Good results for Chinese wares in first auction of new year

AS THE Chinese prepare to ram the Year of the Goat into history and swing into the Year of the Monkey, oriental wares were performing well at Moore Allen & Innocent’s first sale of the new year.

The top lot price of the day at the Cirencester auction house was the £880 paid for a collection of Chinese and Japanese decorative pottery.

The lot included a lidded urn, double gourd shaped lidded vases with prunus decoration, baluster shaped vases with prunus decoration and floral and bird decoration, signed to bases, a lidded pot of squat form, bearing four character mark to base, a ginger jar with landscape decoration, a vase with famille rose palette, a Japanese satsuma vase, and two Chinese blue and white decorated plates.

Also highly prized was a large (49cm tall) Chinese famille verte baluster shaped vase decorated with figures in an interior, together with a further baluster shaped vase decorated in the Imari palette with floral and dragon decoration, raised on a metal scrolling vine and fruit decorated base, and an Imari scalloped bowl.

The lot achieved £280 – in excess of the £50 to £80 anticipated.

In the picture section, a woodblock triptych print, The Sumo Match with Onlookers, after Kunisada Toyokuni III (1785-1864) made £180, while Yozimbo, a modern abstract piece by Hamada Taisuke (born 1932), realised £220.

Taken from the artist’s Samurai series of paintings, and the oil on canvas – featuring a splatter of blood red paint over a background of black – is said to represent the image of a samurai from the prone perspective of the viewer, who has been slain by the warrior and lies dying.

Elsewhere in the sale, 19th century mahogany square fronted chest far exceeded the auctioneer’s estimate of £100 to £150, making the second highest lot price of the day at £620.

Similarly a 19th century mahogany bookcase with wirework panelled doors achieved £550 against an estimate of £100 to £150.

A George III oak cased long case clock with 30 hour movement, inscribed Archer Stow (Richard), achieved £400, and a 19th century stained beech framed window seat with blue striped upholstered top achieved £300.

The next auction is on Friday, January 29.

For a full auction catalogue, log on to mooreallen.co.uk/auction-house