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A finely cast gilt-bronze figure of Guanyin, Ming dynasty, 17th century

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Lot 18. A finely cast gilt-bronze figure of Guanyin, Ming dynasty, 17th century. Estimate GBP 80,000 - GBP 120,000Price realised GBP 87,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2017.

Guanyin is cast seated in padmasana, and holds a willow stem in the raised right hand and a cup in the left hand. Thebodhisattva is decorated with ornate jewellery and wears layered robes with crisply chased floral borders on a stamped ground. The crown has five openwork points and is centred by a seated figure of Amitabha Buddha. 18 ½ in. (47 cm.) high

ProvenanceProperty of a European Gentleman.

Note: A larger (58.8 cm. high), similarly decorated Guanyin holding a scroll was sold at Christie's London, 8 November 2016, lot 114.

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A rare gilt-bronze figure of Guanyin, 17th century. Sold for 269,000 GBP at Christie's London, 8 November 2016, lot 114. © Christie's Images Ltd 2016.

Cf. my post: A rare gilt-bronze figure of Guanyin, Ming dynasty, 17th century

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London


The Crown of Kerch and Other Treasures at Neues Museum

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The "Crown of Kerch", tiara set with red garnet inserts, late 4th / 1st half of the 5th century AD, © Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, photo: Anja Wegner.

BERLIN - The exhibition titled “The Crown of Kerch. Treasures from the Dawn of European History” is currently on view at Neues Museum, Berlin.

The show features gold jewelry dating back to the migration period found near the Black Sea. The exhibition comprises of silver brooches, ornaments crafted in the shape of animals and mythical creatures, and bejeweled belts from early medieval graves in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Selections from the collection of Johannes von Diergardt are also on view after a period of 80 years. It returns to Berlin since it was last displayed in 1934. Post the demise of von Diergardt these works were moved to the Römisch-Germanisches Museum located in Cologne. Due to ongoing construction in Cologne, the collection has traveled to Berlin and is on display at the Neues Museum. The exhibition is the result of collaboration between Museums für Vor- und Frühgeschichte - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Römisch-Germanischen Museum of the city of Cologne.

The Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte is one of the world’s largest collections of archaeological and prehistoric objects. It is displayed at the Neues Museum on the Museumsinsel Berlin. The collection traces the development of prehistoric and protohistoric cultures from the Paleolithic period till the High Middle Ages. The highlights of the collection include a skull of a Neanderthal from Le Moustier, Heinrich Schliemann’s collection of Trojan antiquities, and the ‘Berlin Gold Hat’.

19.10.2017 to 29.09.2019 

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Two animal-shaped pieces of jewelery, decorated with red stones and small gold balls, region on the Black Sea, 4./5. Century AD,© Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, Photo: Anja Wegner

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Dress brooch in the shape of an eagle, late 5th / 1st half of the 6th century AD, © Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, photo: Anja Wegner

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Early medieval primer adorned with pieces of garnet, origin unknown, 2nd half of the 6th century AD, © Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, photo: Anja Wegner

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Golden belt buckle, shows a griffin with predator body, wings and peacock's tail, locality unknown, around 600 / 1st half of the 7th century AD,© Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, Photo: Anja Wegner

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Golden finger ring in the form of a snake, location unknown, 2nd century BC, © Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, Photo: Anja Wegner

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Gold bracelet, shows two cats, Afghanistan or Tajikistan, 1st century BC BC - 2nd century AD, © Roman-Germanic Museum / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, Photo: Anja Wegner

Short Sword (Yatagan) from the Court of Süleyman the Magnificent (reigned 1520–66), Istanbul, ca. 1525–30

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Short Sword (Yatagan) from the Court of Süleyman the Magnificent (reigned 1520–66), Workshop of Ahmed Tekelü (possibly Iranian, active Istanbul, ca. 1520–30), Istanbul, ca. 1525–30. Steel, gold, ivory (walrus), silver, turquoise, pearls, rubies. L. 23 3/8 in. (59.3 cm); L. of blade 18 3/8 in. (46.7 cm); Wt. 1 lb. 8 oz. (691 g). Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1993, 1993.14 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Exquisite workmanship and lavish use of precious materials distinguish this sword as a princely weapon and exemplifies the opulence and refinement of Ottoman luxury arts. Almost identical to a yatagan (now in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul) made in 1526–27 by the court jeweler Ahmed Tekel, for the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), this sword was undoubtedly made in the same imperial workshop. The gold incrustation on the blade depicts a combat between a dragon and a phoenix against a background of foliate scrolls. These figures, like the gold-inlaid cloud bands and foliate scrolls on the ivory grips, are Chinese in inspiration, and were probably introduced into Ottoman art through contacts with Persia.

This sword is one of the earliest known yatagans, distinctly Turkish weapons characterized by a double-curved blade and a hilt without a guard. Yatagans were commonplace in Turkey and the Balkans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and served as sidearms for the elite troops known as janissaries.

Dagger with Scabbard, Indian, Mughal, 1605–27

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Dagger with Scabbard, Indian, Mughal, 1605–27. Steel, iron, gold, rubies, emeralds, glass, wood, textile. L. 14 5/8 in. (37.1 cm); L. without scabbard 13 15/16 in. (35.4 cm); L. of grip 4 13/16 in. (12.2 cm); L. of blade 9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm); W. of grip 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm); L. of scabbard 10 1/2 in. (26.7 cm). Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund and The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift, 1984, 1984.332 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

The hilt of the dagger is constructed of heavy sections of gold over an iron core and its scabbard mounts are of solid gold. All the intricately engraved surfaces are set with gems and colored glass finely cut with floral forms. The designs closely parallel those in Mughal painting of the early seventeenth century, suggesting the dagger dates from the reign of Emperor Jahangir (1605–27), whose deep love of nature, especially flowers, is well documented in his memoirs, the "Tuzuk." The blade is forged of watered steel.

A White Jade Dragon and Phoenix Vase and Cover, Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period (1736-1795)

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Lot 27. A White Jade Dragon and Phoenix Vase and Cover, Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period (1736-1795). Estimate £80,000–120,000. Lot sold £273,000Photo Sotheby's.

the flattened baluster body delicately carved in relief to the front face with a round panel enclosing a ferocious scaly dragon writhing amongst scrollwork, the reverse with a similar panel enclosing a phoenix, the waisted neck framed with elaborate phoenix-head handles supporting rings, with a thin archaic band and key-fret below the rim, and similar bands above the spreading foot, the domed cover with further archaistic and keyfret bands below the oval knop, the stone of a pale celadon/white colour with a dark brown flaw to one side, inlaid wood stand. Quantity: 3 - 30.8 cm, 12 1/8  in.

ProvenanceCollection of a noble French family. 
S. Bulgari, Rome.

NoteThis vase is impressive for its large form and delicately carved design expertly fashioned in low relief. It belongs to a group of jade vessels made under the Qianlong Emperor that successfully combine archaic forms and designs with contemporary styles in response to the Emperor’s eclectic taste. The craftsman of the present piece has successfully created a highly original and contemporary object by combining the archaic bronze hu form with dragon and phoenix roundels, and zoomorphic masks on the sides that feature a ‘C’-shaped design which recalls ‘C’-scrolls of European rocaille designs. 

Compare a white jade vase of similar form and size, also modelled with phoenix handles but carved in relief with birds in a landscape, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji [The complete collection of Chinese jades], vol. 6, Shijiazhuang, 1993, pl. 208; another flanked with animal-mask handles and decorated on the body with deer, from the collections of N.B. Pilcher and Alan and Simone Hartman, illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 141, and sold in these rooms, 30th October 1987, lot 297; and a third, carved with a landscape and attributed to the 19th century, from the collection of Mr and Mrs Lawrence Keane, Boston, sold in our New York rooms, 15th/16th September 2015, lot 180.  

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A pale celadon jade 'Crane and Deer' vase and cover, Qing dynasty, 19th century. Sold for $910,000 at Sotheby's New York, 15th/16th September 2015, lot 180. Photo Sotheby's

Cf. my post: A pale celadon jade 'Crane and Deer' vase and cover, Qing dynasty, 19th century

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, London, 08 nov. 2017, 11:00 AM

A Gilt-Bronze Figure of Shakyamuni Buddha, Ming Dynasty, Early 15th Century

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Lot 67. A Gilt-Bronze Figure of Shakyamuni Buddha, Ming Dynasty, Early 15th Century. Estimate £60,000–80,000. Lot sold £187,500 . Photo Sotheby's.

well-cast and depicted seated in vajraparyankasana on a double-lotus basewith hands held in dhyanamudra, wearing a pleated robe draped over the left shoulder and falling in loose folds over his legs, with the undergarment gathered at the chest, the serene face with downcast eyes and a meditative expression flanked by long pendulous ears, the hair arranged in tight curls covering the ushnisha and surmounted by an ovoid jewel, inscribed Qiantang Chen Yanqing Zao (Made by Chen Yanqing, from Qiantang), wood stand. Quantity: 2 - 27 cm, 10 5/8  in.

Provenance: Collection of Ernest Hamilton Sharp (1861-1922), OBE, appointed King's Counsel for the colony of Hong Kong in July 1902.  

NoteThis exquisite figure is notable for its fine casting and gilding, as evidenced in the naturalistically modelled folds of the robes and in the figure’s serene facial expression. Stylistically it follows in the tradition established in the Yuan period, when Tibetan Buddhism became the court religion and a new sculptural style began to appear. Figures with gently smiling faces, full rounded bodies and tiered thrones are depicted in the early 14th century wooblocks made for the monastery of Yanshen Yuan, Hangzhou, and illustrated in Heather Stoddard Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art, Warminster, 1975, pls 26, 29 and 30. It is possibly these images, which reflect the style favoured in Tibet at the time, that craftsmen active in the early 15th century used for inspiration. 

 

This piece is also notable on account of its inscription, which identifies its maker as Chen Yanqing, a sculptor who appears to have been active in Hangzhou from the late Yuan to the early 15th century. Surviving examples of Shakyamuni Buddha signed by Chen are rare, although a slightly larger example cast with very similar features, from the collection of Jas R. Herbert Boone, was sold in our New York rooms, 18th/19th April 1989, lot 150A. See also a gilt-bronze figure of Zhenwu signed Chen Yanqing and dated 1439, from the collection of Robert Sonnenschein II, now in the Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated in Stephen Little, Taoism and the Arts of China, Berkeley, 2000, pl. 103; and one depicting Laozi and dated 1438, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Daisy Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied. Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, pl. 38.

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 Chen Yanqing, Daoist God Zhenwu (Perfected Warrior), Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heaven, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Zhengtong period (1435-1449), dated 1439. Gilt bronze, 34.3 x 24.0 x 16.7 cm (13 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 6 5/8 in.). Gift of Robert Sonnenschein II, 1950.1054 © Art Institute of Chicago

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Chen Yanqing (active 15th century), Daoist Immortal Laozi, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), dated 1438. Gilt brass; lost-wax cast. H. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm); W. 4 3/4 in. (12 cm); D. 2 3/4 in. (7 cm). Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 1997, 1997.139 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, London, 08 nov. 2017, 11:00 AM

Animals: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg opens new exhibition

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"Animals. Respect / Harmony / Submission". Poster.

HAMBURG.- Animals are a frequent subject of debate these days. Do they have a soul? How much do they suffer? Are we under any obligation to protect their individuality by granting them rights? Are human beings morally authorized to do as they want with animals, to consume them, rob them of their freedom and train them for the purposes of entertainment? Scientific discussion takes the relationship between animal and human being very seriously. In the everyday life of our consumption-oriented society, on the other hand, that relationship oscillates between unreflecting exploitation and sentimental anthropomorphization. Against the background of these contrasts, the exhibition ANIMALS at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburghas been geared primarily towards informing visitors and sensitizing them to ways and means of respectful co-existence. With a view to the visual and applied arts but also to science, the show undertakes to re-evaluate the common history of man and animal from the perspective of a wide range of epochs, cultures and media. Loans from museums as well as natural history and ethnology-oriented institutions of Germany and the world will enhance the objects from the MKG’s own abundant and diverse collection. The chief focus is on works of the visual arts in which the interaction between animal and man gives rise to something altogether new. So-called thematic islands unite creations of high culture with those from popular contexts, while also integrating examples from indigenous cultures and natural history. The exhibition features some 200 objects dating from antiquity to the present, including paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, video art, large-scale installations and films. In addition to the 1,200 square metres exhibition there are 14 satellite locations throughout the entire museum that focus on animals. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Hirmer Verlag.

This exhibition explores the relationship of animals and mankind with a view on the arts and focusses on ethical, spiritual and emotional questions. The centre for Natural History (CeNak) at the University of Hamburg, as a cooperation institution of the MKG, completes the perspective with a scientific view of mankind in the animal world. Beside the joint projects with the Zoological Museum, CeNak presents a special exhibition “Vanishing Legacys: The world as a Forest” (10 November 2017 – 29 March 2018) addressing the current research results regarding species extinction, deforestation and climate change. 

Origins and Inspiration 
The oldest known depictions of animals date to over 30,000 years ago – carved out of bones or painted on the walls of caves. Ever since humans started making artworks, animals have been one of the main sources of inspiration. The earliest object in the exhibition, the engaging amber sculpture of a moose from Weitsche, dates back to the Ice Age. Just like a falcon sculpture found in Egypt, a jade deer from China, a bull from the ancient Orient, and a golden boar from Greece, it bears witness to the encounter between human and animal. All of these works tell us something about how humans viewed the animals around them, how the particular society saw itself and about its religious and moral constitution, its attitude to creation and to nature. The exhibition examines how artists across the ages envisioned animals and the aesthetic developments that influenced their interpretations.  

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Sphinx, probably Roman copy after classical model (440-450 v. Chr.), Marble, 59,8 cm, Antikenmuseum Basel and collection Ludwig, Basel, © Antikenmuseum Basel and collection Ludwig

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Maria Weyersberg, Praying mantises, Namibia, Groß-Spitzkopjes, 1929, watercolor on paper, 92 x 135 cm, collection Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt am Main

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Sirene, terracotta, 3rd century BC Athens, 14.6 x 12 cm, Inv. NI 5417, © Staatliche Antikensammlungen and Glyptothek Munich, Photo: Renate Kühling

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Akihiro Higuchi, Collection Cockroach, 2017, Insects Preperat, Japanese Lacquer, Gold Dust, Powdered Silver, 13 x 6 cm, Courtesy of Mikiko Sato Gallery, Hamburg, © Mikiko Sato Gallery

Longing and Distance 
Paradise! A return to Arcadia is not possible, but the arts can play a vital role on the way to a better future. The selection of works on view is not based on chronology or specific species; instead, two renderings of elephants form thematic bookends for a wide range of animal depictions ranging from early civilizations to the present. The cave was the birthplace of both magic and enlightenment, as our ancestors began to develop a first impression of themselves and the world. Humans did not yet dominate their world; on a painting in the Mutoko Cave in Zimbabwe, fleet stick figures seek their place in the vast animal kingdom. Two majestic elephant silhouettes stand watch over the scene teeming with flora and fauna. They are the rulers of the visible world and the mediators between it and transcendental spheres. The life-size copies made by art students in 1929 on an expedition to Zimbabwe with the ethnologist Leo Frobenius spread word of the prehistoric rock and cave paintings. The seven-meter-wide drawing of the Big Elephants and further sheets convey in the exhibition a connection between human and animal in prehistoric times, in a society whose organization we still know very little about. But they stand above all for modern man’s longing for a harmonious consensus with nature, a primordial state that we presume prevailed in many early civilizations.  

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Large Elephants, other Animals, and People Painted in Various Layers, after a wall painting in the Mutoko Caves in Zimbabwe, 1929, Joachim Lutz© Frobenius-Institut an der Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main

It is for this reason that Franz Marc’s Dog Lying in the Snow (1911) and The Goldfish (1925) by Paul Klee are juxtaposed with the cave paintings in the show. Both artists tried in their work to picture an authentic world that had in the meantime been lost. Klee’s Goldfish visualizes the beginnings of life emerging from the primordial soup of the waters. Marc’s metaphysical view of a resting animal at peace with itself and the world imagines an early state of innocence, which must then yield to the exigencies of civilization. Joseph Beuys, too, evoked melancholy at the loss of an edenic unity of man and animal. He sought closer contact with the animal spirit in ceremonial acts. Just as the “animalization” of the world represented for Marc a vision of the future, for Beuys, recovering the communication between human and animal was an integral part of a new, environmentally motivated social movement.  

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Franz Marc (1880-1916), Lying dog in the snow, 1910/1911, oil on canvas, 62.5 × 105 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt / Main, property of the Städelsche Museums-Verein eV, photo: © Städel Museum - ARTOTHEK

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Paul Klee (1879-1940), The Goldfish, 1925, oil and watercolor on paper, 49.6 x 69.2 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, © Hamburger Kunsthalle / Elke Walford

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“Photographic Experiments Using X-Rays”, Two Goldfish, a Sea Fish and Sole, Josef Maria Eder (1855–1944) and Eduard Valenta, Vienna 1896© Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

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The collection of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Box Containing Four Petrified Fish From Monte Bolca, Fossils in limestone from the Eocene age (Lutetium), © Klassik Stiftung Weimar

A contemporary response to the elephants from the cave is provided in a video installation by Douglas Gordon from 2003: The elephant cow Minnie was brought from the circus to New York’s Gagosian Gallery. We see her there laying down – or falling – and awkwardly getting up again in a clinical white room. In Play Dead; Real Time, Gordon doesn’t summon thoughts of a common origin but instead reflects on the changed balance of power in the course of thousands of years of co-evolution of humans and elephants. Forced to assume unusual poses for the camera, Minnie looks both powerful and vulnerable at the same time. In her clumsy movements, she lends a face to all the anonymous trapping, training, and exploitation of elephants perpetrated by so many humans. The impressive work combines admiration for the beauty and dignity of the animal with empathy for a subjugated and drilled creature, and finally grief over the dying out of an endangered species.  

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Douglas Gordon, Play Dead; Real Time (this way), Play Dead; Real Time (that way); Play Dead; Real Time (the other way), 2003, Video Still, MMK Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt am Main, © Studio lost but found / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017

Insight and Appropriation 
We can never really know what it feels like to be an animal, nor can we say with any certainty how an animal feels about us. The desire to understand animals is an ancient one. Insights have been sought using all conceivable means. Scientific developments in this field and innovations in technical media have also influenced artistic practice. Over the centuries, paintings and graphic art techniques have shaped our basic concepts about the animal world. In the Renaissance, animals were made the sole subjects of depictions. Durer’s Young Hare is still today an iconic animal image. A contemporary copy by Hans Hoffmann is on view in the exhibition. Dürer’s Rhinoceros, on the other hand, originally printed as a leaflet, brought an animal worldwide fame that normally lies outside our horizon of experience. The combination of the fantastical, factual, and direct observation is characteristic of bestiaries and zoological encyclopedias that map the myriad species of the animal kingdom; exotic and mythical beasts are rendered here just as realistically as domestic animals. The deceptively true-to-life images are not an end in themselves, however, but are above all testimonies to the skills of the artists who made them. In the mid-18th century, George Stubbs’s gaze penetrated right under the animal’s skin. In five layers, he dissected the body of a horse down to the bare skeleton. This knowledge-oriented deconstruction reveals not only the anatomical facts but also a fundamental realization: The horse, like the human, is a creature of flesh and blood, vulnerable and capable of feeling pain. In the 19th century, the new media of photography and film brought previously hidden phenomena to light, and X-rays laid bare the internal structure of animals. Etienne-Jules Marey’s chrono-photographic experiments captured motion sequences in slow motion, in order to find new answers to the ageold question: Why does a cat always fall on its paws?  

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Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Rhinocerus, 1515, woodcut, 25.6 x 32.1 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, © Hamburger Kunsthalle / Christoph Irrgang

Animals can do many things humans can’t: They can rise into the air and maneuver safely through the dark night, like the bat. Bats sleep upside down while we are awake, and then unfurl their wings at dusk. A watercolor from the Dürer school depicts the bat’s flight apparatus in detail, the animal’s wingspan spreading beyond the margins of the sheet. Detailed anatomical studies were meant to make the “fantastic” world of animals understandable. Ernst Haeckel, for example, ventured in his 1904 Art Forms in Nature thirteen taxonomic descriptions of various bat faces. In the exhibition, a contemporary study of the bat’s abilities is contributed by Bat Bot from 2017. An American research team succeeded in mimicking the fascinating bat aeronautics, complete with complex movement sequences and a whisper-thin flight membrane.  

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Albrecht Dürer, formerly attributed, Bat, 1522© Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon, Photo: Pierre Guenat

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Brown long-eared (Plecotus auritus), whitening preparation, 15 x 20 x 6 cm. University of Hamburg, Center for Natural History, Zoological Museum, © Photo: MKG

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Alireza Ramezani, Soon-Jo Chung, Seth Hutchinson, Bat Bot (B2), 2017, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, © California Institute of Technology, Pasadena & University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign / Alireza Ramezani, Soon-Jo Chung, Seth Hutchinson

Subjugation and Fascination 
Do animals have a soul? Are we really entitled to eat them, imprison them, and drill them to do our bidding? In an image cosmos made up of 177 individual photographs made between 2006 and 2010 in various European food production locations, Michael Schmidt shows matter-of-factly, without sentiment or any moral appeal, the reality of the processing of animals for food. The very objectivity of this presentation of an everyday practice prompts us to critically reflect on the mass exploitation of animals. A rejoinder to the tableau Food is posed by an 18th-century Boar’s Head Tureen from the collection of MKG. In that era, hunting wild animals was still a dangerous feat, and their consumption not yet commonplace and hence associated with special ceremonies. While in the Middle Ages the bloody animal corpse would be placed directly on the table, the etiquette of the European courts banished the evisceration and cutting up of the animal to the kitchen. The deceptively realistic porcelain boar’s head contains not an identifiable animal but rather a steaming pot of game meat ragout. 

The young female orangutan that was brought to The Hague from the Dutch East Indies in 1776 caused a sensation. Speculations about the nature and appearance of the great apes and the boundaries between human and animal could finally be tested on a living specimen. The orangutan was clever, could break free of her chains, open a bottle of wine, take a swig, and then put it back. She was always in a good mood and didn’t like sleeping alone. On the first oil painting of a great ape, this orangutan eats strawberries from a porcelain plate with a silver fork. Despite these civilized traits, however, her abode is still a barren pen lined with straw. Human superiority is substantiated. Two generations later, Charles Darwin would characterize the ape as man’s closest relative, arguing for its ability to feel and empathize with others. Since then, humans have been forced to acknowledge that they are not the crowning achievement of all creation but merely one animal among others. Only recently there have been discussions in the USA and Turkey about banning Darwin’s theory of evolution from school curricula – demonstrating how disturbing this realization can still be even today. 

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Tethart Philipp Christian Haag, Orang Utan, eating strawberries, 1776, oil on canvas, 109 x 89 cm, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ullrich-Museum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen© Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, Braunschweig, Photo: Museum Photographer

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Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, Frontispiece, Thomas Henry Huxley, drawn by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 1863, © Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Carl von Ossietzky

No animal has preoccupied man as much as the ape. This is evident from a variety of exhibits: For the Egyptians, the baboon was the incarnation of Thot, the god of wisdom. The medieval world view banished the apes to the kingdom of the devil. On the stage of the Baroque courts, the ape wore a wig and inspired laughter with his vain attempts as an artist. In the wake of Darwin’s theorizing about evolution, Gabriel von Max showed a rhesus monkey confronting the skeleton of a fellow ape in a painting from around 1900 – does the ape realize upon this sight its own mortality? As late as the 1920s, apes in the zoo were still being presented dressed in human clothing. The constellation of ape and woman became a hot topic in the 1930s with the movie hero King Kong, a subject of lasting fascination. The chilling realism of the monstrous giant ape and the breathtaking chase scenes and views of the beast scrambling up New York’s Empire State Building contrasted the savage beast with the contemporary ideal of the progress of civilization. In the bloody end, however, pity for the unrequited lover triumphs over the fear of untamed nature.  

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Statuette of the God Thot in the shape of a sitting baboon, Egypt, 3 rd c. BCE, © Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim

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Gabriel von Max, Monkeys as judges of art, around 1889, oil on canvas. Private collection © photo: Martin Hahn

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Monkey Orchestra, Meißen, Otto Pilz, 1908–1912, Private collection

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Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, King Kong and the White Woman, 1933, film still, © Photo: Beta Film / Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt-KINEOS Collection

Myth and Desire 
Ancient mythology provided some disturbing answers to the question of where human nature ends and animality begins. From the constellation of god – human – animal, it developed hybrid creatures that challenge boundaries and taxonomies. How close or how far apart are human and animal? These composite creatures are unsettling because they make us sense that the boundaries are fluid ... Out of the countless anthropomorphic creatures that lie outside the accepted systems, the exhibition has chosen to focus on feathered changelings. The femme fatale decked out in feathers is dangerous! The Sphinx with her riddles about the world is featured on Sigmund Freud’s ex libris for good reason ... Medusa’s gaze can kill, no man alive can resist the song of the sirens, and vampires subsist on the blood of humans. As erotic temptresses, they make men their victims, arousing desire even today. Amidst ancient sculptures and paintings by Fernand Khnopff, Franz von Stuck, and Max Beckmann, the exhibition circuit also presents a modern-day siren: a bolero covered in parrot feathers from Jean Paul Gaultier’s first haute couture collection, in 1997, animated by a multimedia projection created at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg that lends the seductive feathered object a voice.  

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Max Beckmann (1884-1950), Vampire, 1947/48, oil on canvas, 53.2 x 82.6 cm, on permanent loan to the Museum Folkwang, Essen, privately owned since 2017, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017, photo : Museum Folkwang Essen - ARTOTHEK

Humans do not appear physically in this exhibition; they are presented instead by way of their desires and fears as mirrored in the depiction of animals. After their physical bearings have been lost and their faculty of reason switched off, however, we do encounter humans in two memorable images: Francisco Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from 1799 shows a man in an “exceptional state,” beset by owls and bats. The most famous scene of animals taking command is Johann Heinrich Füssli’s Nightmare, whose animal protagonists give rise to a wide range of interpretations: incest fantasy, the processing of unfulfilled passions, a moral panorama of the revolutionary age, or an encoded expression of violence. Because it lends itself to so many possible readings, the painting with its trio of white horse, apelike incubus, and woman’s body lasciviously draped upside-down across the bed has become an iconic image of the unfathomable relationship between human and animal. In the age of Enlightenment, animals insist in this picture on having a life of their own, which humans try to suppress and dominate without being able to fully comprehend it. When the dreamer awakes, her nighttime companions have vanished. This is why the physical weight of these chimeras so disturbs the subconscious mind. They point to the connection between animals and sexuality, an association already anchored in ancient mythology, which was taken up by Sigmund Freud and then appears in various forms in the erotic fantasies of the 20th century. Max Ernst painted the motif of the Bride of the Wind in 1927 as something he had seen in a dream, under the influence of psychoanalysis. Two amorphous horse bodies writhe in love play, under the sway of a magical star. The concept of the “uncanny” that Freud formulated in 1919, which acknowledges a feeling of strangeness, repulsion, and fear as part of what we find aesthetic, applies exceptionally well to the animals people encounter in their dreams.  

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Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825), The Nightmare, oil on canvas, © Freies Deutsches Hochstift / Frankfurt Goethe Museum, photo: David Hall

Reconciliation and Respect 
The exhibition ends on a conciliatory note with the video installation Raptor’s Rapture by Allora & Calzadilla. A musician and an Old World vulture sit opposite one another, and aggressive tones fill the room. The music is played on a prehistoric flute, a replica of the oldest surviving musical instrument, which came to light in 2008 in the Hohle Fels Cave. It was carved 35,000 years ago from the wing bone of a griffon vulture, an ancestor of our protagonist. Through the music, the bird and woman symbolically come into contact with their ancestors. They communicate in this way, the vulture responding to the sound of the flute with guttural calls and spanning its powerful wings. “Kak, kak,” calls the flute just like the vulture, sounds from a distant world. If the ability to express oneself artistically is part of being human, then it was apparently the animal that triggered this creativity in the first place. The vulture contributed the material for the flute not only with its wing bone, also sending the impulse to create sound and conveying to humans a sense of musicality. Raptor’s Rapture shows human and animal wrapped up in a dialogue and thus awakens the longing for harmonious co-existence – a desire that is presumed to have prevailed in primitive society but which has now been lost and must be regained in order to confidently face a common future.

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Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Raptor's Rapture, 2012, HD Video, 23:30 minutes, © Allora & Calzadilla; Courtesy of Allora and Calzadilla and Lisson Gallery

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Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Raptor's Rapture, 2012, HD Video, 23:30 minutes, © Allora & Calzadilla; Courtesy of Allora and Calzadilla and Lisson Gallery

A pair of blue and white 'boys' bowls, Jiaqing six-character seal marks and of the period (1796-1820)

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A pair of blue and white 'boys' bowls, Jiaqing six-character seal marks and of the period (1796-1820)

Lot 202. A pair of blue and white 'boys' bowls, Jiaqing six-character seal marks and of the period (1796-1820). 6 in. (15.5 cm.) diam. Estimate GBP 12,000 - GBP 18,000Price realised GBP 40,000© Christies Images Ltd 2017

Each bowl is decorated with a continuous scene of boys at play in a garden, and also with various musical instruments in a procession, all below willow trees in a fenced garden.

ProvenanceProperty of a Nordic Gentleman.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London


A blue and white 'Double Phoenix' dish, Yongzheng six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period

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A blue and white 'Double Phoenix' dish, Yongzheng six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1723-1735)

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Lot 194. A blue and white 'Double Phoenix' dish, Yongzheng six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1723-1735). 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm.) diam. Estimate GBP 6,000 - GBP 10,000Price realised GBP 37,500. © Christies Images Ltd 2017

The dish is finely decorated to the interior with a pair of confronting phoenix with outstretched wings and elaborate tail feathers, surrounded by scrolling clouds. The exterior is painted with a further pair of phoenix in flight, with a sprig of foliage in their beaks.

Provenance: Property of a Nordic Gentleman.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London

A large blue and white brush pot, bitong, Transitional period, mid-17th century

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A Large blue and white brush pot, bitong, Transitional period, mid-17th century

Lot 258. A large blue and white brush pot, bitong, Transitional period, mid-17th century. 7 7/8 in. (20 cm.) diamEstimate GBP 10,000 - GBP 15,000Price realised GBP 35,000. © Christies Images Ltd 2017

The exterior is decorated with a continuous scene depicting three Immortals, each respectively seated on a lion, an elephant, and a qilin, accompanied by two attendants, all in a rocky landscape with plaintain trees.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London

A pair of blue and white 'lotus' bowls, Daoguang six-character seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1821-1850)

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A pair of blue and white 'lotus' bowls, Daoguang six-character seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1821-1850)

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Lot 203. A pair of blue and white 'lotus' bowls, Daoguang six-character seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1821-1850). 7 ¼ in. (18.4 cm.) diam. Estimate GBP 10,000 - GBP 15,000Price realised GBP 33,750. © Christies Images Ltd 2017

Each bowl is decorated to the exterior of the deep sides with four roundels enclosing the characters wan shou wu jiang, surrounded by lotus scrolls below a band of the Eight Buddhist Emblems, bajixiang. The interior is decorated with a central roundel containing a stylisedshou character encircled by a further band of emblems.

ProvenanceProperty of a Nordic Gentleman.

NoteThe idiom wan shou wu jiang can be translated as 'ten thousand years of boundless longevity'.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London

A large blue and white 'Dragon' dish, Jiajing six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1522-1566)

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A large blue and white 'Dragon' dish, Jiajing six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1522-1566)

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Lot 15. A large blue and white 'Dragon' dish, Jiajing six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1522-1566). 20 in. (50.8 cm.) diam. Estimate GBP 30,000 - GBP 50,000Price realised GBP 30,000. © Christies Images Ltd 2017

The dish is decorated to the interior with a sinuous five-clawed dragon chasing a flaming pearl amongst scrolling clouds and scattered flames. The exterior is similarly decorated with two horizontal striding dragons, with the Jiajing reign mark in a line just below the rim. The base is unglazed.

Provenance: Important European Private Collection.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 7 November 2017, London

Natural pearl and diamond necklace

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Lot 246. Natural pearl and diamond necklace. Estimate 125,000 — 200,000 CHF. Photo: Sotheby's

Composed of five strands of slightly graduated natural pearls measuring from approximately 3.40 to 9.30mm, the detachable clasp of open work design highlighted with one natural pearl, circular-, single-cut, cushion-shaped and rose diamonds, shortest length approximately 545mm, clasp detachable and may be worn as a brooch, two small diamonds deficient.

Accompanied by SSEF report no. 86321, stating that the six hundred and eighteen pearls were found to be natural, saltwater.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Genève, 15 nov. 2017, 10:30 AM

Natural pearl and diamond necklace

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Lot 165. Natural pearl and diamond necklace. Estimate 125,000 — 250,000 CHF. Photo: Sotheby's

Composed of a graduated row of natural pearls measuring from approximately 3.60 to 9.25mm, the clasp millegrain-set with a marquise-shaped diamond, length approximately 1000mm..

Accompanied by SSEF report no. 93610, stating that the one hundred and eighty-six pearls were found to be natural, saltwater.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Genève, 15 nov. 2017, 10:30 AM

Pair of natural pearl and diamond ear clips

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Lot 174. Pair of natural pearl and diamond ear clipsEstimate 150,000 — 80,000 CHF. Photo: Sotheby's

Each surmount of floral design set with a button shaped natural pearl measuring approximately 9.40 x 9.60 x 7.30mm and 9.55 x 9.60 x 7.00mm respectively, highlighted with brilliant-, single-cut and baguette diamonds, supporting a pendant set with a drop shaped natural pearl measuring approximately 11.10 x 11.35 x 14.00mm and 11.20 x 11.25 x 14.40mm respectively, capped with single-cut and rose diamonds.

Accompanied by SSEF report no. 93609, stating that the four pearls were found to be natural, saltwater.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Genève, 15 nov. 2017, 10:30 AM


Pair of natural pearl and diamond earrings

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Lot 174. Pair of natural pearl and diamond ear clipsEstimate 40,000 — 70,000 CHF. Photo: Sotheby's

Each surmount designed as a line of circular-, single-cut and rose diamonds, supporting a drop shaped natural pearl measuring approximately 10.20 x 10.85 x 16.60mm and 9.40 x 11.00 x 15.50mm respectively, capped with rose diamonds, post and butterfly fittings.

Accompanied by SSEF report no. 95822, stating that the pearls were found to be natural, saltwater.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Genève, 15 nov. 2017, 10:30 AM

Group of seven natural pearl and diamond pendants

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Lo 266. Group of seven natural pearl and diamond pendantsEstimate 80,000 — 115,000 CHF. Photo: Sotheby's

Each of oblong shape set with circular-cut diamonds, supporting a detachable pendant composed of a drop shaped natural pearl capped with rose diamonds and a circular-cut diamond.

Accompanied by SSEF report no. 95820, stating that the pearls were found to be natural, saltwater.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Genève, 15 nov. 2017, 10:30 AM

'The Art of Laughter: Humour in the Golden Age' opens at the Frans Hals Museum

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Frans Hals, Pekelharing, 1628-30, oil on canvas, 75 x 61,5 cm, Museumlandschaft Hessen Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel

HAARLEM.- Rarely have more humorous paintings been produced than in the Dutch Golden Age. Naughty children, stupid peasants, foolish dandies and befuddled drunks, quack doctors, pimps, procuresses, lazy maids and lusty ladies – they figure in large numbers in Golden Age masterpieces. The Art of Laughter: Humour in the Golden Age presents the first ever overview of humour in seventeenth-century painting. The exhibition runs from 11 November 2017 to 18 March 2018 in the Frans Hals Museum

Frans Hals is often called ‘the master of the laugh’. More than any other painter in the Golden Age, he was able to bring a vitality to his portraits that made it appear as if his models could just step out of the past into the present. Hals was one of the few painters in the seventeenth century who dared portray his figures – often common folk – with a hearty laugh and bared teeth. Merriment and jokes are prominent features in his genre paintings; artists in the Golden Age frequently used it in their work. Now – centuries later – the visual jokes are harder to fathom. A great deal of new research into the field has been carried out, particularly in the last twenty years, and we are beginning to get an idea of the full extent of seventeenth-century humour. 

In 2011/2012 the Frans Hals Museum staged Celebrating the Golden Age. The new exhibition, The Art of Laughter: Humour in the Golden Age, is the companion piece in this diptych that explores the amusing side of seventeenth-century Dutch painting and society, an aspect to which artists from Haarlem made a great contribution. This exhibition presents the first overview of humour in Golden Age painting. 

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Gerard van Honthorst, Smiling Girl, a Courtisane, Holding an Obscene Image, 1625, oil on canvas, 46,9 x 60 cm, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis.

The Art of Laughter: Humour in the Golden Age 
The exhibition showcases some sixty masterpieces from the Low Countries and beyond by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Judith Leyster, Adriaen Brouwer, Gerard van Honthorst, Jan Miense Molenaer and Nicolaes Maes. Works by these and other artists will be shown in the context of an introduction and seven specific themes, including mischief, farce and love and lust, and one room is devoted to each of them. The exhibition ends with the comical self-portrait, in which painters feature in their own jokes. Thus humour eventually arrives at the artists themselves, creating an intriguing finale. There will also be a small selection of joke books, incredibly popular in the seventeenth century, which confirm the reputation of the Dutch as an unusually cheerful and humorous people. According to an Italian contemporary, the writer Lodovico Guicciardini, who was living in the Low Countries at that time, the Dutch were ‘very convivial, and above all jocular, amusing and comical with words, but sometimes too much.’ 

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Pieter van Roestraeten, The Licentious Kitchen Maid, 1665/70, oil on canvas, 73,5 x 63 cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

Humour Now in the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem 
The theme of humour loosely links all the activities and programming of the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem for 2017. Until 10 September the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem are staging Humour: 101 Years of Laughing at Art in both venues. This exhibition illustrates how artists used humour as a source of inspiration from the coming of Dada in 1916 up to the present day. In Studio HaHaHals families can literally step into the Golden Age for a moment and make funny group portraits. 

The exhibition runs from 11 November 2017 to 18 March 2018 in the Frans Hals Museum.

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Jan Steen, Children Teaching a Cat to Dance, c. 1662/63, olieverf op paneel, 68,5 x 59 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

£5 million for incredibly rare Chinese chairs at Bonhams Chinese Art Sale

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Lot 80. An important and exceptionally rare set of four huanghuali folding chairs, Jiaoyi, 16th-17th century. Estimate  GBP  150,000 ~ 200,000Sold for £5,296,250 (€5,975,483)Photo: Bonhams.

LONDON.- A Set of Four Huanghuali Folding Chairs were sold for £5,296,500 at Bonhams Fine Chinese Art sale in London today (Thursday 9 November). 

The chairs are the only known version of this form and type, and are widely considered a masterpiece of Ming Dynasty furniture. They had been estimated at £100,000-150,000. In a packed saleroom, the bidding war finally came down to a tense battle between a bidder in the room and one on the phone with the chairs finally knocked down to the phone bidder. 

A Bonhams spokesperson said, “The fierce and lengthy bidding reflected the huge importance and rarity of these chairs and is a testament to the Marchese Taliano de Marchio’s incredible eye.” 

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Lot 80. An important and exceptionally rare set of four huanghuali folding chairs, Jiaoyi, 16th-17th century. Estimate  GBP  150,000 ~ 200,000Sold for £5,296,250 (€5,975,483). Photo: Bonhams.

Each with a narrow crest-rail supported on slender, gracefully curved rear posts flanking the splats with chilong roundels and carved with cusped narrow flanges on the sides, with a stringed seat between the front and back stretchers, the hinged rounded square-section legs terminating in rectangular base stretchers, the footrests mounted with an openwork iron plaque with a design of lozenges, fitted cushions. Each 94cm (37in) high x 58.5cm (23in) wide x 81cm (31 7/8in) deep. (4).

Provenance: Francesco Maria, Marchese Taliani de Marchio (1887 - 1968), Grand Officer of the Italian Crown, Commander of the Order of St Maurice and Lazarus, and Commander of the Order of Pius IX (Ordine Piano), and his wife Archduchess Maragaretha d'Austria Toscana, Marchesa Taliani de Marchio (1894 – 1986). 
According to the collection inventory list, acquired in Beijing.

Published and Illustrated: Gustav Ecke, 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), in Monumenta Serica, vol.9, 1944, pp.34-52, pl.I (a) (one of four) and pl.II (a) (detail of medallion on splat) and with specific mention in pp.35-36, 38, 43, 45-47, and 51.

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117985604

Gustav and Yuho Ecke, image courtesy of Orientations.

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Note: The important set of four huanghuali folding chairs which may be considered a masterpiece of Ming dynasty furniture making, is exceedingly rare in form and type, with no other identical single chair, or indeed a set, known to have been published. Ming dynasty folding chairs were made in two main forms: horseshoe-back shape, of which there are many extant examples, and in square back form, of which very few survive. Of the square back form two main types are known – without arms as the present lot – and with arms, also known as 'Drunken lord's chair'. Dr Gustav Ecke in his important article 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), ibid., pp.36, concludes the set of chairs are Ming dynasty in date. 

Folding chairs such as the present lot would have belonged to the elite and used at home, in the garden and when travelling, which would also explain their relative scarcity due to wear (particularly when made from softwood). These were used for formal and informal occasions, when on military campaigns or enjoying leisurely pursuits. Despite their rarity today, these square back folding chairs often appeared in illustrated Ming dynasty novels and were illustrated in the late Ming pictorial encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui (三才圖會) as yi die zhe (椅疊折, literally 'folding chair'); see a related Ming dynasty folding chair but in softwood with a yokeback top rail which belonged to King Philip II of Spain (1527 - 1598) and is still in the palace of El Escorial. 

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A folding chair, 16th century, which belonged to King Philip II of Spain (1556 - 1598), El Escorial, Spain.

For Ming dynasty variations of square-back huanghuali folding chairs, see Grace Wu Bruce, Living with Ming - The Lu Ming Shi Collection, 2000, pp.88-89, no.16 (with yokeback top rail and without a central splat); two but with arms of the 'Drunken lord's' type, are illustrated by S.Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley, California, 2001, p.70, fig.5.9, and R.H.Ellsworth et al, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, no.26; and a fourth example with a yokeback, is illustrated in R.H.Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching Dynasties, New York, 1971, pl.26.

Most extant examples of Ming dynasty folding chairs made from huanghuali are of the horseshoe shape type; see for example one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Huanghuali Furniture, Beijing, 2008, pl.8; and another, with a similarly shaped splat back, dated as Yuan dynasty, illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Classic Chinese Furniture – Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Bangkok, 1986, pl.57; for further examples see S.Handler, ibid., pp.60-71, (compare the closely related chilong decoration on the front seat stretcher, the foot stand and edged back splat on a folding armchair, Ming dynasty, from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Renaissance California and the example from the collection of John W. Gruber, New York, figs.5.1 and 5.4). 

See a huanghuali folding horseshow-back chair, 16th/17th century, which was sold at Sotheby's New York, 19-20 March 2007, lot 312, and another which was sold at Christie's New York, 16 October 2001, lot 254.

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A superbly carved huanghuali folding horseshoe-back chair, (Jiaoyi), Late Ming dynasty, 16th-17th Century. 38 1/2 by 27 1/2 by 21 in., 97.8 by 69.8 by 53.3 cm. Sold for 408,000 USD at Sotheby's New York, 19-20 March 2007, lot 312. Photo: Sotheby's.

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A Rare Huanghuali Horseshoeback Folding Armchair, Jiaoyi, 16th century. Sold for 424,000 USD at Christie's New York, 16 October 2001, lot 254. © Christies Images Ltd 2001.

An important and exceedingly rare pair of Huanghuali Tapering Cabinets from the Ming Dynasty from the same collection, estimated at £200,000-300,000, sold for £1,688,750. 

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Lot 86. An important and exceedingly rare pair of large huanghuali tapering cabinets, yuanjiaogui, Ming Dynasty, 16th-17th century. Estimate GBP  200,000 ~ 300,000Sold for £1,688,750 (€1,905,328). Photo: Bonhams.

Each with an elegantly rounded protruding top with 'ice-plate' edge set on subtly splayed oval corner posts housing well-figured, book-matched, single panelled doors opening from the removable central stile to reveal the interior fitted with two shelves, with a metal three-part rectangular lock plate and pulls, all above a plain narrow apron with rounded apron spandrels, original lacquer coating on the backs. Each 189cm (74 3/8in) high x 97cm (38 1/4) wide x 51cm (20in) deep. (6).

Provenance: Francesco Maria, Marchese Taliani de Marchio (1887 - 1968), Grand Officer of the Italian Crown, Commander of the Order of St Maurice and Lazarus, and Commander of the Order of Pius IX (Ordine Piano), and his wife Archduchess Maragaretha d'Austria Toscana, Marchesa Taliani de Marchio (1894 – 1986). 
Acquired from Robert M. Drummond, Beijing, 15 April 1939.

Published and Illustrated: Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Beijing, 1944, no.90, pl.111 (one of the pair)

Gustav Ecke, 'Notes on Chinese Furniture' in Orientations, Hong Kong, November 1991, p.75, fig.23

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Note: These magnificent cabinets are exceptionally rare and exhibit the highly refined craftsmanship of the late Ming dynasty. This is particularly evident in the four matching door panels cut from the same timber, demonstrating an identical grained and whirling pattern, as well as in their timeless elegance of perfect proportions and simplicity. In his article 'Notes on Chinese Furniture', the renowned scholar of Chinese furniture Dr Gustav Ecke, wrote with regard to the present cabinets that the stilted feet in the noble pieces of the Marchese Taliani de Marchio give an unusual distinction to this type of cabinet.

In the Ming tradition, furniture was selected from books of drawings at the cabinetmaker's workshop and made to the proportions required. This would have led to certain unique personal preferences in stylistic choices, such as the higher beaded oval feet in the present lot, which lent it its 'unusual distinction'. Subtle variations give individual character to different tapered cabinets. The present lot's verticality is emphasised by higher legs, the grooving and beading of major upright supports, and long lock plates. The slight splay of the legs, create the impression of upward movement, and further underscores how the Ming craftsmen injected dynamism and movement into a static object.  

See a related pair of tapered huanghuali cabinets, early to mid-16th century, of slightly smaller dimensions, also with high legs but with upward-flip spandrels and ribbing, in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, illustrated by S.Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Los Angeles, 2001, p.251, fig.15.12 (the Nelson-Atkins pair of cabinets were only known through Gustav Ecke's Chinese Domestic Furniture, no.92, pl.113, until they were found in the early 1980s by Eskenazi Ltd., London, and purchased by the museum; see G.Eskenazi and H.Elias, A Dealer's Hand: The Chinese Art World Through the Eyes of Giuseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, p.247, no.186); for another related example of pair of cabinets, late 16th/ 17th century, also of smaller dimensions, see R.H.Ellsworth, et al, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Martin and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, pp.190-191, no.74; see also a single cabinet of similar form, but of much smaller size, illustrated in Wang Shixiang, Classic Chinese Furniture - Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Bangkok, 1986, pl.141.

A single huanghuali sloping-stile wood-hinged cabinet, late Ming dynasty, but of smaller size, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 6 April 2016, lot 104; see also a huanghuali square corner tapered cabinet, fangjiaogui, 17th/ 18th century, which was sold at Christie's New York, 21 March 2013, lot 930.

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huanghuali sloping-stile wood-hinged cabinet, Late Ming dynasty. Sold for 6,320,000 HKD at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 6 April 2016, lot 104. Photo Sotheby's.

Cf. my post: A huanghuali sloping-stile wood-hinged cabinet, Late Ming dynasty

  

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A magnificent and very rare huanghuali square-corner tapered cabinet, fangjiaogui, 17th-18th century. Sold for 663,750 USD at Christie's New York, 21 March 2013, lot 930. © Christies Images Ltd 2013

Robert and William Drummond were Chinese furniture dealers in Beijing during the first half of the 20th century. Dr Gustav Ecke in his seminal publication Chinese Domestic Furniture, Beijing, 1944, made a particular mention of "Robert and William Drummond, whose active interest has enriched the present collection and the homes of many Peking residents". 

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Marchese Taliani was a distinguished Italian diplomat who lived through major historical upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, events whose impact affect all to this day. His first diplomatic appointment was to Berlin in 1912; followed by Constantinople in 1913, where during the First World War he negotiated an agreement for the protection of Italian citizens and interests in the (soon to be partitioned) Ottoman Empire. From 1916 to 1919 he served in St Petersburg, and under the privilege of diplomatic immunity was in a unique position to observe and chronicle first-hand the October Revolution, its day by day development, the subsequent fall of Tsarist Russia and the establishment of the Soviet Republic; from 1919 he served in Rome as Secretary of State for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; with later assignments to London (1921 - 1923) and again to Constantinople (1924 – 1928), this time as the Republic of Turkey; from 1929 - 1930 he was in Rome as Head of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in 1932 he was appointed Italian Ambassador to the Netherlands; in 1938 he was appointed Ambassador to China, where he remained until 1946; and his last diplomatic appointment was in 1951 as Ambassador to Spain until 1952.

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Marchese Taliani de Marchio presenting his credentials.

Sent to China in 1938 as Ambassador to the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing, he became an acute - and far from humourless, despite the hardships of everyday life - front line eye-witness of the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Japanese forces captured the capital and attacked Shanghai. When Mussolini recognised Wang Jingwei's Japanese puppet government, Taliani presented his credentials to him. On 8 September 1943, having refused to swear allegiance to the Italian Social Republic (Republic of Salò), he and his wife, the Archduchess Margaretha d'Austria Toscana (1894 - 1986), were arrested and interned by the Japanese in a concentration camp near Shanghai, where they remained for two years until the end of the war. After the end of hostilities, the new government of Alcide De Gasperi reconfirmed him as Ambassador to China until 1946.

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Marchesa and Marchese Taliani de Marchio examining objects.

A number of masterpieces of classical Chinese furniture in the collection have been published by the eminent scholar Dr Gustav Ecke in his seminal book Chinese Domestic Furniture, Beijing, 1944, as well as Dr Ecke's article devoted to folding chairs, 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), which was published in Monumenta Serica, vol.9, 1944. 

Many of the purchase invoices survive, providing an important documentation of Chinese art dealers active in Shanghai and Beijing between 1938 and 1946. The majority of the invoices are dated to between December 1938 and July 1943, with a significant gap until April 1946, explained by Marchese and Marchesa Taliani's internment by the Japanese. The long list of dealers demonstrates the vibrant Chinese art market in Shanghai and Beijing in the late 1930s and early 1940s; this list includes the following:

In Shanghai - K. D. Lu, Yee Chun Chang, C. K. Chou, Strehlneek's Gallery of Chinese Art, The Midoh Co., Tung Koo Tsar Chinese Curios & Arts Co., Philip Chu, Zui Wha Curios & Co., T. Y. King & Co., King Koo Chai, Tai Loong & Co., Tin Dao Shan Fang, Y. L. Hong, Chu Tsun Tsai, The China Curios Co., Hsueh Ken Chai, Zung Chang Ziang Co., The Little Pagoda, M. L. Kwauh, Hoggard – Sigler, and Foo Yuen Tsai.

In Beijing - J. Plaut, Jung Hsing Chai, Mathias Komor, Tung Ku Chai Curio and Picture Store, Yi Pao Chai Jade Store, Jung Hsing Chai, Wan E. Cheng, Yung Pao Chia Jade Store, Mario Prodan, and Tung Yi & Co.

Audap & Mirabaud to offer a Madonna of the Pomegranate painted on panel by Sandro Botticelli

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Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) et son atelier, "La Vierge à la Grenade, rehauts d'or". Panneau de peuplier, un planche, non parqueté, cintré dans la partie supérieure (anciennement rectangulaire, agrandi dans la partie supérieure). Haut. : 90,5 cm ; Larg. : 59 cm (Restaurations anciennes et petits manques). Au revers du panneau, n° 39, n° 3889. Estimation : 500 000 € / 600 000 €. Photo courtesy Audap & Mirabaud

PARIS.- On November 29, Audap & Mirabaud auction house will offer a masterpiece of the Quattrocento: a Madonna of the Pomegranate painted on panel by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and his studio. 

The characters of this composition directly come from the famous tondo The Madonna of the Pomegranate, kept in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Virgin holds in her left hand an open pomegranate, symbol of the Christ’s Passion, and himself makes the gesture of blessing with his right hand. On the Florentine tondo, the Virgin and Christ are surrounded by six angels on a plain background whereas on this panel, they appear in front of a parapet and a door on the left, and a landscape on the right. 

Botticelli painted the tondo around 1487 – according to the most accepted dating –, for the Florentine magistracy of Massai di Camera to decorate their hall of audiences at the Palazzo Vecchio. Producing a true masterpiece, the painter is at the height of his career. Since the panel was exhibited in a public place, some smaller replicas are ordered to Botticelli by private families to be used as pieces of devotion. Only three of them are known today, including one kept at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. 

The fine quality of execution of the panel offered in this sale suggests an order by a wealthy and demanding sponsor. It is further illustrated by the faces’ finesse – probably executed by the artist himself – the presence of gold-leaf and the detailed decor on the background. 

Since the 19th century, the painting has been part of two prestigious collections built by two men, both passionate for the Renaissance. Frederick Richards Leyland, a British artist and fine art connoisseur, purchased the work at the end of the century, believing it was realised by Fra Filippo Lippi – Botticelli’s master. The panel then joined the collection of Edouard Aynard, President of the acquisitions’ committee for the museums of Lyon who donated some of his own works to his city and one of the founders of the historical museum of fabric, also in Lyon. 

The panel was last seen in 1913, during the sale of the Edouard Aynard’s collection after his death. It was acquired by the current owner’s grandfather.

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Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) et son atelier, "La Vierge à la Grenade, rehauts d'or". Panneau de peuplier, un planche, non parqueté, cintré dans la partie supérieure (anciennement rectangulaire, agrandi dans la partie supérieure). Haut. : 90,5 cm ; Larg. : 59 cm (Restaurations anciennes et petits manques). Au revers du panneau, n° 39, n° 3889. Estimation : 500 000 € / 600 000 €. Photo courtesy Audap & Mirabaud

Provenance- Londres, Collection Frederick Richards Leyland, Esq. ; - Sa vente, Londres, Christie, Manson & Woods (8 King Street, St. James's Square), 28 mai 1892, lot 96 (245 15S £à Bourne) ; - Collection Édouard Aynard au Château de Bayère à Charmay, près de Lyon ; - Sa vente, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1er au 4 décembre 1913 (Me Lair-Dubreuil), lot 39 (comme "attribuéà Botticelli") (ill. 1 a et b) ; - Acquis par le grand-père de l'actuel propriétaire. Exposition : Exhibition of works by The Old masters and by deceased masters of the British School, Winter Exhibition, Seventh Year, Burlington House (Siège de la Royal Academy), en 1876, n° 196 (donnéà Fra Filippo Lippi par confusion dans le catalogue avec le n° 197 qui lui, est donnéà Botticelli, Collection Frederick Richards Leyland, Esq). Bibliographie : - Ronald Lightbown, Botticelli Complete Catalogue, 1978, vol II, p. 66 (comme "attributed to Botticelli") ; - Herbert P. Horne, Sandro Botticelli Painter of Florence, 1908, rééd. 1987, vol III, p. 65 (comme "school of Botticelli") ; - Nicoletta Pons, Botticelli Catalogo completo, Milan, Rizzoli, 1989, p. 74, n° 69 (comme "derivazione delle figure centrali dalla Madonna del melograno"). 

NoteNotre panneau a appartenu à deux collectionneurs passionnés de la Renaissance florentine, qui possédaient plusieurs tableaux attribués à Botticelli. Dans le troisième tiers du XIXe siècle à Londres, il appartenait à Frederick R. Leyland. On sait l'intérêt de cet artiste pour l'époque victorienne et l'influence qu'il eut sur les peintres anglais. Au début du XXe siècle, le tableau est dans la Collection Édouard Aynard près de Lyon. Banquier, député du Rhône, Président de la Commission d'acquisition des Musées de la ville de Lyon à partir de 1878 et donateur, au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (1), Édouard Aynard est l'un des fondateurs du Musée Historique des tissus de Lyon. Présenté aux enchères pour la dernière fois en 1913, notre panneau a ensuite été conservé dans une collection privée (ill. 2)) et non disponible à la vue. Les avis des spécialistes dans la littérature ont été donnés à partir de la photographie reproduite dans le catalogue de 1913. 

La composition dérive des deux figures au centre du grand tondo, la Madone à la Grenade, avec six anges, conservée à la Galerie des Offices de Florence.  

La pose est la même : la Vierge tient une grenade ouverte, symbole de la Passion du Christ qui bénit de la main droite. À la place du fond uniforme du tableau florentin, la Madone est ici située devant un parapet, avec une porte architecturée en perspective à gauche et un paysage sur la droite. On note encore de nombreuses variantes : le châle sur les épaules de la Vierge, blanc brodé de bleu et de rouge, est ici devenu rose, et l'enfant, vêtu d'une chemise blanche qui couvre son corps aux Offices, est ici complètement nu. 

Ce tondo a été peint par Botticelli dans les années 1480, vers 1487, suivant la datation la plus souvent acceptée, peint lorsque l'artiste était au sommet de sa carrière, probablement pour une administration publique, comme le laisse penser son cadre fleurdelisé aux armes de Florence. La Vierge possède des traits fins, un long cou, une expression légèrement triste qui renvoie au visage de la Naissance de Vénus. Montré dans un lieu public, l'artiste a dûêtre sollicité par de nombreux particuliers qui souhaitaient en posséder une réplique plus petite, destinés à la dévotion privée.  

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Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana), c. 1487. Tempera on panel, diameter 143,5 cm© Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

On connaît d'autres versions du tondo avec plus ou moins de variantes (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie ; autrefois à Londres, collection Ludlov ; vente à New York, Sotheby's, 28 janvier 2016, lot 12). (1) sur son activité concernant les musées lyonnais, voir le catalogue de l'exposition Quattrocento, musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, 19 novembre 1987- 3 avril 1988, pp.11-13, avec bibliographie antérieure sur ce collectionneur. Il fit acheter plusieurs oeuvres à Londres, chez Colnaghi. Le catalogue de sa vente posthume de 1913 propose deux autres tableaux de Botticelli : la Crucifixion mystique (lot 38, aujourd'hui au Havard Art Museum de Cambridge aux États-Unis) et une Vierge à l'Enfant dans une loggia (lot 39).  

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Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli and Studio (Florence 1445-1510), The Madonna and Child with Saint John The Baptist and an Angel before a window, tempera on panel, a tondo, diameter: 33 in.; 83.3 cm. Sold for 1,330,000 USD at Sotheby's New York, 28 january 2016, lot 12. Photo: Sotheby's.

botticelli-mystic-crucifixion

Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro Filipepi), Italian (Florence, Italy 1444/45 - 1510 Florence, Italy), Mystic Crucifixionc. 1500. Tempera and oil on canvas (transferred from panel), 72.4 x 51.4 cm (28 1/2 x 20 1/4 in.), Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund, 1924.27 © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Dessins, Tableaux, Céramiques, Mobilier & Objets d’Artchez Audap & Mirabaud, 75009 Paris

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