The price, £77,675, once more confirmed that the new mainland collectors have shed the traditionalists' biases. Like Ming blue and white, the decanter, decorated in copper red enamels, betrays Iranian influence. Acquired by du Boulay in 1981 for £6,500 and estimated by Colin Sheaf, head of the Asian department, to be worth £10,000 to £15,000, it was bought for £40,630, or about $73,000, by a collector from Nanjing in Jiangsu Province.Ī businessman from the town of Cixi in Zhejiang showed even greater determination when it came to a 14th-century pear-shaped decanter, despite the loss of the neck recently made up. CHINESE PEAR SHAPED VESSEL MEANING PROFESSIONALThe rectangular plaque of the Chenghua period (1465-1487), painted with a scene set in a mountainous landscape, is clearly the work of a professional painter, not a porcelain decorator. 10, there were nine bidders from the mainland, seven from Hong Kong, and five from Taiwan. Such an assemblage would not have attracted Chinese buyers a decade ago. Du Boulay had a discerning eye but modest means, which accounts for a number of rarities with minor flaws that keep prices down. The English connoisseur, who set up the "porcelain department" at Christie's in 1950 and later oversaw the Chinese department, shared the preferences of the European collectors of his time who lived in 18th-century settings: later blue and white, Kangxi and Qianglong polychrome vessels, and the rest. 10, Bonhams was selling the collection formed over five decades by Anthony du Boulay. Two weeks later, another leap was made in London. Giuseppe Eskenazi of London, the world's leading dealer in top-level Chinese art, tried hard but was outbid to the tune of 2.75 million Hong Kong dollars, or about $357,000. The type, beloved by the Japanese who call it kinrande, is far removed from traditional Chinese preferences. An ewer with the Jiajing six-character mark (1522-1566) decorated with gold patterns on a deep red ground was consigned from Japan. 27, in a Christie's sale, the meaning of an extraordinary occurrence escaped media attention. Other mainland China bidders bought early blue and white, proving that the 180 degree turnaround reflects the approach of a new breed of collectors.Ī month later, the Hong Kong auctions bore out that verdict. So did the bidder's willingness to ignore a rim chip - immaculate condition is demanded by traditionalists to whom the tactile feel of porcelain matters. To pay $164,300 for a Ming vessel so alien to the ideal of Song China long upheld by collectors pointed to a fundamental change in cultural attitudes. These brought in the new shapes, large sizes, and clear-cut motifs favored in the Iranian world which they also ruled - and the patterns in "Iranian" blue. The porcelain had been Gordon Morrill's own hobby.Īmong his acquisitions, an early 15th-century bowl bought by Morrill in 1971 reflected the radically new aesthetics introduced into China under the Mongol Yuan rulers. They spent most of their life in Florence, where they established the Gordon and Elizabeth Morrill Music Library in the Villa i Tatti, considered the best collection of Italian medieval and Renaissance musicology. Rich, immensely cultivated, Morrill and his wife Elizabeth Hunter could have stepped out of a novel by Henry James. The vessels were bought in the 1960s and 1970s by the late F. A small Upper East Side auctionhouse, Doyle's, was dispersing an old American collection with a few admirable pieces of early Ming blue and white porcelain. The first sign that China is turning into a formidable power engine came in New York last September. A far-reaching cultural revolution has started, reversing the course of the previous one and taking this ancient civilization back to its age-old passion, collecting the art of its past. Mainland dealers attend every auction, however modest, and private collectors are turning from hesitant beginners into pros at top speed. LONDON- Suddenly buyers from mainland China are all over the place, wherever Chinese art is for sale.
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