Oct 6, 2017
There were a few surprises at our October Oriental auction on the 4th. Japanese and Chinese Lots sold really well including a fine quality signed Japanese gold wire Cloisonne vase by Hayashi Kodenji, the silver foot rim with an impressed Jungin ‘pure silver’ mark and an inlaid maker’s mark to the base. Standing at 11.1in high overall on the stand and the vase itself 9.7in high. It fetched £5000 against an estimate of £2000-3000. Also a very fine quality signed Japanese gold wire cloisonne vase, the base with an engraved and onlaid silver-metal maker’s plaque and standing at 9in high sold for £6600 against an estimate of £2000-3000.
Also, a good early 20th century Japanese lined silver bowl, the base with a maker’s mark and a Jungin ‘pure silver’ mark, standing at 9.7in wise at widest point and 5.6in high sold for £1100.
In the Chinese section, a 20th century Chinese famille Rose porcelain plate by Zhang Song Mao, dated 1951, the base with a seal mark and 9.6in diameter, sold for £4000. Also a good quality late 19th/early 20th century Chinese Famille Rose rectangular porcelain plaque standing at 9.25in x 6.1in sold for £4600.
The next sale will be 8th November. Keep an eye out for previews and the catalogue nearer the sale on our website. For any enquiries regarding consignments, please call our main office on 01428 653727.
Oct 3, 2017
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.
Sep 25, 2017
Continuing the theme of what will make become the desirable collectables of the future, I came across an obscure but promising one in the past week: tax discs.
An acquaintance of mine used to own a moped and, many years ago, when he lived in London and the motorbike was parked outside his flat, a young lad stole the tax disc because he had managed to acquire a moped of his own but was too young to hold a licence and needed the disc to make his look legal. Needless to say, he was caught and dealt with.
In the meantime the victim of the crime decided that it was too risky to continue displaying the replacement disc, and so he filed it at home, ready to produce it if ever asked to do so by the authorities. He continued with this custom for a number of years, until he got rid of the moped.
So as not to damage the discs when filing them, using a hole punch, he left them attached to the original perforated sheet of paper, so they remained in all but mint condition and now he has a remarkable set of them. These must have become attractive collectors’ items since the abolition of the tax disc, and their auction value can only climb as the years go by.
Sep 18, 2017
No sooner had I put pen to paper on last week’s column, talking about Steve Jobs and his first ever computer taking £100,000 at auction, than the Science Museum in London launched a Twitter conversation about the history of Apple products, from the 1984 pre-production model, Mouse for Apple Macintosh, through the 1993 Apple Newton MessagePad, the 1998 iMac G3 to the 2003 Apple iPod and the 2007 iPhone launch to the 2010 iPad.
The Science Museum has them all and provides a fascinating study of the development of technology and its association to social development over the past 30 years and more.
If this is the attitude that the Science Museum has to these objects – presenting them as museum exhibits – then you can be sure that they will also make their impact on the world of collecting in years to come. Millions of iPhones may be circulating the globe as we speak, but as they get updated and the defunct ones disappear, eventually only a limited number will be left to become sought-after collectables. The development of mobile phone technology, as they morphed into handheld computers, thereby changing the way the world communicates and interacts socially, has been the biggest game changer of all. Expect it to be a force at auction as a whole new niche collecting area develops in the future.
Sep 12, 2017
The first Oriental sale of the Autumn was a great success. It is hard to predict how the sales will go at times. Of course, online bids and sales are by far outweighing activity in the room (where would we be with the power of the internet?), but all in all, a busy sale.
Among the highlights were a good large moon Chinese Qianlong/Jiaqing period dragon and phoenix cloisonne moon flask, a preview of which has been on our website. Standing at 26.7in high, it fetched £7500. Probably Ming Dynasty was a large pair of Chinese coppered bronze figures of seated officials which fetched £3400.
Also a large 19th/20th century mirror pair of Chinese blue and white celadon ground porcelain vases reached £1100. Also along the same lines was another pair of good quality Chinese blue and white celadon ground porcelain vases, which fetched £2600. Also a good quality Chinese coral ground porcelain vase and cover, the base with a Jiaqing seal mark took hammer of £2600.
From the Japanese Meiji period was a pair of fine quality signed ivory tripos Koros, each base with an engraved signature, one base also bearing a seal. At 4.35in high to top of handles, it fetched £1100.
Our next Oriental sale will be on October 4. Keep an eye out for previews.
