Asia Week New York returned this month with a smaller program of exhibitions than we saw in this year’s spring edition, but the associated Asian Art Week sales at the major auction houses did not disappoint. Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctioned lots from China, Korea, Japan, India and the Himalayas; the former held two major sales, while the latter’s program encompassed six—three live auctions and three online sales. Across the board, Ming dynasty ceramics, Indian modernist paintings and one spectacular ancient bronze vessel stole the show. A (porcelain) elephant in the room also set auction records.
The highlights of Sotheby’s Dharma and Tantra and Chinese Art auctions
Sotheby’s Chinese Art sale was a remarkable success, totaling $15.3 million, far above the pre-estimate of $11-17 million. The star of this auction was the archaic bronze drinking vessel, Zhou Zha Hu, which hammered for $4.4 million, making it the second most expensive work of Asian art sold this year (after the “Dragon” Meiping vessel sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong for over $10 million). As the seal script inscription attests, this 3,000-year-old ceremonial vessel was commissioned by a member of the Zhou clan for ritual use by his father. Later treasured by the Qianlong Emperor, the Zhou Zha Hu was included in an illustrated catalogue of the Imperial bronze collection. The only other Hu vessel of this kind is a companion piece in the National Palace Museum in Taipei; this one is scheduled to be displayed in the Hong Kong Museum of Art next year, thus returning a monumental relic to China.
Other major sales included an exemplar of Qing Dynasty porcelain sculpture: a figure of Puxian (a bodhisattva associated with meditation) seated on a white elephant, the bodhisattva’s traditional vehicle. The fine detail of this famille-rose porcelain piece, the only known example of Puxian rendered with such precision in porcelain, fetched $1,236,000, far exceeding the low estimate of $500,000. The elephant’s remarkable six tusks remain intact.
Sotheby’s second sale, Dharma and Tantra, focused on art from the Himalayan region and totaled $934,620, with 70 percent of lots sold. The star of the show was a gilt-copper alloy figure of Avalokiteshvara from 14th-century Tibet, which fetched $102,000, soaring over a high estimate of $30,000. While this auction was less high-stakes than Sotheby’s Dharma and Tantra sale of September of 2023 (which netted $4.8 million), Himalayan art is certainly not lagging in collectors’ regard.
The highlights of Christie’s three live Asia Week sales
Christie’s held three live-auction sales: the two-day Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art auction (totaling $11,639,224), the South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction (totaling $9,385,992) and the Japanese and Korean Art auction (totaling $4,241,160). The auction house’s three online sales coinciding with Asia Week New York remain open for bidding through the end of this week.
The star of the Important Chinese Ceramics and Important Works of Art auction was an exquisitely preserved “peony” dish from the decade-long reign of the Ming Dynasty Xuande Emperor (1425 – 1435), renowned for his artistic patronage. Such “blue and white reserve” style dishes featuring a blue ground with white details are exceedingly rare within a tradition of ceramics that overwhelmingly privileges a white ground with blue motifs.
Another sale of note was that of a set of three-color Imperial glass stem bowls sold for $730,000, far exceeding its low estimate of $80,000. As Christie’s specialist Rufus Chen told Observer, the combination of blue, coral and green glass—each section intended to mimic a natural material: lapis lazuli, coral and jade, respectively—is exceedingly rare, all the more so given that such glass craftsmanship has survived intact from the Qianlong period.
Christie’s Japanese and Korean auction was once again led by a print of Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock Under the Well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa. The print fetched $856,800, exceeding Christie’s spring Asian Art Week sale of the same subject by more than $150,000. That’s nowhere near the record-setting $2.8 million an iteration of the print fetched in 2023, but it certainly confirms collectors’ enduring reverence for this iconic image.
The Korean lots were led by an 18th-century Jeoson dynasty blue and white porcelain jar decorated with a poem and four landscapes, selling for $378,000. Perhaps most surprising was the sale of an 18th-century Insho (Seal-Type) Sashi-Netsuke for $37,800, more than 7.5 times above its low estimate of $5,000. This miniature Edo Period carving depicts a mythical lion-dog/bird/dragon composite creature that clearly captured a particular collector’s heart.
While Chinese art is typically the highest-grossing category within Asian sales, the remarkable success of the South Asian auction is perhaps most notable, having sold 98 percent of available lots. Jehangir Sabavala’s vibrant abstract canvas, The Radiant Spheres, realized the auction’s top price of $730,800, and four other artists—Ram Kumar, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Ivan Peris and Mohammed Kibria—each set auction records for their work. This reflects great momentum for Christie’s sales in modern and contemporary South Asian art, following a spring Asian Art Week auction that sold 100 percent by lot, totaling nearly $20,000,000 and setting a record for a single canvas by Modernist Francis Newton Souza at nearly $5,000,000.
Keep in mind that Asia Week New York’s September edition is often just a run-up to Asia Week New York’s flashier offerings in March, when more vases, waves, canvases, bronzes and bodhisattvas go under the gavel. There may even be another exceedingly rare elephant in the room.
