Bronze drinking vessel tops New York Asian Fall Week auction

Asia Week New York returned this month with a smaller exhibition program than this year’s spring edition, but Asian Art Week sales at the major auction houses did not disappoint. Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctioned lots from China, Korea, Japan, India and the Himalayas; the former held two major sales, while the latter’s program included six – three live auctions and three online. Overall, Ming Dynasty ceramics, Indian modernist paintings and a spectacular antique bronze vessel stole the show. A (porcelain) elephant in the room also set auction records.

Highlights from Sotheby’s Dharma & Tantra and Chinese Art Auctions

Sotheby’s Chinese art The sale was a remarkable success, with a total of $15.3 million, well above the initial estimate of $11 million to $17 million. The star of the sale was the archaic bronze Zhou Zha Hu drinking vessel, which sold for $4.4 million, making it the second most expensive Asian art work sold this year (after the Meiping “Dragon” vessel sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong for more than $10 million). As the sealed script inscription attests, this 3,000-year-old ceremonial vessel was commissioned by a member of the Zhou clan for his father’s ritual use. Later cherished by the Qianlong Emperor, the Zhou Zha Hu was included in an illustrated catalogue of the imperial bronze collection. The only other Hu vessel of this type is a companion piece in the National Palace Museum in Taipei; This is due to be exhibited at the Hong Kong Museum of Art next year, returning a monumental relic to China.

Other notable sales included an example of Qing Dynasty porcelain sculpture: a figure of Puxian (a bodhisattva associated with meditation) seated on a white elephant, the traditional vehicle of the bodhisattva. The fine detail of this famille rose piece, the only known example of Puxian rendered with such precision in porcelain, sold for $1,236,000, far exceeding the low estimate of $500,000. The elephant’s remarkable six tusks remained intact.

Sotheby’s second sale, Dharma and Tantrafocused on art from the Himalayan region, totaled $934,620, with 70% of the lots sold. The star of the show was a 14th-century gilt-copper alloy figurine of Avalokiteshvara from Tibet, which brought $102,000, surpassing the high estimate of $30,000. While this auction was smaller than Sotheby’s September 2023 Dharma and Tantra sale (which brought $4.8 million), Himalayan art is certainly no slouch among collectors.

Highlights from Christie’s three live sales during Asia Week

Christie’s held three live auctions: the two-day sale Important Chinese ceramics and artworks at auction (totaling $11,639,224), the Modern and Contemporary Art from South Asia at auction (totaling $9,385,992) and the Japanese and Korean Art (for a total of $4,241,160). The auction house’s three online sales coinciding with Asia Week New York remain open for bidding through the end of this week.

The star of the auction of important Chinese ceramics and art was a beautifully preserved “peony” dish from the ten-year reign of the Ming Dynasty Emperor Xuande (1425–35), who was renowned for his patronage of the arts. Such “blue and white reserve” style dishes featuring a blue ground with white detailing are extremely rare in a ceramic tradition that overwhelmingly favors a white ground with blue patterns.

Another sale of note was a set of Imperial tri-color glass goblets, which sold for $730,000, far exceeding the low estimate of $80,000. As Christie’s specialist Rufus Chen explained to the Observer, the combination of blue, coral, and green glass—each section intended to mimic a natural material: lapis lazuli, coral, and jade, respectively—is extremely rare, especially since this type of glass craft has survived intact since the Qianlong period.

Christie’s Japan and Korea sale was once again dominated by a print of Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock print Under the Well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa. The print fetched $856,800, surpassing Christie’s sale of the same subject during the Spring Asian Art Week by more than $150,000. That’s a far cry from the record $2.8 million achieved by an iteration of the print in 2023, but it certainly confirms the enduring reverence among collectors for this iconic image.

Among the Korean lots, there was an 18th-century Jeoson Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain jar decorated with a poem and four landscapes that sold for $378,000. Perhaps most surprising was the sale of an 18th-century Insho (seal-type) Sashi-Netsuke for $37,800, more than 7.5 times its low estimate of $5,000. This miniature sculpture from the Edo period depicts a mythical creature composed of a lion, a dog, a bird, and a dragon that clearly captured the heart of a particular collector.

While Chinese art is typically the most profitable category in Asian sales, the remarkable success of the South Asian auction is perhaps the most notable, with 98% of available lots sold. Jehangir Sabavala’s vibrant abstract canvas, The Radiant Spheresachieved the auction’s top price of $730,800, and four other artists, Ram Kumar, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Ivan Peris and Mohammed Kibria, each set auction records for their works. This reflects Christie’s strong sales momentum in South Asian modern and contemporary art, following an Asian Art Week spring auction that sold 100% by lot, totalling nearly $20,000,000 and setting a record for a single painting by modernist Francis Newton Souza at nearly $5,000,000.

Keep in mind that the September edition of Asia Week New York is often just a prelude to the flashier offerings of Asia Week New York in March, when more vases, waves, canvases, bronzes, and bodhisattvas go under the hammer. There may even be another extremely rare elephant in the room.