Lot 606. A Robin's Egg-Blue-Glazed 'Lantern' Vase, Qianlong incised six-character seal mark and of the period (1736-1795); 9 ¼ in. (23.5 cm.) high. Estimate USD 120,000 - USD 180,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2018.

 The body tapers slightly towards the foot and is flanked by a pair of molded mock handles in the shape of inverted vases below the high shoulder and wide, slightly waisted neck. The vase is covered overall with an opaque turquoise glaze densely mottled in bright, dark blue that also covers the foot and mark, while the foot is covered in a blackish-brown wash.

Provenance: Hall Family Collection (inventory no. 271). 
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2 May 2000, lot 568.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 10 April 2006, lot 1628. 
The Studio of the Clear Garden.

Note: Vases of this 'lantern' shape, applied with the unusual mock handles of inverted vase shape, originated in the Yongzheng period, when they were made with Guan and Ge-type glazes, such as the two Yongzheng examples in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Geng Baochang (ed.), Gugong Bowuyuan cang Qingdai yuyao ciqi, Beijing, 2005, pls. 174 and 206. However, during the Qianlong period the shape became a vehicle for the robin's egg-blue glaze. 

Lot 607. A rare flambé-glazed vase, Yongzheng incised four-character seal mark and of the period (1736-1795); 13 5/8 in. (34.6 cm.) high. Estimate USD 50,000 - USD 70,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2018.

The angular hu-shaped body is relief-decorated with a row of ruyi motifs on the tapering lower body and on the shoulder forming a cloud collar between double bow-string borders below the neck which is flanked by a pair of angular scroll handles. The exterior is covered with a glaze of rich, mottled, crushed strawberry-red color streaked in milky lavender-blue that thins to mushroom on the handles, the raised decoration and on the edge of the cupped mouth rim which is a mottled purplish-blue on top above a crackle-suffused, pale greyish-blue-toned, clear glaze streaked in dark mauve on the interior. The base is covered with a mottled yellowish-brown and celadon glaze wash that also covers the reign mark.

Provenance: Christie's London, 7 November 2006, lot 197.
The Studio of the Clear Garden.

Note: A very similar Yongzheng-marked vase is illustrated in Ethereal Elegance: Porcelain Vases of the Imperial Qing - The Huaihaitang Collection, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007, pp. 220-21, no. 67.

Christie's. The Studio of the Clear Garden: Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 22 March 2018, New York

Lot 605. A celadon-glazed drum-shaped vase, Qianlong six-character seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795); 6 ½ in. (16.5 cm.) high. Estimate USD 40,000 - USD 60,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2018.

Made in imitation of a drum, the vase has a flat top encircling the wide mouth, slightly raised bands applied with rows of bosses encircling the upper and lower body, and a pair of molded mask and ring handles on the shoulders. The vase is covered overall, including the countersunk base, with a glaze of pale sea-green color thinning to a paler tone on the raised areas, box.

Provenance: California private collection; Christie's New York, 29 March 2006, lot 520. 
The Studio of the Clear Garden.

Note: A nearly identical vase from the collection of Robert Chang was sold at Christie's New York, 20 September 2001, lot 390, and a pair with Qianlong marks is illustrated in Chinese Celadons and Other Related Wares in Southeast Asia, Singapore, 1979, pl. 224, nos. 271 and 272. One with a Yongzheng mark was included in the Exhibition of Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1973, no. 18.

Lot 8051. A sancai-glazed pottery amphora, Tang Dynasty (618-907); 15 1/2in (39.4cm) high. Estimate US$ 6,000 - 9,000 (€ 4,800 - 7,200) © Bonhams 2001-2018

Elegantly potted with an ovoid body tapering to the foot, a waisted neck and a pair of curved double-strap handles each applied with three bosses and terminating in dragon heads that grasp the lip, the green, amber and clear glaze splashed over the handles, neck and shoulders, raised on a concave foot.

Note: A similar sancai-glazed pottery amphora, Tang dynasty, was sold at Bonhams London, 9 November 2017, lot 43.

A rare sancai-glazed pottery amphora, Tang Dynasty (618-907). 38.6cm (15 1/4in) high. Sold for £ 17,500 (€ 19,550) at Bonhams London, 9 November 2017, lot 43. © Bonhams 2001-2017

Cf. my post: A rare sancai-glazed pottery amphora, Tang Dynasty (618-907)

Bonhams. CHINESE WORKS OF ART AND PAINTINGS, 19 Mar 2018, 12:00 EDT, NEW YORK

Lot 8052. A Sancai glazed pillow and an amber glazed pottery flask, Liao dynasty (907-1125); 8 7/8in (22.5cm) long, the pillow; 9 1/2in (24.1cm) high, the flask. Estimate US$ 4,000 - 6,000 (€ 3,200 - 4,800). © Bonhams 2001-2018

The leaf shaped pillow carved in low relief on the face with a floral design, the peonies and leaves glazed green against a black ground, the front side glazed amber and green, the back side carved but unglazed; together with an amber glazed pottery flask, following a leather prototype, the bulbous body raised from an unglazed circular foot rim, the flange handle pierced for hanging. (2) 

Lot 8054. A Junyao bowl, Yuan dynasty (1279-1368); 7 7/8in (20cm) diameter. Estimate US$ 3,000 - 5,000 (€ 2,400 - 4,000). © Bonhams 2001-2018

Thickly molded with a wide well tapering sharply inward toward a thin unglazed foot rim, the pale gray-blue glaze thinning to an olive brown along the rim, the interior with a reddish-purple splash. 

Lot 8055. A Longquan celadon 'Chrysanthemum' bowl, Song dynasty (960-1279); 6 5/8in (16.9cm) diameter. Estimate US$ 4,000 - 6,000(€ 3,200 - 4,800). © Bonhams 2001-2018

Elegantly potted with gently rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered, neatly-cut foot ring, the exterior molded and incised with chrysanthemum petals radiating from the base, covered overall with a sea-green glaze except for the bottom of the foot ring. 

Lot 805-. A Longquan celadon 'Chrysanthemum' bowl, Song dynasty (960-1279); 6 7/8in (17.6cm) diameter. Estimate US$ 15,000 - 20,000 (€ 12,000 - 16,000). © Bonhams 2001-2018

Elegantly potted with gently rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered, neatly-cut foot ring, the exterior molded and incised with chrysanthemum petals radiating from the base, covered overall with a blue-green glaze except for the bottom of the foot ring.  

Lot 8047. A Longquan celadon tripod censer, Ming dynasty (1368-1644); 3 1/2in (9cm) high. Estimate US$ 2,000 - 3,000 (€ 1,600 - 2,400). © Bonhams 2001-2018

The bombe-form body with a cantered shoulder rising to a short straight neck and flared rim, supported on three tapered legs, each with a raised ridge running up to the shoulder, covered overall with a pale blue-green glaze.  

Lot 8058. A Guan-type vase, 18th century; 12in (30.5cm) high. Estimate US$ 2,500 - 4,000 (€ 2,000 - 3,200). © Bonhams 2001-2018

Of square section, the cantered shoulder gently rising to the slightly flared lipped-rim, two opposing sides set with lion-mask handles, the cantered base rising from the splayed foot ring, the creamy gray glaze suffused with a network of dark gray and 'golden' crackles.  

Lot 8059. A Longquan celadon molded dish, Ming dynasty (1368-1644); 13 1/2in (34.3cm) diameter. Estimate US$ 5,000 - 8,000 (€ 4,000 - 6,400). © Bonhams 2001-2018 

With the fluted sides rising from a short tapered foot to a notched rim, the center impressed in low relief with a leafy peony spray, covered overall with a green glaze thinning at the edges and raised areas, the base with an unglazed ring burnt orange in firing.

Lot 8060. A Longquan celadon dish, Yuan-Early Ming dynasty; 10in (25.3cm) diameter. Estimate US$ 2,000 - 3,000 (€ 1,600 - 2,400). © Bonhams 2001-2018 

The rounded sides rising from a short tapered foot to a lipped rim, boldly molded on the interior with a peony in low relief at the center of the well, the recessed base with an unglazed ring oxidized to orange during the firing.

Pablo Picasso, Nude in a Black Armchair (Nu au fauteuil noir), 1932. Private Collection, USA. Photo Courtesy of Richard Gray Gallery © Succession Picasso/DACS 2018

LONDON.- 45 years after the artist’s death, Tate Modern stages its first ever solo exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work, one of the most ambitious shows in the museum’s history. The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy takes visitors on a month-by-month journey through 1932, a time so pivotal in Picasso’s life and work that it has been called his ‘year of wonders’. More than 100 outstanding paintings, sculptures and works on paper demonstrate his prolific and restlessly inventive character, stripping away common myths to reveal the man and the artist in his full complexity and richness. 

1932 was an extraordinary year for Picasso, even by his own standards. His paintings reached a new level of sensuality and he cemented his celebrity status as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Over the course of this year he created some of his best loved works, including Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, an anchor point of Tate’s collection, confident colour-saturated portraits and Surrealist experiments, including 13 seminal ink drawings of the Crucifixion. His virtuoso paintings also riffed on the voluptuous sculptures he had produced some months before at his new country estate.  

Pablo Picasso, Nude Woman in a Red Armchair (Femme nue dans un fauteuil rouge), 1932, Tate© Succession Picasso/DACS 2018

In his personal life, throughout 1932 Picasso kept a delicate balance between tending to his wife Olga Picasso (nee Khokhlova) and their 11-year-old son Paulo, and his passionate relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter. The exhibition brings these complex artistic and personal dynamics to life with an unprecedented range of loans from collections around the world, including the Musée national Picasso-Paris and major international museums, as well as many works held in private hands. Highlights include Girl before a Mirror, a signature painting that rarely leaves The Museum of Modern Art, and the legendary The Dream, a colour-saturated rendering of Walter in dreamy abandon which has never been exhibited in the UK before. 

1932 was a time of both reflection and rejuvenation. Having recently turned 50, in collaboration with Christian Zervos, Picasso embarked on the first volume of what remains the most ambitious catalogue of an artist’s work ever made, listing more than 16,000 paintings and drawings. Meanwhile, a group of Paris dealers beat international competition to stage the first ever retrospective of his work, a major show that featured new paintings alongside earlier works in a range of different styles. Realist portraits of Olga and Paulo Picasso from a decade earlier revealed the artist’s pride in and tender feelings for his family, while the first public showing of his most recent paintings inspired by Walter made public what had previously been a well-kept secret affair. The paintings from March including Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, Nude in a Black Armchair and The Mirror were immediately recognised as a pinnacle of Picasso’s artistic achievement of the inter-War period. This dazzling group is reunited at Tate Modern for the first time in 86 years.  

Pablo Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (Femme nue, feuilles at buste), 1932. Private Collection© Succession PicassoDACS 2018

Picasso’s split existence between his homes and studios in Boisgeloup in Normandy and central Paris capture the contradictions of his life at this pivotal moment: divided between countryside retreat and urban bustle, established wife and recent lover, painting and sculpture, sensuality and darkness. The year ended traumatically when Walter fell seriously ill after swimming in the river Marne, losing most of her iconic blonde hair. In his final works of the year, Picasso transformed the event into scenes of rescue and rape, creating at the same time an analogy for the thunderclouds gathering over Europe: from the crisis of the Great Depression and mass unemployment, to the rise of Fascism including in his native Spain. The result is a dramatic finale to a year of love, fame and tragedy that pushed Picasso to the height of his creative powers. 

Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions, Tate Modern, and co-curator of the exhibition said: Picasso famously described painting as “just another form of keeping a diary”. This exhibition invites you to get close to the artist, to his ways of thinking and working, and to the tribulations of his personal life at a pivotal moment in his career. Visitors will be able to walk through 12 months of Picasso’s life and creative decision-making, to see many of his most ground-breaking and best-loved works in a surprising new light.  

Pablo Picasso, The Mirror (Le Mirroir), 1932. Private Collection© Succession PicassoDACS, London 2018

Nancy Ireson, Curator of International Art, Tate, and co-curator of the exhibition said: We are thrilled to be reuniting some of Picasso’s greatest works of art for the first time in 86 years, many of which are rarely shown in public. Displaying them in the order in which they were made demonstrates just how intensely creative 1932 was for Picasso, revealing his explosive energy to a new generation. 

The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy is curated by Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions, and Nancy Ireson, Curator, International Art, with Assistant Curators Juliette Rizzi and Laura Bruni. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris, where it was curated by Laurence Madeline with Virginie Perdrisot-Cassan, Curator of Sculpture and Ceramics.

Picasso - rue de la Boétie, 1933. Photograph by Sir Cecil Beaton©The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s"

Lot 517. A yellow-glazed dish, Zhengde mark and period (1506-1521). Diameter 6 7/8  in., 17.5 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

with shallow rounded sides rising from a short tapered foot to a slightly everted rim, applied overall with a semi-translucent yellow glaze of rich egg-yolk tone, save for the base left white with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double ring.

Provenance: John Sparks Ltd., London.
Collection of Sidney T. Cook (1910-1964), and thence by descent. 

Lot 518. A yellow-glazed dish, Zhengde mark and period (1506-1521). Diameter 7 1/8  in., 18 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

with shallow rounded sides rising from a short tapered foot to a slightly everted rim, applied overall with a semi-translucent yellow glaze of rich egg-yolk tone, save for the base left white with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double ring.

Provenance: John Sparks Ltd., London.
Collection of Sidney T. Cook (1910-1964), and thence by descent. 

Lot 519. A red and green-enameled 'boys' square bowl, Jiajing mark and period (1522-1566). Width 5 1/8  in., 13.1 cm. Estimate 80,000 — 120,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

of square section, potted with deep rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to a flared rim, the exterior painted in green outlined in black with a continuous scene depicting eight boys cheerfully engaged in various pursuits in a garden landscape with verdant vegetation and rockwork, including flying a kite, sitting astride a hobby horse, all framed by narrow green-enameled borders at the rim and foot, the interior similarly decorated and centered with a square panel enclosing a pine tree twisted to form a shou character, with lingzhi growing beneath, the with a six-character mark in underglaze blue, all reserved on a deep iron-red ground.

Provenance: Japanese Private Collection (by repute). 

Note: The playful scene adorning this square bowl illustrates the artistic vitality characteristic of porcelain designs of the Jiajing period (r. 1522-1566). Painted in red and green enamels of children at play, symbolic of the Confucian ideal for the education and advancement of many sons, this decorative theme was especially prolific during this period in response to the emperor’s desire for many sons. Another meaning of this motif is suggested by Rosemary E. Scott in Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1989, p.80, where the author notes that scenes of boys at play may be linked to the Daoist theme of the old regaining their youth. As the Jiajing emperor was a devout Daoist and sought to find the elixir of immortality throughout his life, decoration influenced by Daoist iconography was prevalent at court.  

Lot 520. A large blue and white 'Cranes' dish, Jiajing mark and period (1522-1566). Diameter 23 3/8  in., 59.4 cm. Estimate 15,000 — 25,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

sturdily potted, the rounded sides rising from a tapered foot, the interior painted in inky cobalt tones with a large central medallion enclosing six cranes soaring amidst cloud scrolls, with long straight legs artfully counterbalancing their S-curved necks and articulated plumage, the motif repeated around the exterior, line borders encircling the medallion, rim, and foot, the horizontal six character reign mark in a rectangular cartouche at the exterior rim, the base unglazed.

Note: A dish of this type with a Jiajing reign mark is illustrated in Leopold Reidemeister and J. Hellner, Ming-Porzellane in Schwedischen Sammlungen, Berlin, 1935, pl. 18b. A slightly smaller version of the dish, also marked, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th April 1993, lot 44.   

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 21 march 2018, 10:00 AM

Lot 521. A blue and white 'Peony and Peacock' jar, Ming dynasty, Jiajing period (1522-1566). Height 13 1/2  in., 34.2 cm. Estimate 8,000 — 12,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

the elegant broad shouldered body rising from a spreading recessed base to a short waisted neck with a lipped rim, painted around the exterior in rich dark cobalt-blue tones with a broad band of peacocks in flight over leafy scrolling peony, all between upright lappet and ruyi bands at the base and shoulder and a crane and ruyi cloud band at the neck.

Provenance: Italian Private Collection.
Sotheby's London, 6th November 2013, lot 91.   

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 21 march 2018, 10:00 AM

Lot 522. A blue and white figure of Zhenwu, Ming dynasty, Wanli period (1573-1620). Height 12 7/8  in., 32.7 cm. Estimate 15,000 — 25,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

seated on an integrally molded two-part seat with the feet shoulder-width apart and the hands resting on the knees, the face directed forward with a calm expression and framed by long locks, clad in a floral mantle draped over a long robe painted in underglaze blue with clouds at the shoulders and arms and centered with a roundel over the deity's rotund belly illustrating a dragon pursuing a 'flaming pearl', the motif repeated in a band spanning the lower section of the garment, the seat painted with a scene of flame scrolls amidst mountains, the base unglazed, an aperture to the base and to the back.

Note: Figures of deities gained popularity from the middle of the Ming dynasty, and images such as the present lot were probably made for domestic shrines. A related blue and white figure of a seated Daoist deity sold in these rooms, 17th-18th September 2013, lot 303; another sold at Christie's London, 15th June 1999, lot 62.   

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 21 march 2018, 10:00 AM

Lot 523. A finely painted blue and white 'dragon' garlic-mouth bottle vase, Wanli mark and period (1573-1620). Height 17 3/8  in., 44.2 cm. Estimate 60,000 — 80,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

sturdily potted, the pear-shaped body supported on a short foot, tapering to a tall neck with a garlic-head mouth and upright mouth rim, the body painted with two pairs of confronted phoenix and sinuous five-clawed dragons in pursuit of 'flaming pearls' amidst a composite floral scroll, all above a band of upright lappets and ruyi at the foot and below a border of keyfret at the shoulder, the slightly waisted neck painted with a meandering floral scroll and auspicious emblems, with bands of stylized pendent ruyi and cloud scroll encircling the mouth, the six-character reign mark inscribed in a horizontal line within a rectangular cartouche at the rim, Japanese wood box (3).

Note: Garlic-mouth vases of this distinctive form are outstanding among the larger Wanli wares and are known decorated with several variations in the horizontal bands. The dynamism of the leaping dragons and swooping phoenix, emblems of the emperor and empress, confronting a 'flaming pearl' is accentuated by the tight lotus and baijixiang scrolls adorning the neck, all surmounted by a bulbous mouth. Related dragon and phoenix vases include a slightly larger example, but with a border of prunus flowers on a wave ground on the shoulder and stylised lappet bands around the mouth, published in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. I, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 298, and sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st June 2011, lot 3591, from the collection of the B.S.N. Niigata Hoso Museum, Niigata; and a smaller example, but with interlocking pomegranates on the mouth, sold in these rooms, 7th December 1983, lot 301, again in our London rooms, 13th December 1988, lot 169, and a third time in our Hong Kong rooms, 2nd May 2000, lot 659. See also a vase of this type decorated with a pair of five-clawed dragons below a lotus scroll on the neck and pearl strings on its mouth, from the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. IV, pl. 343; and another painted with two pairs of sinuous dragons in pursuit of 'flaming pearls' amidst floral scrolls, sold in these rooms, 15th March 2017, lot 11. 

Vases of this form and design are also found decorated in polychrome enamels; for example see one with varying bands of decoration, from the collection of A.A. Ballard, sold at Christie’s London, 9th June 1975, lot 79; and another in the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo, published in Toyo Toji Meihin Zuroku [Illustrated Catalogue of Famous Pieces of Oriental Pottery and Porcelain], Tokyo, 1991, pl. 94.

Pear-shape vases with a bulbous mouth resembling a garlic head were produced in bronze from as early as the Western Han period (206 BC – AD 9); see a pair of vases sold in these rooms, 12th-13th March 1975, lot 157, and again, from the collection of J.T. Tai & Co., 22nd March 2011, lot 191.  

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 21 march 2018, 10:00 AM