A rare Peachbloom-glazed “chrysanthemum” vase, Juban Ping, Kangxi six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1662–1722), 8¼ inches tall ($700/900,000).
NEW YORK CITY — Christie’s announces it will present a dedicated auction, Collected in America: Chinese Ceramics from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Thursday, September 15.
The collection comprises more than 600 works dating from the Song to the Qing dynasty that provide a window into traditions of collecting Chinese ceramics in America from the end of the Nineteenth Century through the Twentieth Century. Christie’s will offer an additional selection of ceramics from the museum in an online auction, which will be exhibited concurrently with the live sale during Asian Art Week in September. A global tour of highlights from the collection kicked off May 6 in London, and continues with stops throughout Asia prior to the New York sales. The proceeds of the sale will benefit the Met’s Acquisitions Fund.
The selection represents a broad range of categories, including Song dynasty Jun wares, blue-and-white porcelains from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and domestic and export wares from the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. Of particular note is a large group of porcelains from the museum’s first important acquisition of Asian art in 1879 from the collection of an early trustee of the Met, Samuel Putnam Avery, and a group of refined Kangxi mark-and-period peachbloom-glazed scholar’s vessels from the mid-Twentieth Century collection of Mary Stillman Harkness, wife of Standard Oil heir Edward Stephen Harkness. Other distinguished provenances include philanthropists Mary Clark Thompson, wife of banker Frederick Ferris Thompson, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., financier and son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller Sr.
A finely enameled iron-red-decorated sgraffiato-ground “dragon and phoenix” bowl and a cover, Qianlong six-character seal mark in iron red and of the period (1736-1795), 4-inch diameter ($70/90,000).
For more information, www.Christies.com or 212-636-2000.
