Far Eastern buyers bought a competitive buzz to New York's Asia Week that reminded some dealers of the heady days of the 1970s

fresh York's Asia Week is a little like a Chinese banquet--course after course, the fairs, sales and displays just keep on coming--and by means of the end only the greatest in quantity curious has sampled it all. hardly any fail to miss its centrepiece, however, the International Asian Art Fair at the Seventh Regiment Armory (26-31 March), although the constellation of stellar dealers' displays that has sprung up around it in new years continues to threaten an eclipse.

What was striking about this year's incident though, was the return of the hum that first greeted this elegant specialist fair when it make opened its doors in 1996. In a certain number of part that may have been to be paid to the mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and flat Japanese dealers who were in town in flocks and had already made their mark in the salerooms. It is probably fair to say that Western collectors had not seen similar intense competition from the Far East since the heady days of Japanese buying in the 1970s--or like a number of new, and new-rich, Chinese buyers

At Christie's sale in of recent origin York of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art upon 24 March, for instance, a Japanese dealer bidding against an American collector carried not on a prize six-lobed foliate dish from the Southern ballad dynasty (1127-1279) with a pale, crackled glaze known as geyao, for a princely totality just short of $1.5m (estimate $400000-$600000) This small on the other hand perfect piece is a classic of understated canticle refinement, traditionally much admired through the Japanese; it was single of a group of important items sold extremely fortunately by the heirs of the distinguished collector Stephen Junkunc III.

single item to remain in the West was single of the finest archaic alloy of coppers ever to come to auction (most are sold privately). This finely cast ritual wine utensil from the twelfth century BC was sold by the agency of Sotheby's in 1976 from a well-known American collection for a elephantine $180,000, acquired by the British Rail Pension capital and three years later passed to London dealers Eskenazi for 715000 [pound sterling]. Last year, it took a bend in the Asia Week exhibit staged in New York by means of Brussels-based Gisele Croes; this year it tried its haphazard at Christie's and was bagged, among other things, by the agency of the British collector and philanthropist Peter Moores for his newly render free of accessed museum at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, selling upon target for $1.4m. Christie's, incidentally, which presented the stronger of this season's sales, claimed its highest at any time Asia Week total, of $20m

As at any time Chinese art dominated the week with the lion's share of spectacular trophies proffered by the handful of for the most part overseas dealers exhibiting in Manhattan galleries. And the rejoinder was remarkable. Gisele Croes, whose extraordinary 6th-century carved stone funerary bed intrigued all visitors to her exhibit of ritual objects and early Buddhist art, claimed single of her most successful exhibitions at any time with 85 per cent of pieces sold or reserv by means of museums (the prices were chiefly in the region of $500000-$12m; the clients, American, Chinese and French) Within hours of opening, Eskenazi had sold three of his small on the contrary impressive group of Chinese Buddhist plastic arts including the rare and beautifully modell cover-piece of a Tang dynasty earthenware seated Buddha, 40 cm high, burnished to gaze like stone. It went to an American collector for a six-figure aggregate amount By general consensus, the greatest in quantity outstanding offering--though not the greatest in quantity commercial--was London based Rossi & Rossi's spectacularly installed display of silk style of dresss and textiles from the Liao and Yuan periods. These were rare, evocative survivals--everything from headgear and premium coverings to imperial robes, including the earliest known dragon robe--of those who one time roamed the Steppes of north-west China in the tenth-thirteenth century

on the contrary it was not only Chinese art that fared well this week. At Sotheby's upon 24 March a new auction record price was place for Gandharan art when a monumental and beautiful standing Buddha of the second/third hundred realised $736,000. By the extreme point of his opening night, local dealer Carlton Rochell had sold eleven pieces from his exhibition of plastic art and painting from the Himalayas and South-East Asia. As for the International, Japanese guards and Indian works of art appear to have sold well: single of the most unexpected offerings, a silver state howdah of around 1860 that one time belonged to the Maharajah of Ambikapur, sold to an institution in Virginia for $120000 Meanwhile, International exhibitor John Eskenazi could announce that he had sold a rare cent Gupta-style standing Buddha Sabyamuni of the late sixth or early seventh hundred 35.5 cm high, jointly to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Between them, the museums raised 850000 [pound sterling] for the purchase, with the help of grants from the Heritage Lottery stock the National Art Collections stock and other donors.

Worcester in fashion

above the past thirty four years, Saint Louis collectors Jeanne and Milton Zorensky had amassed a collection of early Worcester porcelain unique in its range and profundity In London on 16 March Bonhams staged the first of three planned sales of this 1,400-piece holding, which embraced everything from great rarities to damaged and imperfect pieces. Not since the sale of the celebrated Rous Lench Collection in 1986 had the market been treated to of the like kind a well-known offering--the 1996 catalogue of the collection has become a standard regard work. The response was a certain number of exceptional prices and a sale 99 for cent sold by lot and by dint of value, totalling 584,367 [pounds sterling].