Asia Week in London

Scott Reyburn of  Bloomberg has a very good article on  the high expectations of Asia week in London. The sales are now on going with some record prices. According to Reyburn, London is expecting a large influx of mainland Chinese find and decorative art dealers. The auction houses expect about $26 million in sales. The oriental art continues to be a strong market segment, and is not showing the uncertainty of many other markets.  But quality still is important and may be driving the market, as you will note with the Chirstie's sale.  It offered over 300 items, and nearly a third did not sell, but the sale with buyers premium still topped the high estimate for the full catalog.

Reyburn states

Apart from auctions, also taking place at Bonhams (which has invited 30 new mainland Chinese buyers), 40 of London’s commercial galleries are offering antiques and artworks ranging from the Middle East to Japan. Many of the week’s most expensively valued pieces are Chinese in origin.

Christie’s Nov. 3 sale of Chinese ceramics and works of art totaled 5.7 million pounds with fees, against a high estimate of 5.2 million pounds, based on hammer prices.

A third of the 319 lots were rejected. Among these was an 18th-century Imperial jade brushpot, estimated at 300,000 pounds to 400,000 pounds, which failed because of criticism of the stone’s color, said dealers.

The top lot was an 18th-century enamel model of a Buddhist stupa, or shrine, which sold for 229,250 pounds against an estimate of 60,000 pounds to 80,000 pounds.

Asian Buyers

Nine out of the 10 most expensive items in the sale fell to Asian buyers, said Christie’s.

“Now English isn’t much heard at the views of these London auctions,” said Marco Almeida, Christie’s London-based specialist in Chinese ceramics and works of art. “It’s just Mandarin and Cantonese.”

Sotheby’s raised 8.3 million pounds in its sale, exceeding its estimate of between 3.4 million pounds and 5 million pounds; 41 percent of the lots failed to sell.

Bonhams will today be offering a white jade seal used by the Emperor Guangxu, who reigned from 1874 to 1908, with an estimate of 100,000 pounds to 150,000 pounds. The seal has been in the same private European collection since the 1960s, said Bonhams, which said its auction of more than 300 lots of Chinese art is estimated to fetch 2 million pounds.

To read the full article, click HERE.