A Fragmentary Roman Marble Oscillum, Circa 1st Century A.D. Est. 60,000-90,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Following the strong results of last season’s sale, which soared beyond pre-sale expectations and totalled £3.9 million, Sotheby’s forthcoming sale of Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art will return to London with a vast selection of works spanning ancient Egypt and the Near East to Classical Greece and Rome. 

Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Florent Heintz, says: “Not only does this year’s sale offer an incredible selection of objects spanning 2,600 years, but, through dogged and comprehensive research, we have been able to trace several of the objects back to important collections, and to identify works of art once thought lost, including a Roman wallpainting fragment which once belonged to Gothic novelist and arbiter of taste Horace Walpole and a Roman portrait of a man which once belonged to Wilton House - imagine our delight in discovering that the portrait I had been staring at in the same book for 15 years and the marble head I had on my desk were one and the same.” 

Ahead of the sale on July 3, all lots are on display in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries from June 30 to July 3 (34-35 New Bond Street, Mayfair, W1S 2RT).

HORACE WALPOLE’S LOST ROMAN FRESCO REDISCOVERED 

Lot 45. A Roman Wall-painting Fragment on Stucco, circa 2nd Century A.D., with early 18th Century Italian Restorations; 56 by 67 cm. Estimate £15,000-25,000. Courtesy Sotheby's. 

In the 17th and 18th centuries, collecting antiquities became synonymous with good taste. It was fashionable for young aristocrats to embark upon a ‘Grand Tour’ across the continent from which they would endeavour to return with an understanding of art and architecture, and a selection of classical souvenirs. 

This Roman wall-painting fragment is one such “souvenir”. Dating to circa 2nd century A.D., the lower half is decorated with 18th century Italian additions showing men and women at a festival, surrounding a river god reclining at right. 

Through extensive research and collaboration with Strawberry Hill House curator Silvia Davoli, Florent Heintz has identified this plaque as a lost work from the collection of art historian, antiquarian and author of Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole. 

The panel was positioned above the door in the ‘little library’ of Walpole’s flower garden cottage, where it remained for nearly 100 years before it was sold in 1842. 

The research of Florent and Silvia has helped to identify further treasures which were once part of Walpole’s collection, several of which will be on loan to an exhibition opening this October: ‘Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill’. 

ROMAN ALTAR WITNESS TO RAPHAEL’S PASSIONATE LIFE AND WORK 

Lot 36. A Roman Marble Funerary Altar Inscribed for Julia Lyris, 1st century A.D.; 73.3 by 54.3 by 54.3 cm. Estimate £45,000-60,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

First recorded in the collection of Agostino Andrea Chigi (1466-1520), one of the wealthiest Tuscan bankers and patrons of the arts in the Renaissance, this altar has borne witness to an impassioned love affair involving one of history’s most famous artistic figures. 

The altar was exhibited in the garden of Chigi’s noble villa in Rome – a masterpiece in architectural design and decoration later known as the Villa Farnesina - which he commissioned Raphael to decorate with frescoes celebrating love and pleasure. While Raphael was working at the villa he became utterly infatuated with his lover Margherita Luti, and was unable to give the desired attention to his work until she was installed in one of the rooms close by, allowing him to see her at a moment’s notice.

EGYPTIAN STELE RETURNS TO SOTHEBY’S AFTER TWO CENTURIES 

Lot 54. An Egyptian Polychrome Limestone Round-topped Stele, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep I/Tuthmosis II, circa 1514-1479 B.C. Height 43.2 cm. Estimate £120,000-180,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

The re-appearance of this lot at auction on July 3 comes 180 years after its first appearance at Sotheby’s, when it was offered as part of the collection of Giovanni d’Athanasi in 1837. Listed as lot 975, the 19th century catalogue entry read ‘a priest offering to the Deceased and his Wife seated, and underneath four lines of Hieroglyphics’. 

Today, it is catalogued with an extensive translation of the inscription, which reveals its dedication to Egyptian deities including Osiris and Anubis. The stele invokes the protection of the deceased, a "Sailor of the [Fayum] lake Maya” and “His wife, mistress of the house Nub-emhenuti", and asks that they are provided with “bread and beer, meat and fowl, linen and clothing, incense and oil, cool water, wine, milk and everything good and clean” for their journey to the afterlife. 

Born on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in 1798, d’Athanasi played a pivotal role in the archaeological discoveries in Egypt in the first half of the 19th century. The sale of his collection at Sotheby’s was one of the very first Egyptian Antiquities sales ever held in the western world. 

Many of d’Athanasi’s Egyptian objects are now in the British Museum. 

REMARKABLE EGYPTIAN SCRIBE NOT SEEN IN PUBLIC SINCE 1905 

Lot 64. An Egyptian Indurated Limestone Figure of the Scribe Nekht-Ankh, late 12th-13th Dynasty, circa 1800-1700 B.C. Height 27 cm. Estimate £1,000,000-1,500,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

For more than 100 years this sculpture has been part of the furnishings and works of art adorning the celebrated Palais Stoclet in Brussels, designed by Joseph Hoffmann and decorated in part by Gustav Klimt. A surviving black-and-white photograph shows the sculpture in the Main Hall. 

Research for the cataloguing of this work revealed that the scribe had an even earlier collection history, as it was sold at auction in Paris in 1905. 

The most significant example of ancient Egyptian sculpture from the Middle Kingdom to appear at auction in recent memory, the sculpture is identified in an inscription on the front of the base as ‘the Scribe of the Temple of Nekht-Ankh’. The cloaked sitter gazes into eternity with his left hand on his chest, as he would once have sat in a temple while witnessing a sacred rite.

A ROMAN PORTRAIT OF A MAN TRACED TO COLLECTION OF WILTON HOUSE, WILTSHIRE  

Lot 30. A Roman marble portrait head of a man, circa 2nd quarter of the 3rd century A.D. Height 24.2 cm. Estimate £40,000-60,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

In researching this marble portrait of man, the exceptional provenance of the work was brought to light: a photograph, published in 1923, places it within the celebrated collection of Wilton House in Wiltshire. 

It first entered the collection in the 17th century under Thomas Herbert, the 8th Earl of Pembroke, an enthusiastic antiquarian to whom "it was a matter of pride that no head that entered his collection could be allowed to remain anonymous" (J. Scott, The Pleasures of Antiquity: British Collectors of Greece and Rome, New Haven, 2003, p. 43). 

The head was subsequently recorded as a portrait of a Roman Emperor, but it is more likely to be the likeness of a patrician man; under Imperial Roman rule, it became fashionable to commission private portraits resembling the Emperors and their consorts– perhaps the first ever ‘influencers’!

Ferdinando Tacca, (Florence 1619-1686), A Highly Important Documentary Group of the Monument to Ferdinando I de’ Medici in Livorno, adapted after the original figures by Giovanni Bandini (Florence 1540 – 1599) and Pietro Tacca (Carrara 1577 – Florence 1640). Bronze. Overall height: 73.7 cm (29 in). Height of pedestal: 33.4 cm (131/6 in). Courtesy Trinity Fine Art.

Ferdinando Tacca, (Florence 1619-1686), A Highly Important Documentary Group of the Monument to Ferdinando I de’ Medici in Livorno, adapted after the original figures by Giovanni Bandini (Florence 1540 – 1599) and Pietro Tacca (Carrara 1577 – Florence 1640). Bronze. Overall height: 73.7 cm (29 in). Height of pedestal: 33.4 cm (131/6 in). Courtesy Trinity Fine Art.

Further important sculptures that are essential viewing at London Art Week include, at Tomasso Brothers Fine Art (celebrating 25 years), a beautiful bronze figure of Charity by Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1740), executed in Florence circa 1695 after a model by Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654), with a gold and red patina; at Ariadne Galleries, a particularly fine and large example of a marble Head of a Cycladic Figure, circa 2500-2400 BC, a striking piece that would have belonged to an impressively large full statue of a reclining female idol, the predominant sculptural type at the time; an impressive marble sculpture of Mars c1545 by the Italian artist Giovanni da Nola (Giovanni Marigliano, documented from 1508 to c1551/23) commissioned by his Spanish patron and viceroy of Naples, the 2nd Duke of Cardona, at Colnaghi; and at Maurizio Nobile, attending LAW from Bologna and Paris, an exquisite early 16th century Madonna Praying, in terracotta, attributed to Maestro del Sant’Andrea di Stiffe, Active in L’Aquila (Abruzzo). 

Head of a Cycladic Figure, Greek, Late Spedos Variety, Early Cycladic II, circa 2500-2400 BC. Marble. Dimensions: 14.2 cm H. Courtesy Ariadne Galleries

Maestro del Sant’Andrea di Stiffe, Active in L’Aquila (Abruzzo), early XVIth century, Madonna Praying. Terracotta, 123 x 63 x 47 cm. Courtesy Maurizio Nobile.

London Art Week, focal point of London’s pre-contemporary market, illustrates an extraordinary range and quality of art from antiquities to 20th century works, and underlines the unrivalled connoisseurship and expertise of the participating galleries. 40 leading international art dealers from London and Europe present exciting selling exhibitions, engaging events and art talks, at private galleries in Mayfair and St. James’s. Many dealers mount specialist exhibitions, and those with an emphasis on sculpture this year include: Brun Fine Art with A Taste for Sculpture V; Callisto Fine Arts with The Sculptor’s Idea: European Terracottas; Colnaghi with A Tale of Two Kingdoms: The Art of Spain and Naples; Gallery Desmet (attending LAW from Brussels); Daniel Katz Gallery with Defining Elegance; Lullo Pampoulides; and Tomasso Brothers Fine Art with TOMASSO XXV.  

London Art Week coincides with the Old Master sales at Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Full information, a digital catalogue and map can be found at www.londonartweek.co.uk.

Wada Waichisai I (1851-1904), Kobangata-Oval Shaped Basket, 1895-1904. Susutake bamboo, 10 x 16 x 1.5 in.Courtesy TAI Modern

SANTA FE, NM.- TAI Modern is presenting Three Generations of Wada Waichisai, an exhibition of 16 works from this influential, but little studied bamboo art lineage. Wada Waichisai I (1851-1904) was a pioneering artist and teacher in the Kansai region. However, his son and grandson, Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933) and Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), moved away from Japan’s artistic centers and refrained from public exhibitions while they carried on the family legacy. This special exhibition explores not only the art and history of Wada Waichisai I, II, and III, but also the artist relationship to the Osaka-based bunjin (literati) movement and sencha tea aesthetics. 

Written history of modern Japanese bamboo art is usually introduced with a chapter stating that three masters set the foundation of this art form in the late 19th century; Hayakawa Shokosai of Funaba district, Wada Waichisai of Sumiyoshi district, and Donkosai of Nanba district. While the students of the Wada lineage are still active and growing, experts still do not know much about Wada Waichisai I himself and his direct descendants. 

While Waichisai I was likely a master of the intricate karamono basket, the example in this show demonstrates an evolution from this style, which tended to follow the Chinese tradition of basketry to the minutest detail. Whereas karamono necessitates highly decorative and intricate rattan work, this boat shaped basket was created entirely of overdyed susutake (antique smoked bamboo), omitting rattan altogether. 

A prominent feature of Wada Waichisai II’s work is his frequent use of black bamboo. Waichisai II was able to create interesting textures and forms by twisting and contorting the material. Black bamboo is more flexible than the traditional timber bamboo. Waichisai II was certainly one of the earliest, if not the first, artists to use this unique species for basket making. 

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Basket for Flowers, 1904 to 1920s. Black bamboo, 13.25 x 5.00 x 5.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Breath of Fresh Air, 1904-mid 1920s. Black bamboo and rattan, 22.00 x 8.50 x 8.75". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Breath of Fresh Air, 1904-mid 1920s. Black bamboo and rattan, 21.25 x 10.00 x 10.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Hanging Flower Basket, 1904-1920s. Susutake, 14.25 x 5.50 x 5.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Untitled Flower Basket, 1904-mid 1920s. Black bamboo, 18.50 x 9.50 x 9.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Untitled Flower Basket, 1904-mid 1920s. Susutake, 16.00 x 11.00 x 9.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Thunderbolt, 1930. Hobichiku bamboo, 13.50 x 10.00 x 10.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai II (1877-1933), Treasure Ship, late 1920s-1933. Hobichiku bamboo, 8.25 x 16.75 x 11.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

 Wada Waichisai III also developed his own artistic style. His open forms are more minimalistic, relying more upon the flow and rhythm of the overall form than surface textures. In his more formal pieces, Waichisai III sometimes added a series of metal bead inlays covered by a black coat of urushi lacquer. This was an homage to Chinese style decorative elements with an innovative twist. 

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Flower Basket, late 1940s-1972. Madake bamboo, rattan, wood, and urushi covered me, 12.00 x 12.00 x 12.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Grass that Shimmers Crimson, 1933-1945. Hobichiku bamboo and rattan, 16.00 x 11.00 x 11.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Jewel-Shaped Vessel, 1945-1950. Madake bamboo, kurochiku, rattan; 20.50 x 9.75 x 9.75". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Long Life and Happiness, 1933-1945. Madake bamboo; 12.00 x 8.00 x 8.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Mountain Path, 1920s. Madake bamboo; 16.25 x 11.50 x 11.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Presentation Tray, late 1940s-1972. Black bamboo and rattan; 8.75 x 10.25 x 10.25". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Teardrop-shaped Vessel, late 1940s-1972. Madake bamboo, kurochiku, rattan; 18.50 x 10.00 x 9.00". Courtesy TAI Modern

Wada Waichisai III (1899-1975), Tobacco Tray, late 1940s-1972. Madake bamboo and rattan;4.00 x 7.50 x 10.50". Courtesy TAI Modern

Three Generations of Wada Waichisai is on display at TAI Modern, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 between June 29th and July 22nd.

Hubert Robert (1733 - Paris - 1808), Two figures conversing before the Temple of the Sybil, c.1775. Red chalk, 290 x 368 mm. Courtesy Didier Aaron Ltd

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, called Girodet-Trioson (Montargis 1767 – 1824 Paris), Portrait of Général Auguste Bertin de Veaux (1799-1879), aged eighteen year. Black and white chalk with stumping, 218 x 175 mm. Signed and dated: GT/ mars 1817. Inscribed on the cartouche: Girodet / général Bertin de Vaux. Courtesy Didier Aaron Ltd

Didier Aaron Ltd at London Art Week, Fri 29 June - Fri 6 July 2018

Jacopo Robusti, detto il Tintoretto (Venezia 1518 - 1594), Susanna. Oil on panel, 27 x 38 cm. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

Provenance: Venezia, collezione privata.

Exhibited: Cologne , Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, „TINTORETTO – A star was born“ 2017-18;
Paris, Musée du Luxembourg “ Le Tintoret – Naissance d’un génie “ (The Young Tintoretto) March -June 2018.

Literature: Damerini 1931, p.n.n; Rossi 1977, pp. 84-85, fig. 47; Rossi, in Pallucchini, Rossi 1982, I, pp. 138-139 n. 55, II, p. 320itions:, fig. 73.

Antonio Canova (Possagno 1757 – Venice 1822), Self-portrait of Giorgione. Oil on wood, 72.5 x 64 cm. Carved and gilded wooden frame, Rome 1792. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

Note: The sensational rediscovery of the so-called Self-portrait of Giorgione marks a significant addition to our knowledge of the great sculptor Canova's work as a painter. The oil painting on wood (72.5 x 64 cm) is still housed in its magnificent original carved and gilded frame made in Rome, which we know to have been commissioned by Roman Senator Prince Abbondio Rezzonico, the young sculptor's great protector and patron who was the picture's first owner. Rezzonico, nephew to Pope Clement XIII, commissioned Canova to carve his uncle's tomb in St. Peter's Basilica, a monumental undertaking which contributed enormously to the definitive establishment of the sculptor's renown. Rezzonico was also an accomplice in the bizarre story of the trick that Canova played on the greatest artists then present in Rome – people of the calibre of Angelica Kauffman, Gavin Hamilton, Antonio Cavallucci, Giuseppe Cades, Giovanni Volpato and others, who were invited to dine at the Senator's home and shown this painting, which was palmed off as an original Self-portrait of Giorgione. They all adored it, thanks also to the mastery with which it had been painted, and acclaimed it to a man as an authentic work by the Venetian 16th century painter. 
The truth of the matter was that Canova himself had skilfully painted the portrait on a 16th century panel painting of the Holy Family (the image of which has been traced through reflectography and infrared inspection), taking as his model a portrait of Giorgione from Carlo Ridolfi's Le meraviglie dell'arte published in Venice in 1648. By 1792, when the famous dinner was held, Canova had already tried his hand at painting in the Venetian Renaissance style, producing, for example, a Venus with a Mirror which had also been mistaken for an authentic 16th century work. 
The event is narrated by all the most authoritative sources for Canova's life, in particular in the first monograph devoted to him by Fausto Tadini and in the two biographies penned by his secretarius Melchiorre Missirini and by the sculptor Antonio D'Este, who ran his workshop in Rome. Meticulous examination of these reliable sources has allowed Canova authority Fernando Mazzocca to confirm this major discovery and to reconstruct, in the catalogue published for TEFAF, all the phases of this fascinating and exemplary story pointing up Canova's love of the glorious tradition of Venetian painting, in which he also sought inspiration for his sculpture.

Ippolito Caffi (Belluno 1809 – Battle of Lissa 1866), The Grand Canal in Venice with Santa Maria della Salute, c. 1842. Oil on canvas, 47 x 60.9 cm. Signed lower right: CAFFI. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

 Bibliography: Caffi I., Lezioni di prospettiva pratica, Santarelli, Rome 1854; 
Ippolito Caffi in “Gazzetta di Venezia”, 30 October 1866;
Mikelli V., Ippolito Caffi. Venezia degli Italiani, in “Strenna veneziana”, Venice 1867;
Avon Caffi G., Un pittore soldato del Risorgimento, in “Ardita”, March 1921. 
Mancini E., Lettere inedite di Ippolito Caffi, in “Annuario 1925/26 del R. Istituto Magistrale Giustina Renier”, Belluno 1925-6; 
Avon Caffi G., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, da "Rivista di Venezia", June 1931.
Avon Caffi G., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, in “Rivista Venezia”, June 1931, pp. 195-203. 
Damerini G., Un pittore a Venezia perito a Lissa, in “Gazzetta del Popolo”, 23 August 1931. 
De Grassi M., Ippolito Caffi, in “Gazzetta di Venezia”, 14 May 1942;
Somaré E. (curated by), Ippolito Caffi, exhibition catalogue, Modena 1949; 
Bianchi, E., Sulle Quattro prospettive esposte dal ca. Ippolito Caffi in queste Sale del Ridotto, in Gazzetta Ufficiale di Venezia”, 13 May 1963; 
Comemo-Gerstenbrand L., Ippolito Caffi, Venice 1966;
Fiocco G., Un maestro solitario: Ippolito Caffi, in “Il Gazzettino”, 29 July 1966;
Avon Caffi G., Ippolito Caffi: 1809-1866, Amicucci, Padua 1967 
Perocco G (curated by), Ippolito Caffi, exhibition catalogue, (Venice 1966), Fabbri, Milan 1967 
Pittaluga M., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, Neri Pozza Editore, Vicenza 1971
Masciotta M., Pittaluga M., Ippolito Caffi, Vicenza 1971, in “Antichità Viva”, 1, 1972, pp. 67-68; 
Perocco G., (curated by), Ippolito Caffi 1809 – 1866: raccolta di 154 dipinti, exhibition catalogue, Marsilio Editore, Venice 1979 
De Biasi M., Giuseppe Avon Caffi, in “Ateneo Veneto”, CLXXI, 22, 1-2, 1984, pp. 325-326;
Scotton F., Ippolito Caffi, Viaggio in Oriente 1843 – 1844, exhibition catalogue (3 July – 15 September 1988; Comune di Venezia, Assessorato alla Cultura, Mestre, Istituto di Cultura “S. Maria delle Grazie”), Arsenale Editrice, Venice 1988; 
Magnani F., see entry for Caffi Ippolito in La pittura…, 1990, pp. 723-724; 
Romanelli G.D. (curated by) Caffi. Luci del Mediterraneo, Belluno, Palazzo Crepadona 1 October 2005 - 22 January 2006; Rome, Palazzo Braschi 15 February - 2 May 2006
Scarpa, A., Ippolito Caffi: dipinti di viaggio tra Italia e Oriente; Venice, Marsilio, 2015 
Peretti F., Ippolito Caffi, De Luca editori d’arte, Rome 2016 
Scarpa A., Ippolito Caffi. Tra Venezia e Oriente (1809 - 1866 : la collezione dei musei civici di Venezia), exhibition catalogue (28 May – 20 November 2016, Museo Correr, Venezia), Marsilio editore, Venice 2016.

Note: The imposing dome of Santa Maria della Salute emerges from a purplish fog that is gradually lifting, dissolving in the early morning sunshine as the sun timidly casts its first rays on the buildings and waters of the Grand Canal. The warm light of dawn spreads out, chasing away the dark, while a clear and limpid blue sky begins to form in the distance. The first rays of the sun strike the canal with its host of boats and figures and the water embraces them, allowing itself to be pierced by them and reflecting them as it changes its colour from murky grey into a sharp, bright green. This is the wonderful scene depicted in The Grand Canal in Venice with Santa Maria della Salute, a hitherto unpublished painting which, in terms of its painterly quality, of its skilled, emotional depiction of its detail and its figures, and of its flowing brushwork embellished by rapid, airy strokes and light velature, is unquestionably one of the most significant and poetic works in Ippolito Caffi's entire output on a Venetian theme. 

The careful distribution of colour coupled with the masterly handling of shadow and backlight in the foreground enhance the luminosity of the background and draw the eye into the early light of dawn and into those wonderful reflections on the water. And it is that same sharp yet timid light that strikes the mast of a crewless ship from the side, revealing its Moorish windows, warming the coloured stone of the warm yellow and pink palazzi, lending substance to the bluish sun blinds on their façades and, last but not least, surprising the city's early-risers. A gondolier crosses the Grand Canal in the distance, while men seem to be moving about on a group of boats that appear to have been tied together, laden with goods, and elegant gentlemen sporting top hats and holding walking sticks are waiting for someone or something on the quayside.

This picture can take pride of place among the works that Caffi painted between 1840 and 1850, in which he explores the "repertoire of most varied subjects: fog in cities, eclipses, snowfalls, fireworks, and festivities by night and by day" (Pittaluga 1971, p.47) that served to present a different approach to the Venetian veduta. In this work, the composition and structure of the scene plunge us without hesitation into the cycle of paintings closest to ours in terms both of its theme and of its artistic character, namely the series of Views of the Grand Canal in the snow which are unanimously held to rank amongst his masterpieces and in which Caffi alone has succeeded in the masterly rendering in paint of a sense of intense participation in the natural event, of attention to atmosphere, of the modulation of light, of the sense of silence, and of the suspended mood that envelops the scene and the figures depicted. 
Numerous versions are known of his Views of the Grand Canal in the snow (see the bibliography below), but we shall only mention here that they were painted throughout the 1840s, thus revealing the extent to which Caffi felt at home with his subject matter, that all the versions are of the highest quality, and that the first series can identified as the one dated 1841 and now in the Museo di Belluno. It is very difficult to establish the exact chronological sequence of our versions, but we should stress that even though the perspective of the composition may appear to be the same in the various versions, the thing that changes, apart from the positions of the boats and the figures, is the way in which the scenes are lit, and also the "viewpoint", which draws in or moves out like a camera zooming in on, or away from, its subject. And the aspect that is characteristic of the Belluno painting is precisely this smoky, foggy sky in movement, this attention on the "close-up" approach to the scene's composition and to the daily life being played out in it. 
The atmosphere, the perspective, the position of the boats and the figures, the privileged viewpoint and the church of Santa Maria della Salute in the background, closing the scene with the panache of a stage set, all suggest that this previously unpublished work belongs precisely to this period, allowing us to argue with a fair degree of conviction that the painting may be close in date to that in Belluno, thus falling somewhere between 1842 and 1845.

Alfred Ekstam (Mangskog 1878 –1935), Eve of summer after storm, 1911. Oil on canvas, 70 x 87 cm. Signed and dated: Alfred Ekstam 1911. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

The painter and craftsman Alfred Ekstam was born in 1878, in a tiny village, called Mangskog, situated in the immensely scenic province of Värmland, just in the middle of Sweden. The region is well known for being the native home of the illustrious novelist Selma Lagerlof, who in 1909 became the first woman and also the first Swedish writer to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature. A peripheral, rural part of the country, bordering Norway, characterised by lush forests that seem to go on forever, interrupted only by innumerable lakes, small open valleys and blueing mountains.

In the same way as the literary culture (the case of Lagerlof) of that specific period in Värmland, enjoyed a particolary symbiotic relationship with the mystic of the nature, so did also the visual arts. In fact here, near to Arvika, the second-generation of Swedish National Romantics formed the Rackstad colony, around the turn of the century, at the very shore of the beautiful Lake Racken, in the midst of the wilderness. The artists that gathered here shared a need for solitude and peace, cultivating a cooperative lifestyle, influenced by the British Arts and Crafts movements utopian, social ideas . The founders were the artist couple Gustaf Fjaestad (1868-1948) and Maja Fjaestad (1873-1961). Gustaf Fjaestad is today considered the foremost interpreter of the Swedish winter landscape. A pupil of wildlife painter Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939) and former assistent of the nationally loved icon Carl Larsson (1853-1919). 
Ekstam himself joined the colony after attending to the Stockholm Technical School. The intense life in the capital of Sweden was not for Ekstam, who's identity was too strongly tied to the nature and to the calm of his homeland. In the major part of his life, he worked as a craftsman and a furniture decorator. Highly appreciated by his employers, the Eriksson Brothers Workshop, and therefore soon promoted to become the respected chief decorative painter of the company. His interest for the simple things assumed over time more sophisticated expressions through the painting lessons given to him by Gustaf Fjaestad, Fritz Lindström and the immensely talented Bror Lindh. Another painter that came to influence the shaping of his personal stylistic approach was the internationally awarded Otto Hesselbom (1848-1913). It was after meeting the former that he turned to a Synthesist notion of decorative harmony, focusing his efforts on depicting the local, treasured landscape in a highly decorative manner. Driven by romantic nationalism and aiming to visualise the profoundly mystical sense of his life in the deep forests of Värmland. Although traces and influences of his masters stylistic manners are easily recognisable in Ekstams work, he also developed a strongly personal artistic language, with a strong pointillistic quality. Actually, his production was very limited, since he proceeded extremely slowly, taking amounts of time in completing every work. To note, at the the very first exhibition of his works, in the city hall in Arvika in 1919, as very rarely happens to a debuting artist, all of the paintings in the gallery were sold within a week. A fenomenal success! As said, the artist was strongly anchored with his native place. Consequently the greatest part of his motifs were actually painted in and around Mangskog, where he lived, worked and died at the age of 57, falling of his bicycle on the way to attend an art exhibition.

The present work, is a rare, although representative work by Ekstam, that falls neatly within the artist´s oeuvre. A powerful emotional panoramic landscape, devoid from human presence, but profoundly soulful. The unspoilt forest in the background where, as known, the national Swedish psyche draws its most profound roots. The evening light behind the blueing hills expands violently outwards the universe, in hues of intense carminite red and toxic blu, resembling the visual effect of a volcanic eruption. The same glittering effect sparks over the small lake surface. In the foreground tiny, delicate birches, Swedens national symbol tree, almost seem to tremble in front of the spectacular scenery. The bold approach all together creates a magic radiance, not so peaceful at all! Ones thoughts can’t but go to Edward Munchs tumultuous red skies, which a famous theory actually sustains were inspired by a real volcanic sunset: that after the Krakatau eruption in 1883… 
In contemplating the painting nearby, one can’t but admire Alfred Ekstam's slow technical approach, patiently placing dot by dot in a mosaic-like structure. The French post-impressionist influence, (mainly with George Seurat in thought) in this local motive is certainly evident and present. How long it took for the artist to create this outstanding equilibrium between arts and crafts on the canvas line is not known. Definitely a strongly nationalist Swedish representation, but an irruptive one that reaches courageously toward formidable abstract and modern tendencies. Away from the more traditionally classical approach of his master Gustaf Fjaestad. 
The splendid result could be compared to a precious, unique gem, with possible intrinsic magical and spiritual properties. To treasure and keep safe.

Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art at London Art Week, Fri 29 June - Fri 6 July 2018

Lot 1944. A rare blue and white octagonal 'boys' jar and cover, Mark and period of Wanli (1573-1619); 13.5 cm., 5 3/8 in. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD (96,406 — 144,609 EUR). Lot sold 3,620,000 HKD (348,989 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

of octagonal section, the straight walls rising from a short foot, the exterior painted in vivid shades of cobalt-blue with eight panels, each detailed with boys at play in a balustraded garden scene, the underside inscribed with a six-character reign mark within double circles, the fitted cover of conforming shape similarly adorned with three boys at play in a craggy landscape below a pine tree, all encircled by a lingzhi border, surmounted by a squirrel knop.

Exhibited: Chuugoku touji meiho ten shiriizu, The Gotoh Museum, Tokyo, 1966.

Literature: Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. 1, pl. 958.

Note: The present finely painted blue-and-white box is unusual for the decoration of 'boys at play' with no other box and cover of this form and design combination recorded. The theme of 'boys at play' was popular not only from earlier, Song dynasty, paintings, but it also came to represent an auspicious imagery expressing the wish for male heirs.  

Lobed Wanli mark and period boxes painted with figures in landscape in polychrome enamels are more readily found, for example see one illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 263; and another sold in these rooms, 28thNovember 1979, lot 81. See also a blue-and-white lobed box decorated with scholars pursuing leisurely activities sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th November 2005, lot 1422.

An octagonal form Wanli box of similar dimensions as the present piece, but decorated with flowers, butterflies and insects in wucai enamels was sold in our London rooms, 13th December 1988, lot 191; another octagonal box in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, bearing dragons above waves, was included in the exhibition The Arts of the Ming Dynasty, Detroit Art Museum, Detroit, 1952, cat. no. 175; and a hexagonal box version of the dragon design, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is published in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book III, Hong Kong, 1966, pl. 6. 

Lot 2118. A wucai'Figure' bowl, Mark and period of Wanli (1573-1619); 10.5 cm, 4 1/8 in. Estimate 350,000 — 450,000 HKD (33,742 — 43,383 EUR). Lot sold 524,000 HKD (50,517 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

potted with shallow rounded sides supported on a short foot, the exterior painted in the wucai palette, depicting two boys with offerings, alternating with a deer and ox with elaborate saddles, all traversing a landscape with scattered flowers and distanced mountains hidden behind scrolling clouds, below a border of florets around the rim, the interior similarly decorated with a winged dragon, its sinuous body terminating in a fish tail, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue.

Provenance: Acquired in Japan.

Lot 15. A Pair of Greek Gold Earrings, Magna Graecia, circa late 4th-early 3rd  Century B.C. Heights 5.7 cm. Estimate 15,000 — 25,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

each composed of a disk with beaded perimeter centering a repoussé lion mask within a border of beaded scrolling filigree, a small rosette forming the link to the pendant below, each pendant in the form of an inverted pyramid ornamented with globules, filigree leaves, and palmettes, the  biconical finial missing on one earring.

Literature: Andre Emmerich Gallery, Inc. New York, Art of the Ancients: Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, An exhibition  organized in cooperation with Münzen und Medaillen AG, Basle, Switzerland, February 7th-March 13th, 1968, no. 42, illus.
Tribal Art Magazine, vol. XVIII:2, no. 71, Spring 2014, p. 137

Note: For a pair of very similar earrings see D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold, Jewelry of the Classical World, 1994, no. 214, p. 214 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 26.209.1-2). For more elaborate examples compare F.H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Jewellery, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, 1911, pl. XXX, nos. 1664-1672.

Sotheby's. Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, London, 03 Jul 2018, 04:00 PM

Lot 76. An Egyptian Glass and Carnelian Bead and Pendant Necklace, New Kingdom, 1540-1075 B.C. Largest pendants 1.1 cm. length as strung together 42.9 cm. Estimate 7,000 — 10,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

composed of numerous deep blue glass and five jasper-red glass cornflower seed pendants, interspersed with globular carnelian beads.

Exhibited: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, circa 1920-1940
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1945-1965
Museum of Man, San Diego, 1968

Note: For similar New Kingdom glass and faience pendants cf. Catharine H. Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005, no. 125a and b.

Sotheby's. Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, London, 03 Jul 2018, 04:00 PM

Lot 77. A Gold Torque, probably Sarmatian, Northern Black Sea Area or Central Asian Steppes, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. Diameter 15 cm. Estimate 10,000 — 15,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of solid circular section with hinged opening section and fastener, inlaid with carnelian and niello..

Note: The missing inlays may have been in a material more susceptible to decomposition with time and, on the basis of comparison with other Sarmatian jewellery, may have been turquoise or enamel. Some of the inlays are in the form of Tamga symbols, a tribal or clan emblem widely used by Eurasian nomads and recorded on various precious metal objects and ornaments.

Sotheby's. Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, London, 03 Jul 2018, 04:00 PM

Lot 78. A Sarmatian gold lion griffin head appliqué, Northern Black Sea or Central Asian Steppes, circa 2nd century B.C.-1st century A.D. Lenght 4.5 cm., depth 1.5 cm. Estimate 3,500 — 4,500 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

repoussé and with turquoise and enamel inlays over A black substance, probably bitumen.

Note:Such objects were probably ornaments from horse trappings or attachments to weaponry or its accompanying straps and belts. The central hole in the filler probably marks the position of an original gold attachment strut. 

Lot 122. Pierre Soulages, Peinture 195 x 130 cm, 3 février 1957, signed, titled and dated 'SOULAGES " Peinture 195cm x 130cm" 3 Fevrier 1957' (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 76 ¾ x 51 ½in. (195 x 130cm). Painted in 1957. Estimate GBP 2,500,000 - GBP 3,500,000. Price realised GBP 2,888,750. Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd 2018.

Lot 137. Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, signed 'l. fontana' (lower right); signed and titled 'l. fontana "Concetto Spaziale"' (on the reverse), oil on canvas,45 ¾ x 34 7/8in. (116.2 x 88.7cm). Executed in 1962. Estimate GBP 500,000 - GBP 700,000. Price realised GBP 560,750. Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd 2018.

Lot 194. Miquel Barceló (b. 1957), Es Maculi del Gegant (The Giant from Maculi), signed and dated 'Barceló 07' (on the reverse), mixed media on canvas, 112 ¼ x 112 ¼in. (285 x 285cm). Executed in 2007. Estimate GBP 180,000 - GBP 250,000. Price realised GBP 320,750. Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd 2018.

Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo (detail), ca. 1475–85. Oil on panel. Worcester Art Museum, Mass., Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, inv. no. 1940.29. Photo: Image courtesy the Worcester Art Museum.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.- On view at the Yale University Art Gallery from June 29 through October 7, Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio investigates a virtually unknown period in the career of perhaps the most famous artist of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). The exhibition focuses on the claim of Leonardo’s first biographers that as a boy he was apprenticed to the sculptor, painter, and goldsmith Andrea del Verrocchio (ca. 1435–1488). Verrocchio is a mysterious personality. While many of his sculptures in bronze and marble are today admired as iconic masterpieces of 15th-century Florentine art, scholars have never agreed on a list of surviving paintings that might be by him, or even whether any of them are by one artist alone. Consequently, previous attempts to determine what Leonardo might have learned from Verrocchio have rarely led to serious proposals to identify the earliest works of that revolutionary genius. 

Only one fully documented altarpiece commissioned from Andrea del Verrocchio is known. Installed in the cathedral of Pistoia, near Florence, it was described in the 16th century as the work of Leonardo’s fellow pupil in Verrocchio’s shop, Lorenzo di Credi, an attribution accepted without question by most scholars. Two small paintings once part of this altarpiece—an Annunciation and a scene depicting a miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo—are now in the collections of the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, respectively. These, too, have conventionally been attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, an artist of relatively modest talents. In March of this year, a small exhibition in Worcester united the Louvre and Worcester paintings for the first time since they were separated, probably in the early 19th century. The Gallery’s exhibition follows that display with 11 additional paintings and sculptures, exploring the wider context of Verrocchio and his studio of artist-helpers. Among these studio assistants, the most remarkable by far was Leonardo da Vinci, and the exhibition at Yale argues that it was Leonardo, not his younger “classmate” Lorenzo, who should be recognized as the author of the Louvre painting as well as large parts of the Worcester panel. 

Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation (detail), ca. 1475–79. Oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. M.I. 598. Photo: Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), Jean-Louis Bellec

Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, ca. 1475–79. Oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. M.I. 598. Photo: Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), Jean-Louis Bellec

Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, ca. 1475–85. Oil on panel. Worcester Art Museum, Mass., Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, inv. no. 1940.29. Image courtesy the Worcester Art Museum.

Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo (detail), ca. 1475–85. Oil on panel. Worcester Art Museum, Mass., Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, inv. no. 1940.29. Photo: Image courtesy the Worcester Art Museum.

Another painting being shown at the Gallery may also have been conceived as a Verrocchio commission, but like the Louvre and Worcester panels, it was largely executed by Leonardo. The little-known Triumph of Aemilius Paulus from the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris has only twice before been exhibited publicly. It is one of a pair of panels that functioned as fronts of cassoni: painted furniture chests commissioned for patrician weddings in Florence, this one involving the Mannelli family in or around 1473. Its companion, the Battle of Pydna—which is also preserved at the Musée Jacquemart-André and was also painted in large part by Leonardo—could not travel to New Haven but is fully discussed in the related publication Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio, Early Paintings and New Attributions, being released by the Yale University Art Gallery concurrent with the exhibition. Two other major paintings that could not travel are also identified as collaborations between Leonardo and another artist, in this case probably his teacher, Verrocchio, and are discussed at length in the book: the Virgin and Child with Two Angels in the National Gallery, London, and the Virgin with the Seated Child in the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. 

Leonardo da Vinci and collaborator, The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus, ca. 1472–73. Tempera on panel. Musée Jacquemart-André, Institut de France, Paris, inv. no. mjap-p 1822.2. Photo: © Studio Sébert Photographes

Leonardo da Vinci and collaborator, The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus (detail), ca. 1472–73. Tempera on panel. Musée Jacquemart-André, Institut de France, Paris, inv. no. mjap-p 1822.2. Photo: © Studio Sébert Photographes. 

While it springs from a renewed focus on Verrocchio as a painter and the influence he exerted on the young Leonardo, the Gallery’s exhibition also investigates the collaborative nature of sculptures produced in what must have been a large and industrious workshop. It includes three rarely studied sculptures in marble, terracotta, and stucco, each with a reasonable claim to having been made by Verrocchio and illustrating different aspects of his reliance on pupils and assistants. Comparative works by Lorenzo di Credi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, Biagio d’Antonio, and Jacopo del Sellaio attest to the spread of Verrocchio’s influence throughout Florentine artistic circles at the end of the 15th century. Finally, two paintings—one of which, in a private collection, has never before been exhibited publicly—are proposed as possible early works by Verrocchio, completing the hypothetical picture of the early careers of both the master and his illustrious pupil. 

Andrea del Verrocchio, Virgin and Child, ca. 1465. Tempera on panel. Alana Collection, Newark, Del. Photo: © Foto Giusti Claudio

Andrea del Verrocchio and workshop(?), Virgin and Child with an Angel, ca. 1475–85. Marble. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Quincy Adams Shaw through Quincy Adams Shaw, Jr., and Mrs. Marian Shaw Haughton, inv. no. 17.1467a. Photo: © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

“The seeds of this exhibition were sown over 20 years ago when Laurence Kanter, now Chief Curator and the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art at the Gallery, then Curator-in-Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, noticed that a small painting, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, modestly attributed there to Leonardo’s friend, fellow student, and imitator Lorenzo di Credi, must have been painted as a collaborative effort with Leonardo himself,” explains Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director at the Gallery. “The painting then became an object of close study and analysis by our good colleagues at Worcester and by their counterparts at the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, where a companion panel, the Annunciation, has long been a bone of contention among Leonardo scholars. Their work, combined with Kanter’s further research into comparable objects and historical context, blossomed in unforeseen directions, resulting in this controversial and compelling exhibition and publication.” 

Kanter’s attributions rest on three main premises: that Lorenzo di Credi not only was a painter of inferior talent and intellect to his friend Leonardo but also had a distinctively recognizable style of his own; that paintings and sculptures produced in Verrocchio’s studio, as in so many Renaissance workshops, more frequently merit multiple attributions than is commonly supposed; and that Leonardo must have learned to paint in tempera before mastering his characteristic oil technique, as tempera was the medium employed by his mentor, Verrocchio. Few art historians have attempted to ascribe early works in tempera to the Renaissance polymath. “While attributing new paintings to Leonardo may be seen as an act of hubris,” states Kanter, “simply recognizing the logic behind these three premises indicates how repetitive, and at the same time uncertain, scholarship can be, even about the works of this artistic giant. Perhaps misled by unquestioned ‘truths’ or reverence for the canon, we lose sight of the fact that Leonardo, like young people of every generation, began as a student. Even genius needs to start somewhere. With patience and close looking, it is usually possible to trace the path of those first steps.” Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio invites all—scholars, art lovers, and those who are simply curious— to look closely, consider the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.

Lorenzo di Credi, The Annunciation, ca. 1500. Oil on panel. Alana Collection, Newark, Del. Photo: Christopher Gardner. 

Lot 1959. A finely painted and rare famille-rose'One hundred boys' vase, fanghu, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 32.5 cm., 12 3/4 in. Estimate 7,000,000 — 9,000,000 HKD (674,841 — 867,652 EUR). Lot sold 10,740,000 HKD (1,035,398 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

of rectangular section, each side painted with a continuous festival scene of boys at play, some performing a lion dance, some crossing a bridge on hobby-horses, and others playing various musical instruments, all within a pavilion garden landscape beneath towering mountains, the neck flanked by a pair of iron-red lug handles painted with lotus floral scrolls in gilt, the flared mouth bordered by a blue key-fret band and a pink pendant trefoil collar, all supported on a slightly splayed foot painted with floral scrolls, the base glazed turquoise and inscribed with a six-character iron-red reign mark.

Vibrantly decorated with a continuous scene of boys engaged in activities during a Dragon Boat Festival, the present vase is extremely rare for its form and no other closely related example appears to have been published. While the form has its roots in the archaic fanghu of the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220), the Qing craftsman has skilfully elongated the neck and replaced the ringed mask handles with tubular handles to update the form to a style suitable to contemporary taste.

The vast landscape is successfully captured through the long shape of the vase, thus allowing the mountainous landscape to stretch up the neck. Its vertical format coupled with the finely detail and tonal palette of the trees and mountains are reminiscent of landscape scroll paintings of the period. Furthermore, the craftsman cleverly incorporated the severe square section of the vase to successfully render four festive scenes on each side of the vase while retaining the unity of a continuous scene.

The subject of 100 boys (baizi) dates back to the Song dynasty (960-1279) and the depiction of children engaged in games and outdoor activities is symbolic of longevity, prosperity and well-being, as well as the embodiment of adult aspirations. A popular subject during the Ming period, it was revived under the Qianlong emperor and vases of various forms were painted with playful scenes in a style similar to the present, but usually between colour ground borders; see a larger vase of baluster form and high shoulders between yellow ground borders, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 121; an ovoid vase with green borders, in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, illustrated in Chugoku toji zenshu, vol. 21, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 117; and another ovoid vase with ruby-ground borders, from the J.M. Hu collection, sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 69.

Dragon Boat (Longchuan) races are held during the Duanyang or Duanwu Festival which happens on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The festival became a tradition to commemorate the death of Qu Yuan (c. 340-278BC), a patriotic statesman and poet from the Southern Chu state of the Warring States period. Qu drowned himself near Dongting Hu in Hunan province as a protest against the decadent and corrupt court, which collapsed consequently. The Dragon Boat race itself is a symbolic act of searching for Qu's body and to keep fish and evil spirits away from him by beating drums and splashing the water with paddles. Food is thrown into the water as offering and to distract the fish away from his body. A pair of yellow ground moonflasks decorated with shaped panels enclosing similar scenes of one hundred boys in dragon boating pursuits was sold in these rooms, 11th April 2008, lot 2921.

Lot 1987. A Ge-type vase, hu, Seal mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 25 cm., 9 7/8 in. Estimate 1,200,000 — 1,800,000 HKD (115,687 — 173,530 EUR). Lot Sold 1,460,000 HKD (140,752 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

of archaistic hu form, the ovoid body supported on a pronounced foot, decorated with two double-raised fillets, gently tapering to a waisted flared neck, flanked by a pair of animal mask and mock-ring handles at the shoulder, applied overall with a soft creamy grey glaze suffused with a matrix of dark and golden crackles stopping, the base similarly glazed and inscribed with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue, stand.

Lot 1989.  A fine Ru-type facetted vase, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 33 cm., 13 in. Estimate 600,000 — 800,000 HKD (57,843 — 77,125 EUR). Lot Sold 1,340,000 HKD (129,184 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

potted with four primary sides and subsidiary facetted sides, the slightly flared foot rising to broad angular shoulders before tapering at the waisted neck surmounted by an everted lipped rim, applied with a blue-tinged grey glaze suffused with a characteristic web of fine cracklure, the foot painted with deep brown slip.

Lot 1990. A Guan-type octalobed tripod narcissus bowl, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 23 cm., 9 in. Estimate 1,500,000 — 2,500,000 HKD (144,609 — 241,014 EUR). Lot Sold 1,820,000 HKD (175,459 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

of the eight-sided vessel with curved shallow sides supported on three cabriole feet, covered overall with a soft blue-tinged grey glaze, suffused with an irregular matrix of fine dark-grey crackles, the slightly recessed underside centred with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue.

Lot 1995. A small copper-red glazed vase, meiping, mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 16 cm., 6 1/4 in. Estimate 700,000-900,000 HKD (67,484 — 86,765 EUR). Lot Sold 1,340,000  HKD (129,184 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

of finely potted baluster form with rounded shoulders rising to a short waisted neck, covered overall with a warm pinkish-red glaze, the interior and inset foot glazed white, with the four-character reign mark inscribed on the base within double circles.