A fine and rare blue and white porcelain jar with figural decoration. Joseon Dynasty, Circa 1800

A rare Joseon Dynasty Korean blue and white porcelain jar set a world record at auction yesterday (9 December 2008) in the San Francisco salesroom of Bonhams & Butterfields. Sold over the telephone to an undisclosed Asian buyer, the crowd burst into applause after a hotly contested bidding war among more than 12 clients – bidding from the salesroom floor and via telephones.

The mid-Joseon Dynasty (circa 1800) jar was discovered by Asian Art Department Director Dessa Goddard in a monthly appraisal event held at the company’s Sunset Blvd. gallery in Los Angeles. The jar was formerly within the collection of Mrs. Fiske Warren of Boston, MA, part of the Mount Vernon Street Warren family, living there at the turn of the 19th century. The vase became a family heirloom and has been in a family member’s Southern California home for decades.

Collectors, dealers and aficionados of Asian art came to San Francisco from across the globe to vie for Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Southeast Asian works offered by the fine arts auctioneers during the company’s bi-annual auction of Fine Asian Works of Art. Competitive bidding was seen throughout the daylong sale. The jar, the auction’s top lot, was offered this afternoon and its sale breaks the existing auction record for a Korean blue and white porcelain jar -- the new owner paid $4,184,000 on Tuesday for the rare, elegantly painted masterpiece.

Since its discovery in late August, the jar has toured internationally - on exhibit in September at Bonhams’ sumptuous new Madison Avenue gallery in New York City, and more recently on view during Bonhams sales’ preview in Hong Kong, prior to the San Francisco previews. It was estimated at $200,000/300,000.

“We recognized that the subject matter of the Warren jar is unique,” said Mrs. Goddard. “One other jar in the Osaka Museum has a depiction of San Shin (mountain spirit) and his tiger; the Warren jar shows a bearded San Shin in the act of pulling the tiger’s tail while basking under a pine tree, sun and clouds. The subject of the vase, together with its masterfully executed brush work, makes the jar of great importance to collectors of Korean art worldwide.”

The bidding began with the two banks of telephone bidders vying for Chief Operating Officer and auctioneer Patrick Meade’s attention. Within minutes the bidding quickly climbed to $2-million. From that point on, only two parties remained in contention, a gentleman seated in the crowded auction room and a telephone bidder who became the ultimate buyer. Patrick Meade ended the suspense, hammering down the lot at the winning bid of $3.7-million (with buyer’s premium, the official selling price is $4,184,000).

Mrs. Fiske Warren, born Gretchen Osgood (of the Back Bay/Beacon Street Osgoods, descendants of John Quincy Adams) was a great beauty and traveler. She married Frederick Fiske Warren, the youngest of five Warren children, in 1891. The Warren parents, Samuel and Susan Cornelia, owed and ran paper mills in the Boston area and were major philanthropists -- the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston was one of several institutions supported by the Warren family.

Mr. and Mrs. Fiske Warren traveled the world extensively and entertained lavishly within their Massachusetts home – a utopian enclave called Tahanto. Family records relate that guests of the Warrens' farm at Tahanto included Sun Yat-sen, Clarence Darrow, Booker T. Washington and Robert Frost, among others. It is thought that she acquired the record-setting vase while on one of many trips to the Far East in the 1890s. Mrs. Fiske Warren was a good friend of Isabella Stuart Gardiner, and had her portrait painted by the noted artist John Singer Sargent in 1903 at Fenway Court. This portrait now hangs in the MFA, Boston.

According to Dessa Goddard, “Despite economic downturns across the globe, we are continuing to see that rare objects can achieve record prices. We had a very solid auction across the board today, and are particularly delighted to achieve this remarkable result for the Warren Korean jar.”

Bonhams & Butterfields’ San Francisco sales of Asian Works of Art have realized several world record prices, including the (then) highest price paid at auction for a Ming Period dish. In 2004, the firm offered a rare and large example of a Ming underglaze copper red dish, which sold for $5,726,250 after competitive bidding. That dish, used to serve crab at special family meals, came to auction from the San Francisco Estate of Elinor Majors Carlisle.

Thickly potted with a tall neck and compressed ovoid body tapering inward above the recessed base; its exterior walls painted with a bearded figure pulling the tail of a tiger as he sits beneath a pine tree rising toward clouds opening onto a sun on the opposite wall, the scene bordered above by a band of pulloch'o above and half-flower heads below, all beneath a colorless glaze also covering the interior and the deeply recessed base (hairline cracks, chips). 15 3/4in (40cm) high

Footnote:The spotted tiger and fluidly painted pine tree on this jar appear on other jars of similar date - usually combined with deer, magpies and other animals of folklore - such as the examples in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (Gift of Mr. NamKoong Ryun, 2001.9, as approximately 1800) and the National Museum of Korea (see Byung-chang Rhee [ed.], Masterpieces of Korean Art - Yi Ceramics [Tokyo, 1978], figure 207, pp. 200-201, as second half 18th Century). However the appearance of human figures upon these large storage jars is very rarely seen.

One comparable example in size and shape, in the Ataka Collection, Japan, displays what may be a Chinese scholar leaning on a rock with his wine pot conveniently nearby, the scene bordered above and below by the same decorative bands as this lot (ibid., figure 225, p.215, height 45.5cm, as second half 18th Century.) The figure painted on this jar appears to be San Shin, the most popular of the Korean shamanistic spirits, usually shown seated under a pine tree with his messenger, the tiger. He and his tiger have been identified on a third figural jar in company with Cheongjoja, another mountain spirit with a deer. See The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, Color of Elegance, Form of Simplicity, The Beauty of Korean Ceramics from the RHEE Byung-Chang Collection (Osaka, 1998), cat. no. 136, height 41.0cm (as first half 19th Century).

Bonhams. Fine Asian Works of Art, 9 Dec 2008. 220 San Bruno Avenue, San Francisco. Copyright © 2002-2008 Bonhams 1793 Ltd., Images and Text All Rights Reserved