Asian art: at 'Asian Art in London' this month, a phenomenal range of objects is on show—but art from China will sell best, thanks to a rise in Chinese collectors

Apollo, Nov, 2004 by Philippa Scott

In a different spirit, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, offers on 26 October a collection of jade Imperial seals. 1 of 3 is a highly important Jientang white jade 'dragon' seal (estimate on request), and lot 15 is the Empress Wen's Memorial jade seal, Ming dynasty, early fifteenth century, estimate $64,200-$90,000. An earlier sale on 26 October 2003 achieved a record price or 2,214,982 [pounds sterling] for lot 26, for a collection of Imperial Qianleng seals.

Themed sales attract attention, for instance in Hong Kong in October, Sotheby's offered 'Dragons in Chinese Art', which includes a highly desirable white jade bowl, lot 11, created as a brush washer, finely carved with dragons in pursuit of flaming pearls amidst cloud scrolls. In their London 10 November sale an altogether more robust bowl of spinach jade from a UK deceased estate, lot 572, has an estimate of 15-20,000 [pounds sterling]. An intricately carved spinach jade brush pot on a cloisonne base, Qianlung period, was sold at Christie's in 2002 for 394,500 [pounds sterling].

Taste in the jade market has been affected by the emergence of new buyers, and Alastair Gibson. head of department, Chinese ceramics and works of art at Sotheby's, explained to me that whereas ten or fifteen years ago the darker colours, spinach and black, were more desirable, today paler colours, white and light greens, are fashionable. This is also reflected in the porcelain market, where bright enamelled porcelains, famille rose and famille verte, fetch extraordinary prices. Currently the highest price for an example of famille rose is a Yongzheng period 'peach' vase sold by Sotheby's, Hong Kong, in 2002 for 3,621,997 [pounds sterling], followed by a Qianlong period 'butterfly' vase sold by Christie's, Hong Kong, in 2000 for 2,701,317 [pounds sterling].

Giuseppe Eskenazi's 'Selection of Ming and Qing porcelain' at 10 Clifford Street, London, comprises seine twenty examples, spanning in date from the reige of the very first Ming emperor, to that of the long lived eighteenth century Qin Qianlong emperor. The rarest and most brilliantly coloured piece on show is a turquoise glazed vase in the Form of a double gourd, painted on the base in underglaze blue with the imperial sixcharacter mark of the Ming Jiajing emperor (1522-66).

Also celebrating 'Asian Art in London' week, Christie's will offer the collection of the late Alfred Morrison of Fonthill House, on 9 November. This represents the third major sale of important Chinese art from Alfred Morrison's heirlooms collection at Christie's, and among its highlights is a fine and exceptionally rare enamel on metal incense burner (Fig. 5), estimate 70,000 [pounds sterling]-100,000 [pounds sterling]. Marked 'Kanxi yushi, by Imperial command of the Kanxi Emperor' (1662-1722), it is naturalistically painted with lotus flowers in pinks and blues on a glorious yellow ground, a celebration of enamels developed in the Imperial workshops around 1700. Morrison amassed an extraordinary collection of art treasures, and a significant proportion of the Chinese ceramics and enamel on metals were purchased in 1861 from Lord Loch of Drylaw, who brought them to Britain following the sack of the Imperial Garden of the Perfect Brightless in Beijing in 1860. Christies hope the sale will achieve the same superb results as the E.T. Hall Collection that sold in their rooms on 7 June 2004 for a total of 2.4m [pounds sterling].