Summer auction sale of fine art, antiques and objets d’art

Thursday, October 19, 2017

The North Cotswold Saleroom, Bourton-on-the-Water

IT WAS certainly true to say that Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art made up the lion’s share of this highly busy and extremely popular Sale of Fine Art, Antiques and Objets D’Art, the last of three such specialist Auction Sales held annually.

As sometimes does happen, the Auctioneer, occasionally gets it wrong!

Such was the case with a certain Lot No, 66 within this Sale that the Auctioneers knew to be desirable but did not find out just how desirable, until sale time itself.

It is true to say that pre-sale interest in particular Lots naturally enough gives the Auctioneer a “pointer” and once again it was certainly true enough that many very high ranking dealers and collectors expressed much interest in it with many further close up images and pre-sale condition reports going out beforehand to all interested parties with even several London and further afield dealers travelling all the way to The North Cotswold Saleroom with the sole specific intention of viewing the piece first hand.

The piece in question was a very small quatrefoil shaped Chinese porcelain Dish which was known to be “mark and period”.

Essentially, this means that the Chinese reign mark upon the underside of the piece alluded to the particular Emperor that was on the throne when the piece was made.

Sometimes, and perhaps more often than not the reign marks underside Chinese ceramics are “spurious” in the respect that they are often put onto a piece with the intention of venerating an earlier Chinese Emperor wholly as a mark of respect even though the marks state that items of this nature were made many years before they actually were.

The excitement based around this particular piece was that together with the mark and period attribution, the small five inch dish was deemed of exceptional quality and as such the only real conclusion that the Chinese collectors and scholars could in fact draw, was that it was actually made for the Imperial Emperor (Daoguang 1820-1850) himself.

It is also a well-known fact that any “Imperial” Ceramics made for the Emperor and not deemed to be of sufficient quality were destroyed at the kiln.

Bidding started off at a relatively high £5,000 (given the pre-sale Auction estimate of £50-£70!) and did not take long to rise to the £20,500 hammer price (plus buyer’s premium) tendered by a major London dealer who naturally enough, was exceptionally happy with the extremely rare and desirable Chinese Dish.

The Auctioneers report excellent entries of assorted fine art, antiques and objets d’art (including Chinese ceramics) that have already been consigned for the first Auction Sale of this type (live, Global internet bidding) to be held on February 22, 2018, at The North Cotswold Saleroom, Bourton on the Water.

For further information contact Fine Art Auctioneer Martin Lambert on 01451 821666

or email: fineart@taylerandfletcher.co.uk

taylerandfletcher.co.uk