23 mars 2008
Seltene chinesische Unterglasur-rote Ming-Schale der Hong-Wu-Periode China 1368 - 1398
Seltene chinesische Unterglasur-rote Ming-Schale der Hong-Wu-Periode China 1368 - 1398
Höhe: 4,3 cm. Durchmesser: 9,3 cm - Estimate € 40.000 - 60.000
Lotus"-Schale in der seltenen kupferroten Bemalung. Die Schälchenwandung in leichtem Schwung sich nach oben weitend, mit kurzem, geradem Standfuß, leicht grau-grünliche Grundglasur, darauf an der Wandung dichtes Blattrankenwerk von Strauchbeeren in Kupferrot, wellig angelegte Zweige, die sich volutenartig um Früchte schlingen, mit dichter Verteilung der kleinen Strauchblätter. Die Dekoration oben und unten durch feinen Rand abgesetzt. Ebenfalls feine Randlinie an der Innenlippe der Schale, im Fond eine Chrysanthemenknospe. Dazugegeben eine verschließbare Schatulle zur Aufbewahrung. Fußbohrung zum TL-Test.
Anmerkung: Der Schale liegt ein Thermoluminiszenz-Gutachten vom 28.01.2008 bei mit dem Altersergebnis von +/- 600 Jahre. (691052)
Hampel. Asian Art. Friday, 04 April 2008
16 mars 2008
Vase «zhi» en bronze à patine verte, Chine, époque Zhou (Circa 1100-256 av. J.C.).
Vase «zhi» en bronze à patine verte, Chine, époque Zhou (Circa 1100-256 av. J.C.).
le col orné d'une frise de deux paires de dragons «kui» divisées par deux têtes de bovidés sur fond de grecques «leiwen». A l'intérieur un pictogramme Yao zha Zhang. (Petit accident à la base). Hauteur : 16,5 cm. Estimé : 3 000 / 3 500 €
Provenance : Ancienne collection Maurin
Piasa Paris. Art d'Asie. Vente du 9 avril 2008
15 mars 2008
Epoque HAN (206 av. JC - 220 ap. JC) - Brûle-parfum en forme de colline «boshanlu»
Brûle-parfum en forme de colline «boshanlu» - Epoque HAN (206 av. JC - 220 ap. JC)
en terre cuite recouverte d'une glaçure verte irisée, la partie basse décorée en relief sous la glaçure d'animaux. (éclat). Hauteur : 36 cm. Estimé : 2 500 / 3 000 €
Note: Il est très rare de trouver ce type de brûle-parfum avec sa base.
Provenance : Cette pièce aurait été exposée à Seattle dans les années 1966 et 1980, ainsi qu'au Victoria et Albert Museum antérieurement.
Référence : «Chinese Pottery in the Han Dynasty» par Laufer Pl : LV, figure 1.
Piasa Paris. Art d'Asie. Vente du 9 avril 2008. www.auction.fr/cp/piasa/auction.php
Epoque Néolithique - Pot de forme balustre en poterie
Epoque Néolithique - Pot de forme balustre en poterie
Pot de forme balustre en poterie décoré en polychromie noire et rouge d'un motif de spirales. L'épaulement est orné de deux petites anses.Culture Yangshao. Hauteur : 33,5 cm - Estimé : 1 500 / 2 000 €
Neolithic Era. Pot baluster form in polychrome pottery decorated in black and red motif of a spiral. The shoulder is decorated with two small handles. Yangshao Culture. Height: 33.5 cm. Estimate : 1 500 / 2 000 € Piasa Paris. Art d'Asie. Vente du 9 avril 2008. www.auction.fr/cp/piasa/auction.php
Époque MING (1368 - 1644) - Importante vasque en porcelaine
Époque MING (1368 - 1644) - Importante vasque en porcelaine
Importante vasque en porcelaine blanche décorée en bleu sous couverte de quatre chimères jouant avec des balles de rubans. Sur le bord une marque à six caractères de Wanli. (Restaurations et base refaite) - Hauteur : 43,5 cm. Diamètre : 50 cm - Estimé : 5 000 / 6 000 €
Important cauldron white porcelain decorated in blue covered under four chimeras playing with balls ribbons. On board a mark to six characters Wanli. (Restorations and basic redone) - Height: 43.5 cm. Diameter: 50 cm - Estimate: 5 000 / 6 000 €
Piasa Paris. Art d'Asie. Vente du 9 avril 2008. www.auction.fr/cp/piasa/auction.php
Époque MING (1368 - 1644) - Deux tabourets de forme tonnelet
Époque MING (1368 - 1644) - Deux tabourets de forme tonnelet
Deux tabourets de forme tonnelet en porcelaine blanche décorée en bleu sous couverte et ajouré de fleurs et rinceaux. (Manque une anse, ébréchures). Hauteur : 35 et 37 cm - Estimé : 2 000 / 2 500 €
Piasa Paris. Art d'Asie. Vente du 9 avril 2008. www.auction.fr/cp/piasa/auction.php
14 mars 2008
Une magnifique coupe à libation "chilong" en corne de rhinocéros d'époque Qianlong chez Christie's HK
A magnificent and finely carved archaistic rhinoceros horn ‘chilong’ libation cup, Qianlong period (1736-1795), Estimate: HK$ 3,000,000 – 4,000,000 / US$ 380,000 – 500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2008
HONG KONG.-Christie’s announced that it will offer Important Chinese Rhinoceros-Horn Carvings from the Songzhutang Collection on May 27 in Hong Kong. This collection, passionately collected over several decades, offers 30 rare and important examples of rhinoceros horn carvings and is one of the finest known private collections of this treasured and honored art form. Long prized for medicinal and mystical powers, rhinoceros horn material was extremely precious and expensive to obtain, making carvings such as those presented in this collection difficult to acquire and rare to commission. Examples surviving to the present day are considered extremely scarce and highly sought-after. This sale offers a singular opportunity for collectors to acquire a work of art that for centuries has been considered among the most valued in China. It also allows a wider audience the opportunity to witness the beauty of this art form and to learn of its place in the history of China. Part of the proceeds from this special collection, expected to realize US$5,000,000 – 7,000,000, will benefit the Songzhutang Foundation and its work to aid poverty-stricken school children in the northwestern regions and remote mountainous areas of Mainland China.
Rhinoceros horn carvings are among the rarest and most precious of ancient Chinese works of art, and this collection offers 30 exceedingly fine, museum-quality examples, each unique in its design and execution. The examples offered in this collection span a range of forms, motifs and techniques, and include signed works from this art form’s pre-eminent master carvers. Among the rich repertoire of subject matter are landscapes and figures, plants and insects, fish and birds, as well as scenes from daily life, plays on auspicious subjects, and themes taken from literary works of the time.
Among the highlights offered is a generously sized and exquisitely carved cup illustrating a scene described in the Preface to Scholarly Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion written by the great calligrapher Wang Xizhi (estimate: HK$ 3,000,000 - 4,000,000 / US$ 380,000 – 500,000). An elegant and refined work, this cup features images of tall mountains, lush vegetation, an exquisite pavilion and scholars engaged in various scholarly activities, which together create a strong three dimensional story. The figure of Wang Xizhi (AD 307-365) is seen writing in the Orchid Pavilion, while several scholars engage in activities around the cup - some admiring the bamboo grove, others reciting poems under beneath pine trees. The figures are carved with great attention to detail: facial features are clearly discernible and expressions are vivid and animated. On the face of a cliff, in carved running script, is the phrase "Lush woods, slender bamboo and winding stream,” inspired by the Preface. Also seen is the square seal with the surname of the carver, Fang Hongzhai, who was active from the late Ming to the early Qing dynasty and is known for extremely refined and detailed works, and whose work is found in the Palace Museum in Beijing. Very few rhinoceros horn carvings adopt such a theme as it involved numerous figures, elaborate scenery, and an extremely complex composition, therefore requiring superior carving skills.
Above all, such a composition required an extraordinarily large rhinoceros horn of fine quality, making this example not only rare, but true masterpiece with great artistic value.
Of particular note in this collection is a Ming dynasty, 17th century vessel fashioned in the form of a large inverted lotus leaf (HK$ 4,000,000 - 5,000,000 / US$ 500,000 –700,000). The material used in this work is smooth and lustrous, with a fresh and elegant design that shows great animation. It is skillfully rendered and highly naturalistic flora and fauna including a butterfly in flight. The interior features a lively image of a Praying Mantis climbing over a long bladed leaf. The upbending stem of the large lotus leaf has been hollowed out to form a spout, with the narrow channel connected to a hole in the base of the vessel so that liquid can be poured through it. The vessel bears the maker’s sealmark Zhi Sheng, the style name of You Kan, considered perhaps the greatest carver of the period. This cup, formerly in the E.T. Chow Collection, is exceptional in its superb quality, naturalistic detail and subject-matter.
Also of note is a rare rhinoceros horn figure of a Budai (estimate: HK$ 3,000,000-4,000,000 / US$ 380,000 – 500,000). The monk Budai, also known as the Laughing Buddha, is depicted seated amidst the spreading loose folds of his robes, his chest and large belly exposed, clutching in his right hand a tasseled rosary while five laughing boys clamber up his body.
The sale also includes a large libation cup with a dragon motif from the Qianlong period (estimate: HK$ 3,000,000-4,000,000 / US$ 380,000-500,000). This enormous cup of archaic bronze form has a beautifully contoured interior, and depicts thirty-nine lively chi - dragons of various sizes and shapes climbing around the sides and over into the interior of the vessel. (source www.artdaily.com)
13 mars 2008
A bronze square-sectioned hu - Han Dynasty
A bronze square-sectioned hu - Han Dynasty
Cast with a waisted neck and canted foot, two of its curving walls applied with a lion mask supporting loose rings (lacking cover, patches of corrosion). 14 1/2in (37 cm) high - Sold for $1,700 plus Premium and tax
(Copyright © 2002-2007 Bonhams 1793 Ltd., Images and Text All Rights Reserved)
Bonhams. Asian Decorative Art, 3 Mar 2008. 220 San Bruno Ave., San Francisco
A cast bronze hu with chain handle - Han Period
A cast bronze hu with chain handle - Han Period
Of circular section with a tall foot supporting the globular body surrounded by recessed horizontal bands, the shoulder mounted with animal masks grasping circular rings attached by chains to the dragon-decorated arching handle and the cover (crack, corrosion, burial deposits). 12 1/4in (31cm) high exclusive of handle - Sold for $1,200 plus Premium and tax
(Copyright © 2002-2007 Bonhams 1793 Ltd., Images and Text All Rights Reserved)
Bonhams. Asian Decorative Art, 3 Mar 2008. 220 San Bruno Ave., San Francisco
A blue and white moonflask - Qianlong seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795)
A very rare large blue and white moonflask - Qianlong seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795)
Well painted in fifteenth century style in rich underglaze blue with simulated 'heaping and piling' with an allover pattern of composite foliate meander, the penciled, scrolling, leafy stems bearing a central lotus blossom surrounded by six further flowers on each side and three flowers on the narrow sides below the dragon handles, each stem terminating in a smaller blossom, above a band of froth-capped waves encircling the rounded rectangular foot, repeated on the waisted neck above another band of flower scroll and a ruyi-head border. 21 3/8 in. (54.3 cm.) high - Estimate: $500,000-600,000
Notes: This large, rare, and magnificent flask is a testament to the superb craftsmanship of the potters at the Imperial kilns in the Qianlong reign. The shape is well potted, and the decoration - painted in the finest cobalt - is extremely well painted, while the decorative scheme is beautifully balanced to complement the form of the flask. Both the shape of the flask and the mixed floral scroll that provides its main decoration take their inspiration from Ming 15th century Imperial porcelains. The Qianlong Emperor greatly admired 15th century blue and white porcelains and had a considerable number in his collection. Indeed a 15th century blue and white moonflask, with scroll handles on either side of the neck and decorated with a floral scroll, appears on a table with other antiques to the right of the Emperor in an anonymous portrait entitled One or Two - Painting of the Emperor Qianlong Appreciating Antiques in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Golden Exile - Pictorial Expressions of the School of Western Missionaries' Artworks of the Qing Court, Museu de Arte de Macau, 2002, no. 41.
The 15th century moonflasks did not have discernable foot rings, and indeed many of the 18th century blue and white flasks appear to have little in the way of a foot below the lower edge of their circular bodies. A Yongzheng blue and white vase of this shape illustrated in Chinese Porcelain - The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, part II, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1987, p. 80, no. 54, is decorated with a mixed floral scroll of the flowers of the four seasons. A Qianlong version of this low-footed form, also decorated with a mixed floral scroll from the T. T. Tsui Collection is illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art - Chinese Ceramics IV - Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, no. 74.
A smaller, low-footed, Qianlong flask in the Tianminlou Collection is interesting because it shares with the current flask, not only the form of its dragon handles and mixed floral scroll disposed over the body, but also a wave band around the mouth and base, illustrated in Chinese Porcelain - The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, op. cit., p. 92, no. 65. The same handles, wave bands and low-footed shape can be seen on a larger Qianlong flask from the Chang Foundation Collection illustrated in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pp. 334-5, no. 148. On this flask, however, the mixed floral scroll is restricted to the sides, and the front and back have a design of phoenix and dragon. Both of these last two flasks have archaistic plantain leaf bands around the neck.
The flasks with taller flared foot, like the current example, may have been developed for greater stability, to give a more pleasing balance to the form, or may simply have been a response to the fashion for displaying objects on stands. A large Qianlong flask, although still slightly smaller than the current vessel, with the taller, flared, foot in the collection of the Shanghai Museum is illustrated by Liu Liang-yu in A Survey of Chinese Ceramics 5, Ch'ing Official and Popular Wares, Taipei, 1991, p. 152, upper image. This flask shares the same basic form as the current vessel, but the dragon handles are in the form of chi dragons, rather than being the flattened archaistic type seen on the other flasks, and the vase is covered with a floral scroll, except for the circular panels front and back, which contain peaches, bats and waves. Another large flask with the taller, flared foot, which is only slightly smaller than the current example, with a design of dragons in clouds above waves, was sold at Sotheby's, London, 7 November 2007, lot 407.
The current moonflask appears to be the largest of the published flasks of this type, and its design of six mixed blossoms encircling a seventh blossom is a particularly pleasing decoration for this form. The floral scroll on the neck complements the body design, while the narrow, but bold, wave bands at mouth and foot provide an effective counterpoint to the more delicate floral scrolls.
Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. 19 March 2008. 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York