The International Herald Tribune
A new order in world of Chinese art
Souren Melikian/IHT
Friday, March 26, 2004

NEW YORK Untroubled by economic worries, the Chinese art market is carried by a tidal wave. In an extraordinary sale held at Christie's this week, the reason for its unique vigor came out with unprecedented clarity. Four different constituencies spread across the globe from America to Europe to the Far East competed for Chinese art. Economic weakness in one part of the world has little effect on bidders, goaded by intense rivalry.

Competition often pitched Chinese bidders against Westerners with the Chinese having the last word. Such was the case with a jade scepter, probably dating from the 19th century, which sold for a stiff $35,850. Occasionally, the same was true of more important objects.

On Wednesday, two success stories illustrated the built-in security that this rivalry ensures. One of the most marvelous bronzes from Ancient China ever offered at auction was back on the block. The 12th century B.C. wine vessel, which reproduces an architectural form, first appeared at auction in New York at Sotheby's on Oct. 23, 1976, with the collection of Gladys Lloyd Robinson. It brought a huge $180,000. The vessel, acquired by the British Rail Pension Fund, soon went up on view as a long-term loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, from 1977 to 1988.

Thus duly enhanced by a museum aura, the vessel was dispatched to Sotheby's where it was bought on Dec. 12, 1989, by Giuseppe Eskenazi of London, the world leader in early Chinese art. The price then rose to £715,000. Three years later Eskenazi sold the vessel to the New York financier and collector Michael Steinhardt.

In March 2003, the bronze turned up in the selling show put together by Gisèle Croes of Brussels in the Fuller Building at 41 East 57th Street but remained unsold. The reason may have had something to do with the unfortunate cleaning to which the bronze was subjected prior to its reappearance. The beautiful green patina, ruthlessly scraped, had lost its éclat. On Wednesday, however, its sheer importance saved the vessel. A U.S. collector wanted it. So did a British collector, Peter Moores, for the private museum now open to the public in which his works of art are on view at Compton Verney in Warwickshire. The Briton, bidding through the London dealer in Chinese art Roger Keverne, who is also one of the governors of Compton Verney, carried the $1.4 million prize. The next Homeric battle was waged over an object from another old American collection now owned by the heir to the great collector Stephen Junkunc 3rd. The small six-lobed dish with a pale grayish glaze shows the broad black crackle of the 12th to 13th century porcelain known as "Geyao."

This is one of the great classics of Song porcelain, beloved by Japanese collectors when they were riding high in the market for Chinese art in the 1960s and 1970s. It still is, and the Japanese are back. On March 14 one of them, believed to be Masataka Tomita, who collects exclusively Song porcelain, defeated an American opponent. The resulting price was a huge $1.46 million.

The Japanese comeback injected energy into another area of Chinese art that has traditionally elicited a passionate response in Japan, early Buddhist gilt bronzes. Indeed, the pieces that awakened their interest on Wednesday were consigned by the greatest Japanese collector in the field, the dealer Muneichi Nitta, who collected them with an unfailing eye for beauty and rarity. For some reason, Christie's did not mention his name. The first Nitta bronze, a sixth-century figure of a guardian of hell furiously fought over, climbed to $71,700. The winner (not mentioned by Christie's either) was Mitsuru Tajima, whose collecting passion focuses on Buddhist gilt bronzes. Three lots down, the collector followed this up with a unique square plaque in low relief that cost a more reasonable $17,925. Immediately after, Tajima got carried away as a unique stele came up. Rising from an altar-like pedestal, it is flanked by trees whose twisted stems bend over the arch and give rise to branches between which Buddhist figures appear.

At the base, a stupa in the form of an octagonal mausoleum topped by an arched dome of east Iranian type such as are seen in present-day Afghanistan is hugely important to the history of architectural form in the east Iranian domain. Apparently determined not to miss the unique piece, Tajima ran it up to $53,775, triple the high estimate.

The most impressive display of enthusiasm, however, came from Chinese bidders. Early on, they chased carved red lacquer objects. A vase with a Qianlong seal (1736-1795) reproducing a shape that goes back to the fifth century B.C. carved in minute detail with a mountainous landscape, cost a professional $38,240, almost twice the high estimate. The same buyer acquired the next lot, a stacking box in the form of twin vases on a shaped pedestal described as a Qianlong period piece. The bill here was a generous $23,900.

A fascinating bidding match broke out over a late Shang or early Western Zhou (11th-10th century B.C.) bronze pouring vessel of extraordinary beauty, unfortunately in poor condition. Christie's gave it a $40,000 to $60,000 estimate. At $80,000, Keverne bowed out. The ritual vessel went to a Chinese bidder who paid a large $141,900. His acquisition illustrates the recent adoption of Western criteria by some Chinese buyers. Going after an imperfectly preserved piece for the sake of its art historical rarity is a radical innovation for the Chinese world.

Another match involving Eskenazi of London was triggered by one of the most beautiful Buddhist bronzes seen this week. The sixth-century standing figure smiles with an expression of ineffable certainty as it makes the teaching gesture. This too was a Junkunc 3rd object. Daniel Eskenazi, Giuseppe Eskenazi's son and partner, bid doggedly up to $310,000 but conceded defeat to a telephone bidder at $320,000 ($365,900 with the sale charge). The buyer, one later heard, was Chinese.

Here and there, Western collectors and dealers stood their ground. A splendid 12th-century figure of a Guanyin from the mysterious Dali kingdom, a non-Chinese culture in present day Yunnan, is on its way to Europe. The buyer had to pay $147,500, triple the high estimate.

A masterpiece, again from the Junkunc 3rd collection, was likewise hotly disputed. The six-armed bodhisattva, which belongs to another non-Chinese culture called after the Chinese name of its dynasty, the Liao (907-1125), brought $287,500 paid by an American collector. The most beautiful of the small bronzes, 16.5 centimeters, or 6.5 inches, high, likewise stays in the West for the moment. The tuning key in the form of a bear balanced on top of a square pole was bought by James Lally, the leading American connoisseur dealer in Chinese art.

As they streamed out of the room some American and European professionals looked wistful. There had never been so many new Chinese faces, nor such intense competition from the Far East. Throughout the sale, superbly put together by Athena Zonars, head of the Chinese department, there had been an excitement not witnessed in a long time. The input of Theow-Huang Tow, Christie's deputy chairman for the Americas, and Anthony Lin, chairman for Asia, had probably contributed to expand the Asian presence. For the first time, perhaps, the Westerners felt things were no longer under their control. A new world order is coming about in the Chinese art market as elsewhere in the global economy.

International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/512071.html

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Chinese are quickly taking control of Chinese art market
Souren Melikian IHT
Saturday, March 20, 2004

LONDON Suddenly buyers from mainland China are all over the place, wherever Chinese art is for sale. Mainland dealers attend every auction, however modest, and private collectors are turning from hesitant beginners into pros at top speed. 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.

The first sign that China is turning into a formidable power engine came in New York last September. 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 vessels were bought in the 1960s and 1970s by the late F. Gordon Morrill. Rich, immensely cultivated, Morrill and his wife Elizabeth Hunter could have stepped out of a novel by Henry James. 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. The porcelain had been Gordon Morrill's own hobby.

Was it the whiff of art collecting history that helped Doyle's consultant Martin Lorber attract many mainland Chinese bidders? In the room, half the attendance was Chinese. Four of the finest pieces went to a bidder, unknown to Western professionals, from the town of Ningpo in Zhejiang Province. The businessman had been collecting for two or three years.

Among 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. 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" [Hu] blue.

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. 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.

Other mainland China bidders bought early blue and white, proving that the 180 degree turnaround reflects the approach of a new breed of collectors.

A month later, the Hong Kong auctions bore out that verdict. On Oct. 27, in a Christie's sale, the meaning of an extraordinary occurrence escaped media attention. An ewer with the Jiajing six-character mark (1522-1566) decorated with gold patterns on a deep red ground was consigned from Japan. The type, beloved by the Japanese who call it kinrande, is far removed from traditional Chinese preferences. 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 winner was a mainland buyer.

Another mainland collector who lived for many years in Hong Kong, Alice Cheng, paid 454,100 Hong Kong dollars for a dish of the same period decorated with cranes reserved in white on a deep blue ground. This too was a Japanese taste piece. Now the Beijing agent of the Swedish company Ericcson, Cheng recently made headlines in the Chinese media when she donated on Feb. 14 a rare Yongzheng vase decorated with peach tree branches to the Shanghai Museum. She thus acquired the status of a Chinese art hero. Her acquisition is bound to inspire others.

Two weeks later, another leap was made in London. On Nov. 10, Bonhams was selling the collection formed over five decades by Anthony du Boulay. 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. Du Boulay had a discerning eye but modest means, which accounts for a number of rarities with minor flaws that keep prices down.

Such an assemblage would not have attracted Chinese buyers a decade ago. On Nov. 10, there were nine bidders from the mainland, seven from Hong Kong, and five from Taiwan.

The star lot went to the mainland. The 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. 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.

A 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. Like Ming blue and white, the decanter, decorated in copper red enamels, betrays Iranian influence. The price, £77,675, once more confirmed that the new mainland collectors have shed the traditionalists' biases.

Perhaps the most revealing development is the emergence on the mainland of collectors with good eyes and limited cash. It shows that grass-roots collecting is spreading. Already, its impact is reverberating across European markets. At Bonhams Nov. 10 sale, a Shanghai connoisseur bought for £3,824 a marvelous bowl decorated with a small red lingzhi spray on white ground. A hair crack on the rim which leaves the beauty of the piece unimpaired kept the price down to a fraction of what an intact object with the Yongzheng mark (1723-1735) would cost. Later, the collector treated himself to another Yongzheng object, a bowl delicately incised on the outside with a scrolling pattern under the yellow glaze. "Repaired," in the cataloguer's cryptic wording, it cost £1,016. Both acquisitions reflect a well-defined taste for restrained elegance in affordable imperial wares.

Many more objects than those verifiably acquired by mainland Chinese buyers find their way to Beijing and other places. William Chak, the renowned Hong Kong dealer, is occasionally seen sitting next to a collector who speaks no English. As he watched Chak pay £144,150, eight times the estimate, for a Yongzheng blue and white vase finely painted with characters, a Western professional speculated that this one too might end up on the mainland.

Last week, mainland buying appeared to expand further. On March 9, at Bonhams, a dealer bought five pieces. These included a £2,032 squat celadon basin of the early 14th century carved inside with a large blossom and a Daoguang period (1821-1850) dish decorated in yellow and green enamels on deep blue green.

On March 11 at Christie's South Kensington, where Pedram Rasti says their presence became noticeable within the last two years, mainland dealers were active. A Beijing dealer bought a large blue and white vase with the Qianlong mark (1735-1796) for £2,629. Another happily bagged a Daoguang dish decorated with two dragons in green and aubergine enamels on yellow ground.

Their forays now extend to solid, middle of the road galleries. Early this month, Knapton and Rasti of London, at 1 Princes Place in St. James, sold to a mainland dealer a large Kangxi vase with high shoulders decorated in copper red enamels and a vase decorated with a dragon and carp in copper red and celadon enamels on a powder blue ground. The professional who concluded the £6,000 deal commutes between London and Beijing .

Some of the pieces bought in the West reappear at Beijing auctions where they command such enormous prices that Western professionals wonder what is going on. But whatever mysteries may be concealed by the Chinese art market screen, one thing is beyond doubt. Mainland China is taking over the world market for Chinese art at every level. In five, perhaps 10 years, it will be in total control.

Souren Melikian is art editor of the International Herald Tribune.
http://www.iht.com/articles/511120.html

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artdaily.com, Friday, April 9, 2004
Chinese Art, a Discovery of Classical Chinese Art

ANTWERP.- Currently on view through May 30th 2004, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp (MuHKA) proposes a selective survey of the state of contemporary art in China. Parallel to this venture, the Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp (KMSKA) presents masterpieces of old Chinese art. The entire project was named “All under heaven” and is based upon the collection of the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation.

“All under heaven” at the MuHKA attempts to renew the way in which the West perceives Chinese art and to emphasize its universal meaning. The co-producers of the exhibition - the MuHKA (in collaboration with the KMSKA) and the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation - have made a common option: to highlight individuals in their capacity of creators and to avoid an approach which would be too sociological or collectivist in their search for an opening on contemporary Chinese culture and society.

The exhibition will occupy the entire ground floor of the museum and will present the most divergent mediums: painting, video, photography, installations and sculptures. It will present a selection of those artists who are most active on the Chinese art scene at this very moment and expands into new installations created specifically for this exhibition by Gu Dexin, Xu Zhen and the artists-couple Peng Yu & Sun Yuan.

The exhibition emphasizes artists who were representative of the nineties such as Zheng Guogu and Lin Yilin, but also on the most promising emerging young artists: Liang Yue, Wang Ningde, A Niu, Xu Zhen... It also presents the founding artists of contemporary art in China from the second half of the eighties onwards, such as Huang Yongping, Cai Guo-Qiang, Gu Dexin, Yang Jiechang or Chen Zhen, who remain of crucial importance.

“All under heaven” at the KMSKA, the Royal Museum of Fine arts of Antwerp, proposes masterpieces of old Chinese art in parallel. Amongst these are essential works of the history of Chinese art from the eleventh century onwards. Consequently, the presentation of these classical works creates a two-fold dialogue: on the one hand, one with works by Flemish masters from the collection of the KMSKA - ’Rivers and mountains’, a scroll by Wang Zhenpeng (fourteenth century) is exhibited face to face with the ’Saint Barbara’ by Jan Van Eyck (1437); on the other hand, there is the dialogue with the most contemporary of creations by Chinese artists which are displayed at the MuHKA.

First and foremost, the project “All under heaven” is the result of joint intellectual research. Fei Dawei, Chinese art critic and Director of the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation is the curator of this exhibition together with Bart De Baere, Director of MuHKA. We called upon the advice of Mr. Jean-Marie Simonet, honorary curator of the Chinese department at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, for the classical part of this presentation. The exhibition ’All under heaven’ will be on display until May 30th both at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MuHKA) and at the Royal Museum of Fine Art (KMSKA) of Antwerp.
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=9640

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artdaily.com, Friday, April 9, 2004
V&A shows rare statue of Buddha

One of the earliest, rarest and most influential statues of the Buddha has been bought for £850,000 by two British museums and will be displayed on a nationwide tour.

The statue, Standing Figure of Buddha Sakyamuni, will be the only one of its kind in any museum in Europe. It is one of only three to come on to the market in the past half-century. The other two are in American collections.

The exquisite 14-inch, gold-toned figure, with one hand raised in blessing, will be shared by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum, in the first joint deal of this kind. Yesterday it went on show for three months in the V&A’s Indian gallery.

The exhibition realises a 40-year aspiration at the V&A to have a Buddha carved in what is known as the Gupta style, dating from the sixth or seventh century. The form became a template for many later portrayals.

The V&A’s director, Mark Jones, called it "a rare and beautiful object which adds immeasurably to our Indian collections".

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_grd=419&int_modo=1

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derStandard.at 07. April 2004
Mr. Dou und der Alltag in China
Über den Asiatica-Händler, Sammler und Abenteurer François Dautresme

Eine Schau im Grimaldi Forum widmet sich dem Lebenswerk des Händlers, Sammlers und Abenteurers François Dautresme. Der begann 1963 systematisch die Alltagsgegenstände Chinas zu sammeln und kaum bekannte Handwerkstraditionen zu bewahren.

Monte Carlo/Paris - China: Alltagsschätze - auf den Spuren von François Dautresme lautet der Titel der Ausstellung, die vom 9. April bis 16. Mai in Monte Carlo zu sehen ist. Das monegassische Ausstellungszentrum Grimaldi Forum organisiert in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Pariser Asiatika-Museum Guimet und den Erben des China-Sammlers François Dautresme (1925-2002) die Schau, die einen Einblick in die Handwerkskunst und die Lebensgewohnheiten im ländlichen China des 20. Jahrhunderts gibt.

Als Leitfaden dienen die von François Dautresme innerhalb von knapp vierzig Jahren in China aufgefundenen Alltagsgegenstände. Präsentiert werden sie anhand der Lebensabschnitte des Menschen: vom Kind über Jugend zur Reife, das (vielen Wechseln unterworfene) Leben der Frauen, das Alter. Den Bauern, Fischern und Töpfern sind Spezialabteilungen gewidmet, da sie eine jahrtausendealte und kaum veränderte Tradition weiterführen, deren Entdeckung und Bewahrung bzw. Weiterführung zum Lebensinhalt von François Dautresme wurde.

Die Soldaten gehörten - insbesondere unter Mao seit 1949 - zu einem der gesellschaftlichen Ideale, das erst von der zeitgenössischen bildenden Kunst ironisch infrage gestellt wird. Auch hier hat das Gespür des Beobachters und Sammlers viele typische Gegenstände vor dem Untergang gerettet, die nun in Monte Carlo präsentiert werden.

65 Prozent der über 400 Exponate stammen aus der Sammlung von François Dautresme, 20 Prozent aus dem Musée Guimet, 15 Prozent von diversen anderen Leihgebern. Der Generalkurator des Musée Guimet, Jean-Paul Desroches, ein großer Bewunderer des China-Sammlers Dautresme, organisiert und strukturiert die Schau und den begleitenden Katalog.

Der könnte zu einem Referenzwerk für Gebräuche und Gegenstände im ländlichen China werden, wo die Millenniumstraditionen im Zuge der systematischen Modernisierung und weltweiten Uniformierung in Windeseile verwischt, vergessen oder bewusst verworfen werden.

Bedrohtes Handwerk

Der in Paris geborene François Dautresme stammte aus einer Familie von charakterstarken Abenteurern. François bereiste die Welt. 1963 kam er erstmals nach China, das er bis zu seinem Tode kreuz und quer durchforschte. Um die vom Aussterben bedrohten Handwerkstraditionen zu retten, gründet er 1967 die Exportfirma Compagnie française de l'Orient de la Chine. Er bestellte in den entferntesten Dörfern Chinas, sobald er eine für ihn neue, meist vom Untergang bedrohte Technik - z. B. des Töpferns - entdeckte, eine ausreichende Anzahl an Vasen, Schalen, Tellern, Körben usw., die er nach Frankreich importierte, um sie in den Geschäften der Compagnie anzubieten.

Inzwischen gibt es sieben Compagnie-Geschäfte in Paris, zwei in Brüssel und eines in Barcelona. Höchst geschmackvolle Einrichtungsgegenstände, auch Möbel, können da zu durchaus erschwinglichen Preisen erstanden werden. Mit den Geschäften finanzierte Dautresme seine Reisen und seine Sammelleidenschaft.

Boote und Maschinen

Er spürte nicht nur Töpfer auf, die blaue Schalen mit einem ganz präzise gesetzten roten Fleck in der unveränderten Technik seit mehr als eintausend Jahren herzustellen vermögen. Er verhandelte auch mit den Kuratoren des Museums in Nanking, die ihm schließlich Riesenobjekte wie Fischerboote mit der gesamten Ausstattung, ein Floß aus Bambusrohr oder Landwirtschaftsmaschinen verkauften.

Damit rettete François Dautresme diese Gegenstände vor der endgültigen Vernichtung. In seiner Lagerhalle in einer Pariser Vorstadt standen neben dem dschunkenartigen Fischerboot, das ebenfalls nach Monte Carlo transportiert wurde, mehrere erstaunliche Objekte: z. B. eine Landwirtschaftsmaschine, die im gleichen Arbeitsgang den Feldboden harkt und die Saat streut. "Die Chinesen sind das einzige Volk auf der Welt, das beide Arbeitsgänge in einem Durchgang erledigen kann", betont Museumskurator Jean-Paul Desroches.

Besonders amüsant ist ein zylinderförmiger Kindersessel, in dem das Kleinkind hockt oder steht und von unten (mit Kohle) beheizt wird. Dieser witzige, intelligente Kindersessel ziert nun im Grimaldi Forum die Abteilung Kindheit, ergänzt durch Kleidungsstücke, Spielzeug oder rätselhafte Zeichnungen. Letztere sollen die bösen Geister von dem Kind entfernen - ein Aberglaube, der den Maoismus überdauerte.

François Dautresme, den die Chinesen "Mister Dou" nannten, ging, wie sein Porträtfoto beweist, in der fernöstlichen Menschenmasse unter. Aber "Mister Dou" verhinderte, dass die völkerkundlich wichtigen Alltagsgegenstände aus China ebenfalls untergingen.
(DER STANDARD, Printausgabe, 8.4.2004)
http://derstandard.at/?id=1626398

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Matthias Arnold M.A.
Digital Resources
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University of Heidelberg
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