Provenance: The Joanna Lau Sullivan Trust

Notes: Hollowed carvings of fruit, such as the Three Auspicious Fruit (peach, pomegranate, and finger citron) were popular objects for the scholar's desk in the late Ming and early Qing periods, providing both adornment and utility as an essential tool for theliteratus. 

The present carving, formed as a peach, represents the wish for longevity, and the addition of the bat represents the wish for happiness and prosperity. Compare another carving made from similar green stone with russet inclusions, dated to the Ming dynasty but formed as the finger citron, another of the Three Auspicious Fruits, illustrated in Later Chinese Jades: Ming Dynasty to Early Twentieth Century, San Francisco, 2007, no. 334.

A rare archaic bronze ritual food vessel from the Shang dynasty did exceptionally well, achieving $329,000. Vessels like this one, with high quality casting and a pictogram, were extremely prized and reflect the importance of ancestral worship. 

Lot 8094. A rare archaic bronze ritual food vessel, Shi yu, Late Shang dynasty. Estimate US$ 70,000 - 90,000 (€64,000 - 83,000). Sold for US$ 329,000 (€290,867) inc. premium. Photo Bonhams.

(Cf. my post A rare archaic bronze ritual food vessel, Shi yu, Late Shang dynasty)

Bonhams continues to be an industry leader in selling private collections of snuff bottles. Snuff bottles by one of China's leading artists of interior bottle-painting, Wang Xisan, were popular and brought in remarkable results. A rare inside-painted self-portrait crystal snuff bottle (1983) by Wang Xisan hammered down at $40,000 with premium, eight times its high estimate. The auction saw six snuff bottles painted by Wang Xisan in its top selling lots, accompanied by superb porcelain and fine jade ones — all achieving two to three times their high sale estimates. 

Lot 6063, A rare inside-painted self-portrait crystal snuff bottle, Wang Xisan, 1983. Estimate USD 3,000 ~ 5,000. Sold for US$ 40,000 (€35,363) inc. premium. Photo Bonhams.

Of compressed form, with a flat lip and sloping shoulders, fixed ring handles to the sides, supported by an oval foot rim, one side with a self-portrait of Wang Xisan dated guihai (1983), dedicated to Joanna Lau Sullivan and signed Wang Xisan with a painted seal, the reverse with a calligraphic passage in running script on a ground imitating gold-fleck paper, datedguihai and signed Wang Xisan with one painted seal. 2 3/8in (5.3cm) high

Provenance: The Joanna Lau Sullivan Trust

Illustrated and Published: The International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Journal, Winter 2007, p.17, figs.44-45.

Other significant lots include: 

Lot 8037, A rare monumental bronze figure of Mahakasyapa, Ming dynasty. Estimate US$ 300,000 - 600,000 (€270,000 - 540,000). Sold for US$ 305,000 (€269,649) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams. 

(Cf. my post A rare monumental bronze figure of Mahakasyapa, Ming dynasty)

Lot 8082. A large and rare Longquan celadon-glazed dish with lobed rim, Yuan-early Ming Dynasty, 14th-15th Century. Estimate US$ 3,000 - 5,000 (€2,700 - 4,600). Sold for US$ 93,750 (€82,883) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.

(Cf. my post A large and rare Longquan celadon-glazed dish with lobed rim, Yuan-early Ming Dynasty, 14th-15th Century)

Lot 8076. A large blanc de chine figure of Guanyin, 19th-early 20th century, two Xu Yunlin seal marks and one Dehua seal mark. Estimate US$ 50,000 - 80,000 (€45,000 - 73,000). Sold for US$ 62,500 (€55,255) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.

(Cf. my post A large blanc de chine figure of Guanyin, 19th-early 20th century)

INDIAN, HIMALAYAN & SOUTHEAST ASIAN ART 
Notable among the top lots sold were one of the main highlights – a thangka of Shakyamuni’s Parinirvana School of Choying Dorje from late-17th century, which brought $389,000, including premium, as well as a magnificent gilt copper repoussé figure of a bodhisattva from 16th century Nepal, achieving $365,000 with premium. 

The thangka depicts Buddha’s final transition into blissful freedom from rebirth, surrounded by a crowd of mourners from all walks of life. It is painted with a studied naiveté distinguishing the Tenth Karmapa’s style from the rest of Tibetan painting, which is a fresh approach to the subject matter. Parallels can be drawn with other trends in 17th-century Chinese painting that exhibit feelings of loss and displacement following the disintegration of the Ming dynasty. This enigmatic work gives Tibetan art history a rare opportunity to explore how an artist’s life influenced his oeuvre. 

Lot 34, A thangka of Shakyamuni's Parinirvana, School of Choying Dorje, Eastern Tibet or Yunnan Province, China, late 17th century. Estimate USD 100,000 ~ 150,000. Sold for US$ 389,000 (€343,913) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.

Distemper on silk. Image: 24 1/2 x 16 5/8 in. (62.3 x 42.2 cm); With silks: 40 x 22 1/2 in. (101.6 x 57.2 cm)

Referenced: HAR - himalayanart.org/items/61461

Notes: This enigmatic painting stems from a set illustrating the Twelve Deeds of Shakyamuni. The Ninth, and final within the set, it depicts his departure into parinirvanawith a crowd of mourners from all walks of life, some anxious, some grief-stricken, some aghast, but most presenting some form of offering to the Buddha. Below his altar-like couch, two dogs crouch mournfully near four toddlers inspecting the goods in the offering pile. Above the central crowd, another group gathers around his funeral pyre, in which Shakyamuni is cremated in the Chinese manner within a coffin decorated with scrolling lotuses. In the top register, separated by a cloud band, we see a circle of musicians and the dispersal of the relics.

Distinctive in the history of Tibetan painting, this thangka is painted in the fabled style of the Tenth Karmapa Choying Dorje (1604-1674). The composition takes a fresh approach to the subject matter, and the mourners are depicted with the Karmapa's idiomatic faces, inspired by Ancient Kashmiri sculpture, and a studied naiveté. Famous for being one of Tibet's greatest artists, all Choying Dorje's hagiographies claim he was a prolific painter by the age of eight. When he came of age, he led the Karmapa sect through a traumatic period under the hegemony of a Gelugpa-Mongol alliance. An unfortunate consequence of the Fifth Dalai Lama's unifying politics (r. 1642-1682), the Karma Kagyu tradition, one of the wealthiest in all of Tibet, was "stripped of its monasteries... its sangha slaughtered and scattered, and its traditions (religious and artistic) on the verge of total eclipse." (Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric, New York, 2012, p. 256). In 1645, Choying Dorje fled a doomed encampment in Lhadok, surrounded by Mongol forces, eventually taking refuge in the Chinese town of Lijiang (Yunnan province), under the protection of Naxi King Mu Yi (r. 1624-1669). There he nurtured the Kagyu sect in exile and developed his enigmatic style.

Debrecezny draws convincing parallels between the artistic responses of Choying Dorje and contemporaneous late Ming Chinese painters, such as Chen Hongshou (1598-1652), returning to visual modes inspired by antiquity and an imagined golden age (ibid.). Within the context of political upheaval and exile, it is tempting to view the Tenth Karmapa's radical style as a rejection of the status quo in Gelugpa-dominated Central Tibet. It was a climate of great codification, under which guild-like workshops reproduced a more prescriptive Gelugpa formula, emblematic of the hegemony his order suffered under. The Central Tibetan style is typified by dense gold-patterned textiles, layers of decorative embellishments, and closely juxtaposed bold colors. By contrast, Choying Dorje's style incorporates plainer (possibly Naxi) garments, empty monochrome backgrounds, and washes of similar hues – seen for instance here in the paintings sky. 

There are key elements that demonstrate this thangka is not by the hand of the master, but instead made in one of his workshops either during his life or shortly after his death. Firstly, there is not quite the same adroit care given to faces, hands, or animals that typifies Choying Dorje's work. Secondly, his paintings are known for their very close awareness of Chinese material culture, wherein a porcelain vase or huanghuali brush pot seem to be observed from originals. While there are allusions here in their shape, the various objects are instead colored monochromatically. As such the present example is closely related to a workshop production of the same subject, which forms part of a complete set held in Palpung Monastery (Fig. 1, also see ibid., p. 166, fig. 5.9).

While these two thangkas are similar in composition and style, they are not copies of each other. They clearly derive from the same original composition, and yet each exhibits countless differences. Figures vary in age and accouterments. The couch on which Shakyamuni rests has an additional tier of lambs or deer at its base in our version. Their palettes also vary significantly. The present thangka's lighter tonal variations between cyan and lavender in the sky and purple in the rocks below, are replaced by more saturated blues and greens, giving the forms in the Palpung versions a harder edge. The faces within the present thangka are less generic and uniform, showing greater diversity in skin tones, facial types, and nuanced expressions - and their draftsmanship seems more highly skilled. These elements suggest that the present thangka is a slightly fresher, earlier, take on the original composition, compared to the Palpung version.

But for all their changes, core elements of the composition remain: the two dogs, an ascetic near Shakyamuni's feet, musicians in top left corner, etc. Thus, while certainly deriving from some original design by the Tenth Karmapa, each shows great artistic license given to the artist(s). 

The appearance of this thangka provides the very first opportunity to examine two versions of the same subject produced by the Tenth Karmapa's workshop. It therefore, offers a host of potential insights into understanding the life and practices of the Karma Kagyu lineage under his provision. The aforementioned nuances between the two paintings demonstrate an enormous amount of artistic freedom – once again in stark contrast to the codified practices of the Gelugpa guilds. They suggest that, beyond the style and composition, even at the heart of the workshop's ethic is a resistance to Gelugpa hegemony and a preservation of the Karma Kagyu's identity – a speculation that can only be made now that this painting has come to light.

The auction offered a strong section of Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture accompanied by choice Tibetan thangkas, Himalayan sculpture and Indian paintings – all of which achieved strong results bringing the sale total to more than $3.8 million. 

“By building a selective sale with discriminating taste and carefully considered estimates, we secured an excellent sell-through rate and a superior average lot value for our consignors,” said Edward Wilkinson, the newly appointed executive director of Bonhams Asia. “We increased our market share significantly and established a number of records, including the highest price achieved at auction for a Tibetan ritual implement at $179,000 and a Nepalese repoussé sculpture at $365,000.”  

Lot 5, A large copper alloy and iron Bon purbha, Tibet, 12th-13th century. Estimate USD 30,000 ~ 50,000. Sold for US$ 179,000 (€158,253) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.

The tripartite blade emerging from the jaws of a serpent-spewing makara below a central 'thread mansion' grip incised with yungdrung (svastika), rising to a three-sided bust of a deity holding daggers below a mythic bird (kyung), surmounted by a six-armed and three-faced deity with daggers and his consort inyabyum. 18 3/8 in. (46.6 cm) long

Referenced: HAR - himalayanart.org/items/61444

Provenance: Private New York Estate
Sotheby's, New York, 26 March 1998, lot 185
Private Canadian Collection, since 2011 

Notes: This fascinating, rare, and early ritual dagger (purbha), large and heavy in the hand, is wrought unaffectedly with a sense of intense, bound activity. The endless-knot grip appears to constrict like taut leather before the eyes. One can almost hear the sound. The bulging eyes of the fanged three-sided deity (cast in the 12th-/13th-century style redolent of a figure of Hayagriva, published in Rhie & Thurman, Wisdom & Compassion, New York, 1991, no. 54) seem to burst with animate energy.

According to legend, Padmasambhava introduced purbhas to Tibet to subdue forces hostile to Buddhism. Extraordinary tales of magic are associated with them, but there are no texts to explain, and their secrets are guarded by practitioners.

Adding to its rarity, this example belongs to Tibet's indigenous Bon religion. Key markers, in contrast to Buddhist versions of the same period – such as one sold at Bonhams, New York, 18 September 2013, lot 3 – are the absence of a vajra in the grip, the presence of yungdrung around its center, and absence of Buddhist deities. Instead, identified by his three heads, six daggers, and consort with skull cup, this purbha manifests the Bon deity Purbha Drugse Chempa.

In his study of Tibetan ritual daggers, Huntington found only "two phur-pa of this type... during my examination of hundreds of these implements" (Huntington, The Pur-pa, Ascona, 1975, pp. 23-4, figs. 24 & 25). One is held in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Since then, two other Bon purbhas have been identified, listed: www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=2495, and a likely third, from the same period, published in Thurman & Weldon, Sacred Symbols, New York, 1999, pp. 150-1, no. 69.

Lot 25, A gilt copper repoussé figure of a bodhisattva, Nepal, circa 16th century. Estimate US$ 300,000 - 500,000 (€270,000 - 460,000). Sold for US$ 365,000 (€322,694) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.

 (Cf. my post A gilt copper repoussé figure of a bodhisattva, Nepal, circa 16th century)

“As we turn now to our inaugural Buddhist Art sale in Hong Kong this November, with masterpieces already consigned, will offer a truly global perspective for our clients, with high caliber sales both sides of the year,” Wilkinson said. 

Other significant lots include: 

Lot 18, A copper figure of Devi, Nepal, circa 9th century. Estimate USD 200,000 ~ 300,000. Sold for US$ 293,000 (€259,039) inc. premium. Photo: Bonhams.