Next month sees the annual round of auctions, gallery shows and museum exhibitions that make up Asian Art in London. It’s a festival of culture focusing on the art – ancient and modern – from India, Cambodia, Korea, China, Japan and one or two other Far Eastern countries. With a rich and recorded heritage that predates the Romans in some parts, this field creates a fascinating historical focus of how humanity has developed through the ages.
Porcelain, terracotta, bronze, jade and ivory are just some of the materials used to fashion the most memorable objects from the Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties in China, while Japanese tradition gave rise to elaborately carved netsuke and ojime, as well as the luxuriously lacquered inro.
The London celebrations are large enough to attract collectors from all over the world, so it will come as no surprise that leading auction rooms outside of the capital – including ours at Fernhurst – time first-rate Asian art sales to coincide with them.
But it was Geneva that provided the first appetizer for the Asian art fest last week when a Chinese vase estimated at just 500 to 800 Swiss Francs took a hammer price of five million – that’s around £3.8m.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for our November offering.
