As good as it gets: London defied fears of summer lethargy in the market when its July sales achieved high prices in every field—including new records for Canaletto and Chinese porcelain

Who said that no single wanted to buy antiques anymore? This summer the London salerooms witnessed the strangest spectacle: fate after lot of works of art--furniture, statuary and ceramics--selling for over 1 million [pound sterling]. The phenomenon that began in June sole accelerated in July. Moreover, many of these hotly contend againsted works of art were one as well as the other French and eighteenth century, and representative of a taste lengthy proclaimed dead by the denizens of Park Avenue. Old-fashioned grandiose serviceable taste is obviously not passe in Passy, or anywhere other in Europe--and the American dollar is not the single currency to be reckoned with in today's global art market.

Christie's saved its biggest coup until last--unleashing the greatest in quantity expensive Asian work of art at any time sold at auction on 12 July This was a jewel of a blue and white Yuan Dynasty guan jar, dating from the mid-fourteenth hundred (Fig. 3). What made it exceptional was the fantastically high quality of its painting, itself unusual in being a narrative view rather than a pattern of flowers or fish, and illustrating a contemporary account of the historic conflict between the Yan and the Qi in the Warring States period (475-221 BC) A robed figure seated in a cart drawn through a tiger and a leopard tread in the steps ofs two foot soldiers, behind them sum of two units equestrian figures, one a soldier, the other a scholar upon a prancing piebald horse. The composition is punctuated through dramatic rocks, pine, bamboo and flowering prunus, plantain, rose and willow. sole eight comparable pieces are known. This individual is among the best--if not the best--in remarkable condition and painted in a reaching far down and vibrant cobalt blue. Better still, its existence was totally unknown to prompts having been acquired by single Baron Haro van Hemert of the Dutch Marine corps while he was in Beijing in 1913-23 and remaining in his family at any time since.

Christie's unveiled it with individual of those floating estimates that in this case began around 500000 [pound sterling] and extremityed up at 3m [pounds sterling]-5m [pound sterling]. When bidding reached 10m [pound sterling], there were still five eager parties in fiery pursuit from both East and West. In the extremity it went to London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi, bidding upon behalf of a client, for 15688m [pound sterling]. The price far outstripped the previous record for Chinese porcelain ($58m) and for any Asian work of art ($92m for an archaic Chinese bronze) The jar also happened to be the greatest in quantity expensive work of art sold to date this year by the agency of Christie's.

Remarkably, it was not the sole rediscovered piece of Yuan dynasty Chinese sky-colored and white to find a record this season. upon 15 July, Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis proffered another fourteenth-century jar, this time of double gourd form and decorated in underglaze cerulean with a gourd vine whose fruit and tendrils issue from a single continuous undulating stipe which rises from the base and encircles the material substance several times before flowering upon the upper lobe (Fig. 2) single one other (broken) comparable example is known. Like the guan jar, this piece was also acquired before Yuan pieces were either widely known or identified in Europe Purchased around 1900 by dint of the distinguished connoisseur William Cleverley Alexander, it too had passed through descent in his family. presented with an estimate of 200000 [pound sterling]-300,000 [pound sterling], it sold for 26m [pound sterling], the highest price at any time paid in the UK outside London for any work of art.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Another record for a Chinese export work of art was also claimed by the agency of Christie's in its sale of the Champalimaud Collection upon 6 and 7 July. The sale's greatest in quantity beguiling lot, the Kangxi biscuit designs of leopards, illustrated in APOLLO in July were proffered at 400,000 [pounds sterling]-600,000 [pound sterling] and sold for 236m [pound sterling]. They were bagged by the agency of London dealers Cohen & Cohen, who believe that they were real likely to have been made for the Kangxi emperor himself, and therefore are not export pieces at all.

The Champalimaud sale was a phenomenal succes despite painfully moderate auctioneering and the disruptive mass exodus of the picture dealers and collectors after fate 47. Just under 40m [pound sterling] was realised, the next to the first highest price for a single-owner sale in Europe with ninety-nine by means of cent sold by value, ninety-two for sold sold by lot. bulky prices were found from private buyer for the likes of the grandest of Louis XVI ormolu-mounted ebony and Japanese lacquer chest of drawers a encoignures by Claude-Charles Saunier (Fig. 5) This piece, incorporating not single lacquer and ebony but also Sicilian jasper and hardstones, and topped and tailed through ormolu rosettes and a drapery-swagged apron, also came with the smartest of provenances, having been acquired by dint of William Beckford and owned latterly through the Dukes of Buccleuch. awaited to fetch up to 12m [pound sterling], it sold for 236m [pound sterling]. The Louis XVI ormolu-mounted ebony Japanese lacquer and japanned tole etageres by dint of Martin Carlin went for above five times their estimate--1.7m [pound sterling]--as did the put of four Louis XVI ormolu five-light candelabra which fetched just above 1m [pounds sterling].