Round the auction houses

Apollo, Nov, 2003

CHRISTIE'S, KING STREET Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 11 November 2003

A particular highlight of this sumptuous sales a remarkable Mughal style jade cup from the collection of the Qianlong Emperor. This elegant shuiyu is sculpted in the shape of a shell which, very unusually, tapers into the head of a goose. It carries an estimate of 150,000 [pounds sterling]-250,000 [pounds sterling]. Three other notable Mughal or Mughal style white jades from the Quianlong period are also going under the hammer today: a delicate shallow dish (estimated at 30,000 [pounds sterling]-40,000 [pounds sterling]), a jade snuff bottle (estimated at 15,000 [pounds sterling]-20,000) [pounds sterling], and a beautiful foliate bowl (200,000 [pounds sterling]-300,000) [pounds sterling]

SOTHEBY'S, NEW BOND STREET Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 12 November 2003

Staged an entire day after that of its rivals, this sale is particularly exciting as it features the extremely coveted MuWen Tang Collection, one of the most prestigious private collections of Song Dynasty ceramics (960 1279). Shaped over a thirty-year period, this collection was exhibited at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1994, and represents a marvellous advertisement for a remarkable period of China's artistic heritage. A particular highlight is the elegant and very unusual Guanyao flower shaped brushwasher that was produced for the official court of the Song Dynasty. This piece carries an estimate of 300,000 [pounds sterling]-500,000 [pounds sterling]. Another highlight of the auction is a fabulous archaic bronze ritual wine vessel from the Middle Western Zhou Dynasty. It is decorated with five pictograms in relief, and is expected to fetch 100,000 [pounds sterling]-150,000 [pounds sterling].

CHRISTIE'S, SOUTH KENSINGTON Important European Furniture and Sculpture, 11 December 2003

This sale is causing a great deal of excitement as its star lot is expected to fetch in excess of 1,000,000 [pounds sterling]. One of the most significant discoveries in decades, until its recent re-emergence this extremely rare and exceptionally beautiful Mantuan bronze roundel lay all but forgotten in a cupboard under the stairs in its vendors' house, assumed to be an unremarkable piece of Victoriana. The property of a deceased English estate, it is likely to have been acquired by George Derby III on the Grand Tour in the 1740s. Datable to around 1480-1500, and profoundly influenced by the work of Mantegma and Antico, it depicts--in exquisite detail--Mars with Venus and Cupid at the forge of Vulcan.

SOTHEBY'S, NEW BOND STREET Important British Pictures, 27 November 2003

Four British portraits--by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, and Hoppner--from the Hillingdon collection, which ranks as one of the finest art collections formed in this country in tee nineteenth century, are the outstanding attraction of this sale. They are all extremely distinguished, but the best of the quartet are the Portrait of Miss Hickey by Sir Joshua Reynolds (estimate 500,000 [pounds sterling]-700,000) [pounds sterling], and Gainsborough's Portrait of Richard Tickell (estimate 400,000 [pounds sterling]-600,000) [pounds sterling]. Both sitters belonged to the younger generation of the families of close friends of their respective artists: Reynolds was an intimate of Mary Hickey's father, Joseph (and was the sister of the original William Hickey), while Tickell was the son-in-law of Thomas Linley, a leading figure in the musical life of eighteenth-century Bath, whose two daughters were the subject of one of Gainsborough's most memorable portraits, now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.