Featured vases, teapots, flowerpot, and tea-set at Naik Antiques and Oriental Gifts from Dec 2017 - Jan 2018.

Dear readers,

Below are our featured items for Dec 2017 - Jan 2018. Please free to visit us if you happen to be in or around the neighbourhood:)

Address: 111M, Jln SS22/37, Damansara Utama, Selangor, Malaysia

For further inquiries, please email us at maynaik23@gmail.com or emperorsantique@gmail.com

A Pair of Fine Hand-painted Falangcai Vases With Birds On Trees For Sale

A pair of fine hand-painted falangcai vases with birds on trees.
Height: 23cm
Yongzheng mark



Price is available upon request. Interested parties can contact May at +6018 3867939 or email us at maynaik23@gmail.com or emperorsantique@gmail.com.

$450 million Leonardo Painting Heading to New Louvre Museum

A Leonardo da Vinci painting of Christ that sold in New York for a record $450 million (380 million euros) is heading to a museum in the United Arab Emirates.

The newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi made the announcement Wednesday.

The 500-year-old painting is called "Salvator Mundi," Latin for "Savior of the World." It's one of fewer than 20 paintings by the Renaissance master known to exist and the only one in private hands. Christie's auction house sold it to an anonymous buyer last month.

The New York Times reports according to documents it reviewed the mystery buyer was a little-known Saudi prince. Christie's says it doesn't comment on the identities of buyers or sellers without their permission.

The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million (253 million euros), for Willem de Kooning's painting "Interchange."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/450-million-leonardo-painting-heading-to-new-louvre-museum.html

Chinese Ceramics: From the Neolithic to the Qing Dynasty, 2003

Dear readers,

I thought you might enjoy the extensive 'tour' of Chinese ceramics in the link (at the bottom of the page) for a few reasons:

1.  It talks about ceramics from the Neolithic period - Qing dynasty..
2. It covers various museums throughout China.
3. The 'tour guide' is a curator from the Shanghai museum. 

Enjoy!

May Naik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2zkPa-Fwtg

Why Are Critics Calling the $450 Million Painting Fake? by James Tarmy

Even before Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi went to auction last night at Christie’s in New York, naysayers from around the art world were savaging its authenticity. Various advisors were muttering darkly, both online and in the auction previews, and one day before the sale New York magazine’s Jerry Saltz wrote that though he’s “no art historian or any kind of expert in old masters,” just “one look at this painting tells me it’s no Leonardo.”

And that was before the painting obliterated every previous auction record, selling, with premium, for $450 million. 

Shortly after the gavel came down on Wednesday evening, the New York Times published a piece by the critic Jason Farago where, after also noting that he’s “not the man to affirm or reject its attribution,” declared that the painting is “a proficient but not especially distinguished religious picture from turn-of-the-16th-century Lombardy, put through a wringer of restorations.”

Had the buyer of the most expensive painting in the world just purchased a piece of junk?

All of the most relevant people believe it’s by Leonardo, so the rather extensive criticism that goes ‘I don’t know anything about old masters, but I don’t think it’s by Leonardo’ shouldn’t ever have gone to print,” says the British old masters dealer Charles Beddington. “Yes, it’s a picture that needed to be extensively restored. But the fact that it’s unanimously accepted as a Leonardo shows it’s in good enough condition that there weren’t questions of authenticity.”

After speaking to multiple prominent old masters dealers— a group not exactly known for holding its tongue— the real issue regarding the Leonardo’s validity seems to be a question of education: “All old masters have had work done to them,” says the dealer Rafael Valls, whose London gallery is directly across from Christie’s.

“They’ve all been scrubbed and cleaned, but when you think about a particular painting and say, ‘oh it’s by Titian, but a quarter of it was recreated by other restorers,’ it still is what it is.”

Those in the art world who dismiss its authenticity, dealers say, are simply transferring criteria used to judge contemporary art onto old masters—the equivalent of comparing the specs of a new Honda against a Ferrari from 1965. They’re both cars, but that’s where the similarities end.

“To a certain extent you have to put condition aside,” says the dealer Johnny van Haeften. “Of course it’s not perfect, and of course it’s not mint. But can you get another one?”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/is-the-450-million-salvator-mundi-leonardo-da-vinci-painting-a-fake

Bowl Sells for Chinese Porcelain Record $37.7 million: Sotheby´s

A 1,000-year-old bowl from China's Song Dynasty sold at auction for $37.7 million on Tuesday, breaking the record for Chinese porcelain, auction house Sotheby´s said.

The small piece -- which dates from 960-1127 -- broke the previous record of $36.05 million set in 2014 for a Ming Dynasty wine cup which was sold to a Shanghai tycoon.

Bidding started at around $10.2 million and the auction lasted for 20 minutes before the winning offer came from a phone bidder.

The bowl -- originally designed to wash brushes -- is an example of extremely rare Chinese porcelain from the imperial court of the Northern Song Dynasty and one of only four pieces in private hands, according to Sotheby's.

Measuring 13cm in diameter, the dish features a luminous blue glaze.

The sale broke the "world auction record for any Chinese ceramics", the auction house announced after the bidding.

It exceeded an earlier record made by a tiny white porcelain cup, decorated with a colour painting of a rooster and a hen tending to their chicks, created during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor between 1465 and 1487.

The cup sold in 2014 to taxi-driver-turned-financier Liu Yiqian, one of China's wealthiest people and among a new class of Chinese super-rich scouring the globe for artwork.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4943172/Bowl-sells-Chinese-porcelain-record-37-7-million-Sotheby-s.html

Hong Kong’s Subdued Spring Auction Sales: Too Few Good Lots or Too Many Auction Houses? By Enid Tsui

China’s ultra-rich are still buying luxury homes in Hong Kong and the Hang Seng index is up 16 per cent so far this year. So why is the local auctions market so subdued?

The second round of spring auctions was held over the last week of May and almost all the major auction houses reported flat or lower results compared with last year’s – just as Sotheby’s and Poly Auction reported lacklustre sales in April when they had their spring sales.

On May 31, a celadon-glazed “double dragon” amphora from the Qing dynasty reign of Emperor Yongzheng was sold for HK$140.5 million, becoming the most expensive monochrome Chinese porcelain sold in auctions.

Christie’s also sold Zhang Daqian’s Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds (1965) for a whopping HK$102.5 million in a single-lot sale with its own catalogue. But it’s a far cry from the HK$270.7 million that Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian paid for Zhang’s Peach Blossom Spring (1982), another of his splashed-ink landscapes, a year ago.

Beijing’s crackdown on corrupt officials has probably had an impact, for they, or their bribers, definitely bought through auctions. But capital controls should also have made a dent in the luxury property market and other sectors popular with Chinese investors.

“I don’t think they have much of an effect on the sale of high-value lots in auctions,” said William Chak Kin-man, a veteran antiques dealer based in Hollywood Road. “The ultra-rich have so many assets outside the country they cannot be affected. I think it’s because there are too many mediocre lots in the sales. When something really good appears on the market, people are happy to pay for it.”

Guillaume Cerutti, new chief executive officer at Christie’s, told the Post that he expected the situation to improve this year.

Bonhams, which has become more low-profile these days, saw quite lively bidding at its recent sales of Chinese paintings and works of art, he said.

“The real problem for auction houses is competition,” Chak said. “Thirty auction houses were active during so-called Asia Week in Hong Kong this month. Last year, it was 20. The market is being stretched thinner. I think collectors will appreciate having more time to look around and not feel quite so pressurised.”

To view the full article, please go to:

http://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2096536/hong-kongs-subdued-spring-auction-sales-too-few-good-lots