Hong Kong Palace Museum at dusk, November 2024.
I hope that everyone had an enjoyable autumn.
I had a busy time during this period viewing the various auctions during Asian Art in London, as well as travelling to Hong Kong for the sales for the first time since October 2019.
In early October I visited Burghley House in Stamford with a small group from the Oriental Ceramics Society and we had a really enjoyable tour of the house and a handling session of some of the pieces from the collection after lunch in the Orangery.
Later that month I visited the Frieze Masters fair in Regents Park, London, which was very well attended. I enjoyed seeing the mix of contemporary art and antique dealers and the high quality of the exhibits.
I wish everyone a prosperous and restful season and look forward to seeing some of you over this period.
Best wishes,
Robert Bradlow, December 2024.
Obituary
Robert Chang (1921-2024)
The end of last month saw the passing of a great character in the world of Chinese art.
In Sotheby’s 2019 extraordinary A Life Less Ordinary video they name him the godfather of Chinese art, which I believe is no understatement.
Zhang Zhongshan was born in Shanghai in 1921 and was the son of the well established dealer Zhang Zhongying (1900-1969). At 16 he worked in a department store in Shanghai and later moved to Suzhou to open his own short lived company.
He moved to Hong Kong in 1948 during the civil war in China and on arriving had very few belongings and at times had to sleep rough on the streets with just newspapers to keep him warm. With the Communist take over of China, many Shanghai collectors moved to Hong Kong, which gave Chang the opportunity to operate as a broker selling Chinese art on commission. He was also helped at this time by his father who sent him pieces to sell.
By the 1960s Chang was one of the leading dealers in Hong Kong and operating 5 antique stores. In the 1990s he gave support and advice to the development of the mainland Chinese auctions and was present at the first auctions in China. In later life Robert Chang started to collect top quality jade and became renowned as one of, if not the leading collector of later Chinese jades.
During my time at Sotheby’s London, nearly all the Chinese sales that I took as the auctioneer at Bond street, the front row seat to the right was occupied by Robert Chang. He had a very clear and definite bidding style of just holding up his hand until he either purchased the piece, or dropping it when the price was too high.
Robert’s paddle at auction was alway number 1 and I was very fortunate when starting Robert Bradlow Fine Art six years ago, to have him as my first client to purchase a piece from the business and he thus had account number 1. When he purchased the piece, he indeed liked it, but he stated that he was also doing it to support me in my new venture and to thank me for the help that I had given him over the years.
I have never encountered anything like this in business before or since. There are many stories of Robert’s generosity and kindness like this and he would at times travel to a sale and purchase a piece that was something less than a masterpiece, to give support to the auction house that he had attended.
More recently Robert Chang was also involved in philanthropic activities and established an art education charitable foundation in his name, to sponsor students studying Asian art.
In the Sotheby’s video he half jokingly admitted to a life of a committed hedonist and that things would probably not end well for him. However, despite this, he died peacefully at St Teresa’s Hospital in Kowloon on Saturday the 30th of November, surrounded by his family and friends.
04 October – Visit to Burghley House
On 04 October, I helped arrange a visit for a group of members of the Oriental Ceramics Society to Burghley House in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I have written a separate article on this visit, which can be viewed on the website. It was a most enjoyable day and Burghley is, in my view, one of the most interesting and well looked after country houses in England. The quality and the condition of the exhibits and the rooms did not disappoint and we all enjoyed a handling session in the Great Hall in the afternoon.
12 October – Frieze Masters Fair, London
On 12 October, I visited the Frieze Masters fair in London. I had not been for around 4 years. The fair was really well attended with visitors mainly from the UK, Europe and the USA.
It has a slightly different feel to a fair like Treasure House, as it coincides with the Frieze art fair and the Impressionist and contemporary auctions that are held in London at the time. It thus focuses less on luxury and antiques but slightly more on fine art. For the sake of space, I have only included images of the Asian art galleries that exhibited, which is only a small fraction of those exhibiting.
Asian Art in London Events and Auctions
3 November – Christie’s Palmer Lecture and Exhibition
On the evening of 3 November Christie’s held a lecture on the Palmer Collection. This was followed by a drinks reception in the downstairs galleries which exhibited works from the December Paris Art D’Asia sale and pieces the Palmer collection to be loaned to an English museum. Some of the latter are illustrated below
Kate Hunt bravely stepped in to give Rosemary Scott’s lecture, who had been taken ill and she delivered it as if it were her own. A number of pieces in the lecture were to come up for sale in Hong Kong later that month, which I feature later in this article.
4 November – Sotheby’s Woolf Jade Exhibition and Conversation with Jonathan Woolf
The following day on Monday 4 November, Sotheby’s hosted an exhibition of the Woolf Jade Collection and a conversation between Jonathan Woolf and Henry Howard-Snead.
Sotheby’s had held an earlier exhibition of the Woolf Collection in 2013 when I was at Sotheby’s. On this occasion a different group of jades from the collection were selected and were well displayed in one of the upstairs galleries.
Prior to the dialogue between Henry and Jonathan Woolf, the latter gave a brief introduction to his father and his role in the British film industry after World War II and mentioned some of the films that were produced by his company – Romulus Films, such as The African Queen and Oliver.
The discussion then outlined his father’s collecting habits and how he displayed the pieces in their Chelsea harbour apartment. I have featured the Woolf Collection of jades in an earlier article on this website and I would thoroughly recommend a visit. It is open once a year in March for Oriental Ceramics Society members or otherwise by appointment.
4 November – Bonhams Lecture – Searching for Knowledge with Christiaan Jörg
That evening, Bonhams hosted a lecture by Christiaan Jörg celebrating the art historian’s 80th birthday. The lecture was about a rather unremarkable piece of Tang pottery. However, it is always really worth listing to Professor Jörg, as he has a unique perspective and such an enquiring mind after so many years studying and speaking on Chinese ceramics.
In the Q&A afterwards someone asked the professor if he had a favourite piece he had seen over the years that he would like to have collected. The question was obviously from a collector’s perspective, but being an art historian, the concept of loving a piece, or wishing to acquire one, just did not register with him.
At the end of the Q&A Professor Jörg was presented with a gift of an elephant painting by the gifted artist and Bonhams Chinese specialist Edward Luper.
Asian Art in London Dealer Exhibitions
At Sotheby’s in New Bond Street
For the first time since the inception of Asian Art in London, Sotheby’s hosted a number of dealers to exhibit in some of their downstairs galleries. From talking to a number of the dealers, they were happy with the spaces that they had hired and the footfall during their time there. I thought that there was an interesting eclectic mix from Chinese textiles by Jacqueline Simcox and Asian arms and armour with Runjeet Singh, to Japanese prints with Anastasia Von Seibold and contemporary art with the Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
Eskenazi – Blue and White Porcelain from the Yuan and Early Ming Dynasties
The most significant exhibition during the week was the exhibition of blue and white porcelain from the Yuan and early Ming dynasties, held at Eskenazi in Clifford Street. The gallery had assembled a group from a collection that they have been involved with since the 1960s.
The rarest and most important piece in the exhibition was the Yuan dynasty underglaze blue and copper-red guan jar, the sides of which were decorated with quatrefoil panels with applied flowers and foliage issuing out of garden rocks. This style of jar is exceedingly rare and there are only four other examples known.
Another important piece was the Xuande mark and period ‘pomegranate’ dish. These are more commonly seen in the Hongzhi (1488-1506) and Zhengde (1506-1521) periods and more often with yellow grounds. This is an early prototype of this design.
My personal favourite of the group was the large Yongle blue and white dish, the centre painted with branches of prunus, pine and bamboo – The ‘Three Friends of Winter’, the Confucian symbol of the attributes of a scholar gentleman – perseverance, resilience, and steadfastness.
My other pick was the small Yongle period blue and white cup. The body is delicately moulded into the form of a flower with a bracket-lobed rim and is painted with sprays of flowers to the exterior and peach to the interior base.
Priestley & Ferraro
I enjoyed looking at some Song ceramics at Priestley and Ferraro from their exhibition: The Ageless Garden, Botanical Beauty in Chinese Art, which included a really nicely carved large Dingyao lotus-pattern bowl. They had offered it earlier in 2015 and it had come from a Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale ‘A Private Japanese Collection of Early Ceramics in November 2014.
Another piece that I enjoyed looking at was the large moulded Yaozhou water-flower pattern bowl. The design of meandering flowers depicted from various angles, worked well on the dense ground of foliage. Yaozhou wares are most successful when the glaze pools in the undercut areas to help create a sense of three dimensional depth to the design.
Paul Ruitenbeek
I visited Paul Ruitenbeek’s exhibition in St James’s, which was held at the Duke Street Gallery of Rupert Maas. Paul is a young dealer from Amsterdam, whose father is a museum curator of Chinese art (Klaas Ruitenbeek) and mother worked as an auction house specialist (Fen-Chun Ma).
Paul had brought a group of ceramics and works of art from his exhibition: Objects of the Tang and Song for his first exhibition at Asian Art in London. He was exhibiting some fine pieces of Song ceramics, lacquer, jade and also some pieces of later porcelain. I spotted quite a few red dots, so he seemed to have done well for his first visit.
London Auctions
6 November – Sotheby’s Chinese Art
Sotheby’s offering was one of the strongest for some time and perhaps benefited from the fact that they are currently holding just one sale a year in London. They had the highest turnover of the week with £15,11m and the top selling lot – the pair of Jiajing mark and period wucai fish jars (at £9.63m). They had come from a private collection in Wiesbaden in Germany and were very conservatively estimated at £600,000 to 1,000,000. These jars are not my personal favourite in imperial Chinese ceramics, however having a pair with covers is exceedingly rare and quite iconic of their type, so the price was not such a great surprise.
The early part of the sale also featured two early Ming dynasty pieces, the first was lot 33, the blue and white barbed dish. This was my favourite lot in the sale and was a joy to hold in the hand. The quality of the painting and the colour of the blue cobalt was first rate, as was the potting.
The piece also was inscribed in Arabic with a collectors mark of Shah Abbas (1588-1629) and had been acquired by the vendor’s father in Europe in the 1960s. The combination of its size, barbed rim and design is very rare and with its added history contributed to it selling for £480,000 well above the presale estimate of £80,000-120,000.
The second was lot 34, an early Ming dynasty, Hongwu period copper-red ‘floral’ bowl. It was well painted in really bright copper-red which is rare, as so many pieces misfired to a reddish-grey at this time. This piece realised £180,000 (Estimate £150,000-300,000). It did have condition issues, so would have made significantly more in good condition.
The first 31 lots of the sale was a private English collection, originally collected by Sir Thomas Beaumont Hohler (1871-1946) in the late 19th and early 20th century when travelling in China. I had valued the collection the year before and was please to see every lot in this collection sell well above their presale estimates and total £1.9m against a low estimate of £555,000.
One of the rarest and most interesting lots of the sale was lot 22, the exceptionally rare Qianlong seal mark and period underglaze blue and puce enamelled ‘lotus’ bottle vase. When I discovered it, it was mounted as a lamp and had a poor restoration to its neck, which had been broken at one point.
A similar copper-red and underglaze blue example in good condition had sold at Sotheby’s New York in September 2020 for US$842,000 (Estimate $150,000-200,000), so a cautious estimate of £60,000-80,000 was sensible and it sold for for £132,00 with buyer’s premium.
7 November – Bonhams London Chinese Art
The Bonhams sale followed on Thursday 7 November and turned over £4.45m with a high sell through rate of 87%.
The piece that I enjoyed viewing the most was lot 70, the early Ming dynasty gilt-bronze bronze figure of Green Tara, Yongle/Xuande effaced mark. This bronze was really finely cast with the figure seated on a lotus base. Her head is tilted slightly to one side which, with the torso, forms one side of a curve which balances with her lowered right leg forming an S. The surface details, such as the crown, body jewellery and drapery of the robes are all really well cast which, combined with a serene facial expression, breathes life into the figure. It was therefore not surprising that the piece sold for £190,000 against its £150,000-200,000 estimate and would have no doubt sold for a lot more if the reign mark was still intact.
A piece that I found quite intriguing was lot 77 the large and really rare Kangxi period gilt-decorated and iron-red grisaille ‘dragon’ rouleau vase. No other vase of this type has been recorded, which led to scepticism from some quarters that this piece was most likely a Republican period decorated Kangxi period blank. It had in fact been previously offered as Republican at Bonhams Knightsbridge in their May sale, but was then withdrawn as it had attracted a lot of attention.
My personal view is that I believe it to be of the Kangxi period, as it is really well painted, but in quite an unconventional way on porcelain, almost like ink painting. The conceptualisation and execution of the design on a three dimensional surface is incredibly successful and the sense of movement of the dragons and the crashing water at the bottom is really well rendered. Could it perhaps have been a one off commission?
It was the highest selling piece of the sale at £406,800, a long way above its £100,000-200,00 estimate.
Another highlight piece that I enjoyed handling was lot 30, the large Yongzheng mark and period, famille rose ‘dragon’ dish. It is one of a pair that was originally offered for sale at Christie’s, Manson and Woods in London on 11 March 1892 by descendants of Richard Le Poer Trench (1767-1837), 2nd Earl of Clancarty, 1st Marquess of Heusden, from Garbally House, County Galway. It was offered at this sale by the descendants of Eric William Towler, CBE (1900-1988), Glympton Park, Oxfordshire and was exhibited at the viewing along with its pair, which I believe will be offered at a later date. It sold for £254,400 (Estimate £250,000-400,000).
Bonhams – Ben Janssens Online Sales: From Spink to Maastricht
During Asian Art in London, Bonhams held two online sales for Ben Janssens, coinciding with his retirement from the London Chinese market, one at each of their respective branches in Bond Street and Knightsbridge.
Ben had spent ten years with Spink & Son and four years at the Oriental Art Gallery with Roger Keverne and Gerard Hawthorn before opening his own gallery in 1996. Ben has had an active career for around 45 years and he will be missed in the London market. I always felt that he had a good eye for pieces and a genuine, sophisticated charm with clients, which no doubt led to him becoming chairman of the TEFAF fair in Maastricht, a position that he held for 7 years.
The sales with buyers premium totalled £577,339 for 140 lots (84 at Bond Street (£409,799) and 56 at Knightsbridge (£167,540 )) and I have illustrated three highlights from the sales below.
Ben Janssens Oriental Art has been taken over by Paul Ruitenbeek, but Ben will remain working in Asian Art as a consultant.
4 – 5 November – Bonhams Knightsbridge
Bonhams Knightsbridge held their sale earlier in the week on Monday and Tuesday 4 and 5 November. The two day sale realised £1.05m and sold 99% by value.
One piece that I particularly liked in the sale was lot 26 the large late Ming dynasty, Wanli period jar. It was painted in a design of cranes and deer, which is quite unusual and rare in jars of this form. It sold for £12,800 against an estimate of £4,000-6,000.
The other was lot 42, the pair of copper-red bottle vases, painted with mythical animals around the body. I have always liked example of these wares, as rounded body acts as a perfect shape for these lively painted animals. They sold well over their £4,000-6,000 estimate at £14,080.
Regional Auctions
7 November – Roseberys
I have listed some of my picks of the other London and regional rooms below, with the prices that they made at auction.
8 November – Sworders
12 November – Woolley and Wallis
13 November – Dreweatts
29 November – Christie’s Hong Kong Sales
At the end of November I travelled to Hong Kong to meet some Australian clients and to attend the Christie’s Hong Kong sales.
I had not been in five years, that is since Covid and I was aware that a lot of changes had taken place in my time away. All of the four international auction rooms had new permanent premises and Christie’s and Sotheby’s had held their last sales at the Convention Centre earlier this year.
Christie’s moved to the Henderson building in September this year. It is a remarkable building designed by the innovative Iraqi/British architect, the late Zaha Hadid. Christie’s secured a long lease on four floors with over 50,000 square feet of space. The rooms feature two floors of viewing space, with movable wall systems to allow galleries to be adapted to what is being exhibited. The floor to ceiling windows allow for maximum natural daylight and aid the viewing of objects, as many of the viewing tables are located near to them.
The 8th floor features a special client hub, which is designed for Christie’s top collectors and consignors. It features private rooms and an area where clients can sit and watch the auction in comfort. This space also features the Eskenazi Art Historical Library, which was made available by the generosity of Giuseppe Eskenazi.
There is also a wine cellar which allows Christie’s clients to sit at tables and taste certain wines and to make purchases.
Beyond this area is the luxury zones which features handbags and other items that can be purchased privately. There are also cabinets of Chinese ceramics in this area that are for sale by private treaty, as illustrated below.
Whilst at Christie’s, I viewed a number of pieces from the Palmer Family Collection and I have highlighted a number of pieces below. One of the pieces that I enjoyed viewing the most was lot 1201 the small Kangxi mark and period famille verte ‘bird and peach’ birthday’ dish. Small dishes of this type are rare and were made in 1713 for the Kangxi Emperor’s 60th birthday. The rim features the characters: wanshou wujiang, (endless longevity without limit). The piece sold for HK$4.41m against its HKM$2-3m estimate.
Another personal favourite was the small Yongzheng mark and period famille rose ‘hibiscus and dragonfly’ dish. It was beautifully painted with the insect flying around flower buds and blooming flowers. It surprisingly sold under the HK$5-8m estimate at HK$4.41m.
One of my favourite works of art in the sale was lot 1211, the rare Kangxi period cloisonné figure of a boy riding a hobby horse accompanied by a small dog. I cannot say that I have ever handled such an animated cloisonné figure and it was not surprising that it sold beyond its HK$500,000-800,000 estimate at HK$1m.
My other pick was the Kangxi period imperial mother-of-pearl inset songhua rectangular ink stone with painted enamel cover. The back of the ink stone is inscribed with eight characters reading yijing weiyong, shiyiyongnian (it is serene and therefore lasts forever), followed by a four-character seal mark reading Kangxi chenhan (written by [Emperor] Kangxi). This sold towards its upper HK$6-8m at HK$7.81m.
Two other later porcelain lots went on to sell very strongly. These were lot 1207, the rare Qing dynasty famille rose butterfly and flower rectangular teapot and cover and lot 1204, the Qianlong period famille rose ‘landscape’ rectangular stand. Both sold at multiples of the estimates as illustrated below.
Some personal highlight pieces from the Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale are depicted below.
Sotheby’s Maison
Whilst in Hong Kong I visited Sotheby’s new space at Landmark Chater in Central. It had opened in July and the space was designed by the Rotterdam-based architecture studio MVRDV. Sotheby’s describe it as a 24,000 square foot multifaceted space. It features a unique downstairs viewing space and numerous ground floor galleries arranged in a perimeter around a group of smaller more intimate spaces selling luxury items such as handbags, jewellery and watches.
Sotheby’s presents these galleries in an imaginative, eclectic way, combining the very old (like dinosaur skeletons) with contemporary art. These juxtapositions remind me of the Curiosity auctions that Sotheby’s held once a year at the Hong Kong Convention Centre.
These galleries act as the viewing spaces for the numerous auctions that Sotheby’s are now able to hold per year and there is an auction room on the upper floor. It is quite hard to get a sense of how these spaces work for auction, as I had missed their sales when I arrived in Hong Kong, but I look forward to seeing how these spaces work on a future visit.
One observation of the space that Sotheby’s have at Landmark is that, from my understanding, is that they don’t have the warehouse and staff located on the same premises (which are at Pacific Place 6). I believe that this must make the sale and staff logistics quite challenging.
However, that being said, I do think that Sotheby’s have made an interesting and bold statement in their approach to their selling strategy, placing greater emphasis and space on private sales and luxury than their main competitors. I will be covering Sotheby’s new premises in Paris in my winter newsletter, which also indicates this departure from the traditional auction room approach.
30 November – Palace Museum Hong Kong
One of the highlights of the trip to Hong Kong was my visit to the Hong Kong Palace Museum with two clients from Australia. It was designed by Rocco Design Architects Associates and construction began in April 2019 and was officially opened on 3 July 2022, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong.
The museum is set within the West Kowloon Cultural District, with wonderful views over the water to Hong Kong and Lantau Islands. The design was heavily influenced by the layout and feel of the Forbidden City, but instead of being designed on a horizontal axis of spaces as in Beijing, it is on a vertical basis. Also a lot of consideration was given to its orientation (the entrance faces east) and how the effects of the seasons and light would have on the internal and external spaces.
Brilliance: Ming Dynasty Ceramics Treasures from the Palace Museum Collection, 1368-1644
With regard the exhibitions that I saw on the day, I will cover these in detail as a seperate post in my winter newsletter, but I will briefly illustrate a few of the pieces below.
From Dawn to Dusk: Life in the Forbidden City
