LONDON.- Bonhams took a dominant position on Asian Arts in Europe with outstanding sales of Chinese Art in which the top item was an Imperial Chinese vase which sold for £9,001,250.

The outstanding highlight of the huge 700-lot Chinese sale at Bonhams was a magnificent turquoise Imperial vase, decorated with chrysanthemums, which sold for £9,001,250, making it the highest priced Asian artwork in London this year. After keen and protracted bidding by three separate phone buyers it was knocked down for £9m to a round of applause from the packed saleroom. Its pre-sale estimate was £5m to £8m.

These results in London’s Asian Art Week, place Bonhams in a unique position in Europe, heading Asian Art sales for all auction houses. Colin Sheaf, Head of Asian Art at Bonhams, said: "This is the latest milestone in Bonhams growing international strength and it occurs in one of the most exciting collecting areas. All things in classic Chinese taste are currently in huge demand and in this week’s sale Bonhams simply had the best material and more of it than anyone else."

Asaph Hyman, Senior Specialist with Bonhams Chinese Art Dept said: "It has been a very great privilege to have sold such an extraordinary work of art. The interest in Chinese art continues to grow and the number of  remarkable objects coming to auction is astonishing. Bonhams will continue its efforts to offer the market the rarest items of Chinese art." .

 

The buyer is understood to be from the Chinese mainland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Provenance: purchased in circa 1920s in Hong Kong by J.N.Robertson, an employee of Jardine Matheson, who was remembered as a knowledgeable collector and the owner of a number of pieces of Ming porcelain

By descent to his son, Mr Sidney B.Robertson Roger, and thence to Mrs June Robertson Roger, the widow of Mr Sidney B.Robertson Roger, in 1981.

Note: The Qianlong period was the zenith of Qing Dynasty technical ingenuity and creativity, with ever more complex and stunning porcelain vessels produced for the pleasure of the Emperor and the Imperial Court. This manifested itself not only in decorative variety but also in the diversity of form of the vessels, from the simple cup and saucer-dishes to the complex revolving vases. These rare and important porcelains owe their existence to the aesthetic tastes of the Qianlong Emperor and to the achievements of Tang Ying, supervisor of the Imperial kilns. It was Tang Ying who was responsible for the introduction of the 'sgraffiato' technique, so well exemplified on the present vase.

Liao Pao Show notes in her article On Yang-ts'ai Porcelains of the Ch'ien-lung Reign, published in Stunning Decorative Porcelains from the Ch'ien-lung Reign, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2009, p.35, that 'The yang-ts'ai and painted fa-lang-ts'ai porcelains of the Ch'ien-lung reign were the most highly prized types of vessels in the Ch'ing court, as well as being the types most admired by the emperor himself. They were also very rare, due to the glaze and technological restrictions of the time. Although there were relatively large numbers of rice bowls, tea bowls, soup bowls, teacups and plates made, not so many vases were fired. The vases were mostly made in pairs, but only a handful of such pairs were fired successfully. The vast majority of those that were fired successfully were stored in the Qianqing Gong Palace, although a few were put on display at the Yuanmingyuan Garden in the Summer Palace, subsequently falling into the hands of invaders and then being taken abroad.'

The present vase with its iron-red and gilt ruyi-head strapwork entwined with the blue enamelled scrolls, the flamboyant scrolling foliage and the colourful ringlets, is comparable in style of decoration to several Qianlong seal mark and period vases. Compare the blue enamelled scrollwork, foliate scrolls and ringlets on the shoulders of a quatrelobed ruby-ground vase, attributed to 1741; as well as the gilt framed iron-red strapwork and berries on a famille rose yellow-ground vase, attributed to 1744, both from the National Palace Museum and illustrated by Liao Pao Show, ibid.pls.18 and 32.

See also the related gilt and iron-red latticework on a famille rose yellow-ground double-gourd vase, Qianlong seal mark and period, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, Masterpieces of Qing Imperial Porcelain from J.T.Tai & Co., 7 October 2010, lot 2126.