Asia Week

NEW YORK— Asia Week in mid-March was, as always, replete with fairs and gallery exhibitions, but the focal points were the auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Doyle. These demonstrated that scarcity of supply has enhanced the desirability of a larger range of objects and dramatically increased their value.

The week’s highlight was a wooden likeness of the Buddha Dainichi Nyorai from the 1190s, attributed to the famous sculptor Unkei (est. $1.5–2 million), which was offered in the Japanese and Korean Art sale at Christie’s on March 18. The seller, a Japanese collector of Buddhist art, had bought the statue in a small rural antiques shop for an undisclosed sum. X-rays done at the Tokyo National Museum, where it was exhibited, revealed that the figure encased three Buddhist dedicatory objects—a wooden placard with a pagoda-shaped finial, a crystal ball and a crystal pagoda—making it incredibly rare and desirable. Ten bidders drove the price up to $3 million, and six continued fighting up to $7 million. The sculpture eventually sold for $14,377,000—a record both for Japanese art and for an Asian work of art in New York—to the department-store company Mitsukoshi Ltd., acting on behalf of the Buddhist group Shinnyo-en. (Department stores in Japan run galleries and act as advisers.) Shinnyo-en’s founder, Ito Shinjo, is a sculptor whose work was on view during Asia Week at Milk Gallery, in Chelsea. The Buddha will be on loan to the Tokyo National Museum for five years during the construction of Shinnyo-en’s own museum.

The majority of works in Sotheby’s March 17 Contemporary Art Asia session sold but failed to reach their high estimates, perhaps because of the drop in the Asian financial markets that day. Zeng Fangzhi’s Mask Series No. 11, a well-known 1996 triptych portraying the 1990s transformation of Chinese society through the evolving visage of one individual (est. $800,000–1 million), was the only work to fetch more than $1 million, going to a European buyer on the phone for $1,217,000. Cai Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder drawing Escalator: Explosion Project for Centre Pompidou (Two Panels), carrying an overoptimistic estimate of $500,000 to $700,000, was passed, although sources say it sold privately afterward.

The house’s Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale, held the next day, fared better. Chinese bidders vied for pieces from Walter and Mona Lutz’s bamboo holdings, amassed by the California-based couple after their 1947 wedding in Japan. A new collector bought several, including an 18th- or 19th-century Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) carving of the eight Taoist immortals (est. $40–60,000) for $217,000. The sale’s top grosser was an early Ming Dynasty (14th–15th century) Jun purple-splashed narcissus bowl (est. $400–600,000). Even though such wares have recently been reassigned to that period from the earlier Northern Song Dynasty (12th century), an Asian phone bidder bought the bowl for $869,800, substantially more than the $hk1,230,000 ($158,900) it fetched in 1993 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

Also on March 18, Doyle drew a capacity crowd for its auction of the Regal Collection, 18th- and 19th-century Chinese porcelain accumulated by the Gilded Age businessman Arthur Regal; his wife, Florence; and their son, Vernon R. Regal, whose heirs were the consignors. The cover lot, a Qianlong (1736–95) famille rose porcelain “boys” vase, which gets its name from the figures climbing up the sides (est. $100–150,000), was acquired by a Hong Kong buyer for $361,000.

The response to Bonhams New York’s inaugural Japanese-art auction, on March 19, was overwhelmingly positive. Of the 20th-century prints, netsuke, sword fittings, ivories and metalwork on offer, a Meiji period (1868–1912) patinated bronze jardiniere with gold accents from the workshop of Miyao Eisuke, of Yokohama (est. $40–50,000), fetched the top price: $42,000.

March 19 was a long but triumphant day at Christie’s. All the lots in part two of its sale of the Vancouver philanthropist Mary Margaret Young’s snuff bottles were snatched up. (They comprise the Meriem Collection, of which another 107 pieces were sold in September 2007.) A rare faceted Qianlong (1736–95) imperial Beijing enamel “European subject” bottle (est. $250–300,000) sold to an Asian collector for a record $825,000. Young had paid just $220,000 for it at Christie’s in December 1992.

It was standing room only at the firm’s Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art session. More mainland Chinese were present than in previous sales in this category, and they bought a wider range of material, including many archaic bronzes. The two most expensive items, however, went to Westerners. The London and New York dealer Richard Littleton snagged a Liao (10th–11th centuries) gilt-bronze figure of a Bodhisattva (est. $1–1.5 million) for a record $2,505,000. It had previously sold at Sotheby’s New York in December 1992 for $61,600 (est. $40–60,000). Rarity and provenance combined to make a Southern Song Dynasty (1127–79) Longquan celadon Kinuta vase (est. $800,000–1.2 million), reputedly from the collection of the tea master and daimyo Matsudaira Fumai (1751–1818), irresistible. The San Francisco–based Korean American high-tech entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee outbid the London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi to win it for $2,281,000.

The session featuring the Chinese robes and textiles accumulated by Linda Wrigglesworth in her 30 years as a dealer in London, the first sale in the West devoted to this rarefied field, was the only one at Christie’s that day that was not an unqualified success. Much of the material with estimates below $100,000 brought strong prices, but only one of the six robes estimated at above $100,000, the Yongzheng (1723–35) or Qianlong (1736–95) imperial noblewoman’s kesi fur-lined winter surcoat (est. $250–350,000), sold—to an Asian private collector for $241,000.

Of the works by members of the midcentury Bombay Progressive Artists Group that appeared in Sotheby’s auction of Indian art on March 19, several important paintings by Ram Kumar were passed; prices for Francis Newton Souza and S. H. Raza remained stable; and M. F. Husain surpassed them all: His Untitled, from 1953, depicting a puppeteer using sticks to control a dancing couple (est. $200–300,000), went to an Indian dealer for $409,000.

At the house’s session that same day of Indian and Southeast Asian Works of Art, the standouts were Tibetan gilt bronzes, bought by American collectors. The cover lot, a circa 15th-century gilt-copper Buddha Vajrasana, from a European collection (est. $1.5–2.5 million), sold on the reserve for $1,385,000. Indian miniatures also attracted collectors, who were drawn to their rarity and drove prices substantially above their conservative estimates. A 1690–1700 Bikaner school illustration from the Bhagavata Purana showing a group of gopi (“cow-herding girls”) on the banks of the Yamuna River, from a private collection (est. $20–30,000), fetched $193,000.

It was at Christie’s March 20 and 21 sales, however, that price thresholds were crossed most spectacularly. In the house’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale, Husain prevailed again. Two phone bidders battled for one of his most important works, Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12 (est. $600–800,000), part of a series of paintings executed for the 1972 São Paulo Biennial portraying scenes from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. This picture was subsequently purchased by Chester and Davida Herwitz, of Massachusetts, among the earliest collectors of modern Indian art, who sold it in December 2000 at Sotheby’s New York to a Japanese collector for $52,500 (est. $40–60,000). This time, the winner paid $1,609,000, an auction record for a contemporary Indian painting.

The week ended on a high note, with records established for Indian and Khmer sculpture and Indian and Tibetan painting at the Ideal Image: Eight Masterpieces of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, an auction celebrating Christie’s 10th anniversary in the field. One discriminating collector acquired four items, including the star, a circa 475 sandstone Sarnath Buddha from the Gupta period (A.D. 280–550), which had been in a European private collection since 1949 (est. $600–800,000), for $4,969,000. A rare 1745–50 painting by the master Nainsukh of Guler, Musicians Playing a Raga for Balwant Dev Singh During the Rainy Season, portraying the artist among his attendants (est. $150–250,000), soared to $2,225,000, a record for any Indian painting, paid by an Indian collector in the room. Prices like these demonstrate the explosion in this market over the past two years.

Overall, classical art far outshone contemporary, sug­gest­ing that, in times of financial uncertainty, buyers pre­­fer enduring masterpieces to untested ones.

"Auction Reviews: Asia Week" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.