Sotheby's Auction Preview March 2018, The Jie Rue Tang and Ming Collections

no hi this is Peter combs from bit amount calm and Pio combs Asian art in Gloucester Massachusetts and today is the last day of February it's the 28th of 2018 and in this video today we're going to take a look at two sales that are coming up at Sotheby's in March one of them is the Ming sale which has around just 14 lots in it but they're pretty amazing and a look at the Kangxi sale of the Jerry Tang collection and there are 91 Lots in there and both of them are really interesting sales all the sales Sotheby's has up right now are interesting they're all good auctions and they're gonna be fun to watch and sort of a test of the market and you may remember a couple of months ago I did a review a book review of the jury tang collection the owner had contacted me and given me a copy of the book as a present and I wanted to read it and then I wanted to go see the collection of course and I did and that we did a video on it and he has decided to put just 90 Lots out of his 700 plus piece collection into us into Sotheby's to see how they do all right and here's the collection here here are the pieces I had a chance to examine quite a few of these and they are beautiful and of exceptional quality the estimate seemed you know within certainly within reason and be fun to see how they do and here's the catalog that is on the website right now if you want to come over and browse it here it is that's the catalog alright and it's a those that use the site know where it is it's under auctioneers and dealers alright and this is one of the first pieces up that they caught my eyes I think is quite a vase this is an enormous country vase it's 29 inches tall really exceptional quality and it depicts it depicts a really fascinating scene it's the basically the story of the restoration of the Han Dynasty in the fall of wine man Jin around 23 BC okay it's quite exceptional it has lots of imagery and there's a similar vase by the way in the Taff collection but not as nice as this one this is actually a much better-looking base because as a union it's not the other one is a little stiff it's a rule ooh it's a very nice face I'm not knocking the one in the Taff collection but this I think is a better-looking base all right and the story is about how the the leader enlisted the aid of local rebels to help them fight back and intend to keep keep the rain in order okay and there's a whole very well detailed description in the catalog notes to this item and it is estimated at 120 to 150 thousand which doesn't seem at all crazy for that and then there are also things in here for every price point and there's this wonderful looking vase country vase in the GU form is a estimated around six to eight thousand and what I liked about this is that it's painted very much sort of in the later transitional style you see brush pots painted very and the transitional period brush pots very much painted like this I think and this is a really beautiful example and it's in lovely condition and has a fairly modest estimate six to eight thousand dollars all right and then chugging along is this this is one of the real gems of the sale this is a fantastically rare dot sigh enamel are jardiniere that historians believe were produced in 1722 in honor the country emperors 70th birthday and they made a couple of sets of these they made them with various sizes and they're all based on Taoist immortal themes which became very popular in the transitional period and then they were artistically they matured to incredible levels during the Kangxi period especially toward the end and if you blow this come to the come to the their page are coming and get the copy off the catalogue on the site and you blow it up the detail work for the Kangxi period it was extremely fine and you can see how if somebody were to see this with without knowing its tree knowing that it was a gang she Imperial peace you might even think it was young Shen but it's not this is kang she and the lovely soft yellow sort of shading here of the elephant against a slightly darker sort of imperial yellow here up above and the very beautifully drawn faces the faces on this thing are amazingly drawn including the elephants and the foo lions and wonderful wave structure down below here all going back and forth and turmoil really terrific alright and this is this is a fairly big estimate but i don't think it's on earth it's not certainly not on a desert three hundred fifty to five hundred thousand these are extremely rare pieces okay they do not turn up often alright and then onto this this is a yellow as you a lot of you know what this is it's the yellow and blue dragon plates that have they're done in varieties of mixes of colors this particular color combination denotes the right that they were intended for fourth-ranked concubines in the palace these are imperial pieces and these were meant for the imperial palace and this particular plate is because i've seen a lot of these plates over the years and sometimes she and other reigns but the the decoration of the face and and and and the and the dragon itself on this is really exceptional the quality is way above what you often see sometimes even though it is imperial the ferocious face up here in this very sort of muscular animation of the dragon in the cinema body and the and the opened wide open claws and there's the pearl it's just a great looking plate and then of course there are two additional dragons on the covet oh and the rim alright and that plate is estimated at 100 to 150 thousand dollars not outrageous alright and then on to this this is one of the real tour de forces in the sale this is a fabulous country vase it is enormous okay of course it's done infamy ver enamels and on it it tells a story a lot of a lot of a lot of the stuff in this particular collection were collected because they had narratives involved for them and this particular narrative was painted it's a continuous scene based on a story that was in the book the fencin bang alright and it's the investiture of the gods and the sort of the precursor to this the notion of the Mandate of Heaven when a bad ruler in other words I mean when the Shang Dynasty collapsed it was taken over by became the Chou dynasty and in in to ensure that it took over the the conquering Chou were supported by creatures and deities and demons fighting on behalf of good against the evil empire that was being forced out and they called this the investor this goes to the story of the investiture of the gods and it's a really interesting narrative and it is a beautifully painted vase there it is and you can go and read the entire story on the on the Sotheby's site they have a very good set of notes on this down here catalog notes here it is always read their catalogue notes if you're going to bother going to these websites and looking at their stuff get get the get the information out of it they do a great job and in particular on these pieces okay and then over here to the Ming okay this is the collection of the called Ming luminous dawn of empire and there are 14 items we're going to take a look at about half a dozen or five of them okay and the first well here here's the here's the catalog itself you can see that there's there's some script and paintings is a Buddhist altar vase here ritual their own Lotus ritual bottles that's a bronze but we're gonna pay it more mostly attention to the porcelain here you can come and look at the bronzes and the other stuff of course but let's take a look at this this is dis caught my eye because I've never seen one of these before I've seen the shape before and I've seen the color before in young look and all that but I've never seen as soon the marking period one of these they they're they're not known it turns out the reason they're not known is that this is the only known one and I was rather shocked I saw the said John diamond earmarking period I thought well that's interesting and sure enough there it is okay these are obviously based on Middle Eastern metal forms they were made in an earlier period but none of them were marks and I love the little notice the little sort of double gourd opening here on the tip of the spout I thought that was just charming and it's also a framed spout which is really unusual we must make the water or the wine pour out rather interestingly any rate this this is in the sale and it's carrying a good asset but I I don't know it's this kind of thing that could blow that estimate to bits six to eight hundred thousand dollars but I don't know of another there's no other you were like this in the world so it may do a heck of a lot better there are others that aren't marked of course in the Palace Museum and so forth all right the next the next thing in the sell it was one of my favorites also it was this was this really beautiful it's an 18 inch long Cohen celadon bar brimmed Lotus form bowl with pomegranates and the pomegranates are in the center and it's interesting because pomegranates are symbol of fertility of not only in China but also in the Middle East because of all the seeds and so forth within them and these particular plates were manufactured in the Imperial kiln and they were used as trade barter goods and for tribute and descending sending gifts abroad and they were and they also turned up of course domestically but but they were most a lot of them are exported and this is an extremely fine example this is an extremely fine example I urge you to come over and take a good look at it the the cavero is a deeply shaped often the shaping on the kimonos around the rim here sort of week and you can tell how deeply these are shaped by the by the by the outlining and the way it's done at the top and the symmetry of this piece is just fabulous all the way down and if you flip it around here and we've got a better look here we'll blow it up even more there it is and you can really see the work and and the absolute incredible quality of the green glaze on this the colour is just exceptional all the way through and and you can also get get the look of what a real the back of a real Ming plate looks like now it's curious on this plate because if you blow it up you're gonna see something here this is kind of cool even though this plate has a big estimate it's considered to be the one of the great examples it does have a firing line probably from it when it's stuck to something in the kiln I was sitting on its ring here they fired these on rings as many of you know so that when they when they're done that the glaze on the foot is fully intact so the fully fully glazed rim so they don't scratch things very practical of them all right and the estimate on this is three hundred and fifty to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars so some of these estimates are going to test the market and this is in dollar values this is the highest estimated lot is this unbelievable young low they come jadeite green or wintergreen glazed covered jar superbly potted incredibly well glazed and this may be the prettiest one in the world there are others similar in the Palace Museum there's a really great one at the MFA in Boston that has loop handles on it but I think this is you know maybe the best one and notice the color especially when you when you blow it up you can really there you can really see how the glaze thickened here along the base of the neck and this beautiful deep green almost looks like you know the color you'd see in the Bahamas in the ocean just beautiful beautiful thing and here's a picture of the bottom alright always look at the bottoms and notice how perfectly the foot has been shaped the superb workmanship of the foot and then this very fine a very interesting glaze pattern that developed and and not a lot not much in the way of firing flaws underneath sometimes these pieces have firing flaws underneath and this came up just about perfectly in a slight iron-oxide line that reddish line along the edge where where the air hit it during the firing okay and this is estimated at 1.5 to 2 million dollars and these are small this is 4 inches in diameter but it has its lid very very few of these have their original lids it's extremely unusual all right and then last is this this is a great thing a young low again young low period Chun bi or they call these sweet white you may have heard of them as sweet white pieces it's a type of glaze they're usually on wah decorated this one is if you blow it up you get a nice blow up of it you'll see the odd way of decoration there it is you see these incised lines these plates are incised and when they're glazed of course the glaze fills into the in sizing which creates a design under the glaze for you to look at all right in this one here you can see it has these leaves and looks like grapes and so forth just beautifully done and the shape of course is very much like the the lung Quonset on plate we just looked at okay very very similar and here it is and the foot on the base of this is unglazed there it is in this particular plate is it's actually part of a pair that was in the kemppi collection and the pair was split up and sold they went to different directions but this is one of them and it still has the the cap that can't be sticker still on the foot room and there was the Mei ping done like this that sold for millions a few years ago in sweet white sweet white is not like Blanc Kushina I should point that out it's actually made from stone glazed instead of having a lot of ash in the glaze it's mostly stone crushed stone glazed so it gives a different texture different hardness in the glaze itself it's very little ash used in the glazes for these and that's why they call them sweet white and they didn't make them for a very long period of time alright and that's it okay and next week we'll take a look at some of the others and give us a if you'll enjoy these videos please do give us the thumbs up it helps our ratings here and sign up and subscribe to us here if you haven't already and maybe sign up over here and join us on the forum on the on the bit amount comp form we've had we've only had this up a couple of weeks and we've got like 258 people have already signed up so that's pretty gratifying I think that's nice so I can come by and make a comment leave a note ask a question alright and thanks so much and we'll see you all next week for the videos on these okay thank you very very much and have a great week bye-bye [Music] you

Channel: Peter Combs

Views: 11,743

Keywords: fine art, fine chinese art, auction, chinese art, chinese art auction, japanese art auction, japanese art, art news, auction news, asian art, auction results, chinese porcelain, chinese paintings, chinese bronze, jade, asian art auction news, asian art values, chinese art values, auction houses, online auctions, internet auctions, authenticating chinese porcelain, art

Id: thHtNiwfDeA

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2018