MINIATURE CHINESE ART MAKES WORLD RECORD PRICES AT BONHAMS IN HONG KONG
Bonhams Celebrate Golden Gavel Auction With 100% Sold In £5.8m Sale
Bonhams Hong Kong today celebrated the first-ever “Golden Gavel Auction” in its history, when part of the world’s finest collection of important Chinese snuff bottles, the Mary and George Bloch Collection, sold 100% and achieved world record prices. Against presale estimates of HK$20,000,000 (£1.8m), the sale total was HK$66,146,800 (£5.8m), with every one of the 140 rare bottles successfully sold. This figure was double the previous sale total for a single-owner snuff bottle auction held in New York on 19 March 2008.
Auctioneer Colin Sheaf, Chairman of Bonhams Asia, commented: “This is the finest auction of Chinese art which Bonhams has held in Asia, and the record prices proved that the market for Chinese art remains very strong for the most important pieces”.
As expected, the star of the auction was lot 129, one of the most beautiful bottles in private hands ever made for the Imperial Court of 18th Century China. Estimated at HK$1,800,000 – 3,000,000, international bidders from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and the UK battled the bidding up to a final figure of HK$9,280,000 (£821,383,000), a new world record price for a snuff bottle.
Other record prices included lot 140, an inscribed nephrite pebble-material snuff bottle which went for a world record price for any jade snuff bottle at HK$6,032,000 (estimate: HK$1,000,000 – 2,000,000); lot 132, an Imperial “famille-rose” ‘bird on branch’ enamelled glass snuff bottle, Qianlong mark and period, which sold at HK$5,248,000 (estimate: HK$2,000,000 – 4,00,000) a world record for any enamelled glass snuff bottle; lot 27, an Imperial famille-rose poreclain bottle, Qianlong mark and period, similar to others in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, which sold at HK$3,960,000 (estimate: HK$1,400,000 – 2,000,000), a world record for any enamelled porcelain snuff bottle; lot 8, a double-overlay sapphire-blue and white glass ‘dragon’ snuff bottle which sold at HK$672,000 (estimate: HK$220,000 – 350,000), a world record price for any glass overlay snuff bottle; lot 34, an inside-painted rock-crystal snuff bottle which sold at HK$336,000 (estimate: HK$60,000 – 120,000), a world record for any inside-painted snuff bottle by Gan Xuanwen; and two other superb Imperial Beijing enamel bottles, lot 77, which flew past its estimate of HK$1,400,000 – 2,500,000 to make HK$4,200,000 and lot 67, which sold for HK$2,640,000 (estimate HK$1,800,000 – 3,000,000).
Many of the finest bottles at Bonhams were bid for and bought by active collectors from Mainland China, the first time that such strong demand from Chinese buyers has been seen anywhere in the world for Imperial Chinese snuff bottles.
Bonhams’ Head of Chinese Ceramic and Works of Art in Hong Kong Julian King who prepared the auction, said: “Today saw a new buying power in the world market for Imperial Chinese art. This marked an important change in the whole structure of prices for the finest pieces at Bonhams.”
Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further five throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston in the USA; Toronto, Canada; and France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. By the end of 2009, Bonhams had become UK market leaders in ten key specialist collecting areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com
