of them outbid the British dealer Richard Littleton and paid just over $2 million for the superb object, which has only one known parallel in the world, now in Istanbul. Mystery still surrounds the third blue and white rarity in last week's round of auctions, the early 15th-century jar that adorned the cover of Sotheby's catalogue. The estimate, set at a maximum level, deterred bidders in the room from going for it. Fortunately for Sotheby's, someone had found the object compelling enough to leave a commission bid matching the estimate and assorted reserve. The vase thus sold for $4.72 million to the anonymous admirer of early Ming blue and white porcelain. But if they did not find it in themselves to have the courage to pay all the top prices at last week's auctions, the passion with which the Chinese collectors and dealers swooped on nearly all objects in the Chinese taste suggests that this relative timidity is unlikely to last very long. A fascinating process of subtle interaction among the overseas Chinese, those who live in Taiwan and those who are citizens of China, is under way. The overseas Chinese are financially bolder and more willing to bid for Chinese works that traditionally appealed to the West and to Japan. At the Annenberg Hall sale, it was a Chinese U.S. resident who went all the way to $132,000 to buy a superb ewer with the Jiaqing seal (1796- 1820) precisely copying a Yongle period (1403- 1424) model now in the Beijing Palace Museum. Later, a Chinese collector from the overseas communities paid $50,400, far above Christie's high estimate, to acquire a marvelous white bowl on a tall tapering foot of the Qianlong period. The bowl is decorated with a rhythmic scrolling pattern incised under the glaze. Aesthetically, both pieces bear witness to the imprint left on China by the encounter with Iranian aesthetics four centuries earlier the ewer in its shape and blue and white pattern, the stem bowl in its scroll with six volutes rolling around a central roundel. Where pure tradition was at stake, collectors from mainland China were more prepared to jump high if needed. A lovely vase with the Qianlong seal reviving the delicate very pale green glaze with a faintly bluish touch of the Song period ru porcelain cost $26,400, triple the high estimate. Here, Chinese collectors impose their own hierarchy. A seemingly identical vase with much the same hue but with no visible crackle in the glaze and a subtly softer touch, which Christie's also estimated to be worth $8,000 to $12,000, went up to $72,000. It was the ultimate example of its kind, unmarred by the hair crack that affected the previous piece. A Hong Kong dealer carried off the prize. The Chinese also define the new price scale. In a fascinating parallel, two water pots both shaped like a bowl turned upside down, both with the same "peachbloom" (i.e., red) glaze and the Kangxi mark (1662-1722) on the underside, sold within half an hour of each other. They were estimated $6,000 to $8,000 apiece. One sold for $36,000 and went to a mainland collector. The other was bought by a Chinese overseas collector for $33,600. For the longer term, the most telling Chinese acquisitions were those that sold for the least. In the Annenberg Hall collection, a Hong Kong dealer took the trouble to pick up a small rectangular brush pot, with a pale green glaze and broad crackle, that brought a modest $2,640 - but more than three times the estimate. A day later at Sotheby's, the Chinese professionals again bought many of the less ambitious lots. This speaks volumes about the rising wave of aspiring collectors in mainland China. They may have limited means and knowledge, but China is a land of fast learners. For the moment, Westerners still play a major role. In Christie's sale of works from various owners, the second-highest price, $419,200, was paid by an American collector for the wooden figure of an early Han horse. It came from an old American collection formed by the late Stephen Junkunc III, with whose heir the deputy chairman of Christie's America and Asia, Theow Tow, has cultivated a professional relationship for years. The third-highest price, $408,000, secured a 17th-century huanghuali wood bed for the Art Institute of Chicago. But it may not be too long before even the wealthiest public and private collectors in search of Chinese objects will find it very much harder to compete with the soaring power of their Chinese rivals. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/07/features/melik8.php
with kind regards,
Matthias Arnold (Art-Eastasia list)
http://www.chinaresource.org http://www.fluktor.de
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