New York, 26 August 2011
Christie’s New York will organise its Asian Art Week with six sales, from 13 to 16 September. Approximately 1,300 lots will be up for sale during these four days for a total estimate of $50 million.
Modern and contemporary southern Asian art will open the celebrations at 10 am on 13 September. 20th and 21st century works by artists such as Syed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza and Tyeb Mehta will be showcased. Maqbool Fida Husain, who died at the beginning of the summer, will be the star of this sale with a large-scale oil painting, Sprinkling Horses, whose estimation is only available on demand. The sale of the Keehn family collection will also be one of the most significant events of the week.
In the afternoon, a selection of Indian and south-eastern Asian art will be presented. 200 sculptures, paintings and art objects from India, Tibet, Nepal and other countries from the South-East of Asia will go under the hammer. Some of these items come from collections, including the Burkhart Collection and the Dr. David Nalin Collection and the most important piece will be a 15th century bronze Buddha from Nepal. The sculpture is estimated from $400,000 to $600,000.
On 14 September, the day will be dedicated to Japanese and Korean art with more than 250 pieces. Experts hope the sale will amount to $9 million. The Japanese section will feature approximately 100 objects, including Inros from the Catherine H. Edson collection. The star piece, estimated from $600,000 to $800,000, is a portrait of Otani Oniji III by Toshusai Sharuku. The key Korean piece is a painting by Kim Whanki, Landscape in Blue, estimated between $2 million and $2.2 million.
There will be three auctions on 15 September. The first one will be held in the morning and will feature 150 objects from the Xu Hanqing collection, estimated at $7 million. Calligraphies, ancient paintings, seals and other precious Chinese objects will be up for sale. The star piece is an ensemble of 400 calligraphies by a hundred artists. The lot is estimated from $1.2 to $1.5 million. 17th century bronze, jade and ivory seals are also very much awaited. Xu Fubing, aka Xu Hanquing, was born in 1883 and died in 1950. He started working in a bank, all the while practising calligraphy, which gave him extensive knowledge of this art, when he started assembling his collection.
In the afternoon, another collection, dedicated to jade objects, will go under the hammer. A European collector will sell 36 sculptures that he had been assembling for fifty years.
Finally, the Asian art week will end on a Chinese ceramic and art objects auction. The sale will take place on 15 and 16 September and will feature over 550 objects. The auction’s turnover is expected to amount to $19 million, including a key lot, a bronze by Vairocana, estimated from $600,000 to $800,000.
The first results will give professionals an idea of the trends of the art market, most notably to see whether the financial crisis has had an impact on it. It will be interesting to observe how average quality objects are selling against exceptional ones.