The Expanding East

Chinese art buyers are going into overdrive. Although their activity is too obvious to have escaped attention, the scope of their involvement, the trends revealed by their acquisitions and the wider implications of their purchases have yet to be assessed.

Few among the leading international specialists who attended the sale of Chinese art held at Christie’s London on November 6, 2007, would have ventured to predict its most startling outcome: Of the 10 most expensive lots, 8 went to Chinese buyers. The most magnificent piece was an early 15th-century porcelain flask based on a brass model from the Middle East. The pattern of swirling scrolls carrying formalized blossoms betrays the massive impact that the art of Iran had on Chinese porcelain in the late 13th century, when the two great cultures of the East were ruled by their Mongol conquerors.

The Yuan, as the Mongol dynasty that ruled China from 1279 to 1368 was called by the Chinese, introduced the shapes and sizes of the vessels used at court in Iranian lands, as well as radically different aesthetics. This resulted in a concern for symmetry alien to the Song Dynasty, a love of precisely drawn motifs and new colors, in particular the lapis blue called in Chinese Hu, meaning “Iranian” (a qualifier eventually extended to all Muslims because Islam reached China in its Iranian garb). Remarkably, when the Yuan were dislodged by the Ming emperors, China did not revert to the old aesthetics.

The flask sold at Christie’s was a quintessential example of the new art. Traditional connoisseurs cast in the mold of mandarin culture, for whom Song art is the ultimate, would not have touched it with a barge pole.

Even if they had overcome their dislike of an art perceived as bearing the hallmark of foreign influence, traditionalists would have dismissed the piece. It is restored, and no self-respecting mandarin collector would ever consider acquiring damaged porcelain. The short cylindrical neck is a replacement, and so is one of the two hooklike lugs on the sides. Taking its damaged condition into consideration, Christie’s still valued the flask at a substantial £150,000 to £250,000 ($300–500,000). Not in their wildest dreams did the house specialists expect the grand battle between Chinese bidders that broke out over the piece. Priscilla Chak, the wife of the renowned Hong Kong dealer William Chak, vied for it desperately but gave up as the price reached a staggering £1.1 million ($2.3 million), courtesy of a telephone bidder believed by professionals to be Chinese.

If anyone thought this was an auction aberration, Sotheby’s sale a day later spectacularly showed it to be part of a trend that had emerged at Doyle New York in September 2003. At that sale, a businessman from a small Chinese town purchased four of the finest blue and white porcelain vessels from an old American collection. Blue and white porcelain of the Ming period or made in the Ming style during the 18th-century phase of artistic revivalism is now avidly sought after by the new Chinese buyers who were not brought up in mandarin culture.

A blue and white flask from the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1736–95), decorated in neo-Ming style, triggered furious bidding among the Chinese who attended the Sotheby’s sale. In this case, however, they conceded victory to James Hennessy, of the transatlantic partnership Littleton & Hennessy, who bought the piece for £2.8 million ($5.9 million) on behalf of an American collector.

These outbursts of Chinese buying are in line with what has happened elsewhere in the world. At the autumn sales in Hong Kong, Chinese bidders pushed blue and white porcelain to far more extravagant heights than in London. On October 9 at Sotheby’s, for example, a “lotus bud” vase of the Chenghua period (1465–87) was expected to fetch hk$1.2 million to hk$1.5 million ($154–193,000). The baroque construction of the piece, with its mouth indeed shaped like a lotus awkwardly slapped on to the tapering neck and handles in the form of pierced lotus leaves attached to the sides of the neck, did little to enhance its appeal to most traditional connoisseurs, Eastern or Western. The new collectors evidently felt differently. A Hong Kong bidder, Zhang Yang Zhen, who is Chak’s sister, ran the piece up to hk$9.1 million ($1.2 million).