Christie’s sold the most expensive Asian work of art ever when an exceptionally rare and important blue and white jar, Yuan dynasty, Fourteenth Century, realized $27,679,100. After a fierce bidding battle with more than six clients vying over the telephone and in the room, the jar was eventually acquired by Eskenazi Ltd for a private buyer. This is not only a world record price ever paid for any Chinese work of art, it is also the highest price paid for any work of art sold at Christie’s this year.

Dating from the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), the rare, and previously unrecorded blue and white guan jar is finely decorated with a narrative scene in vibrant underglaze cobalt blue. The jar, which depicts scenes from contemporary literature, is thought to be one of only eight to have survived to the present day.

Featuring a peony scroll band around the shoulders and a petal band around the base, the jar has vividly painted scenes from the story of the conflict between the states of Yan and Qi in the Warring States period (AD 475-221). A figure in a cart, pulled by a tiger and a leopard, follows two foot soldiers running by a stream. Over the bridge is a scholarly figure on a piebald horse looking across a rocky landscape to another horseman. The jar was acquired in China by Captain Baron Haro van Hemert, a keen collector of art, who was in the Dutch Marine Corps and was stationed in Beijing from 1913 to 1923.

Price reported includes buyer’s premium.

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