China Looks to Take Next Step in Global Art World By Lin Qi, Bo Leung

Last year, China took the largest share of the market in global sales of art and antiques at open auctions. However, if one adds up transactions at auctions and through dealers and galleries, China ranked third by value, after the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a recent report.

The first Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report said Chinese auction sales accounted for 34 per cent of the world total by value, exceeding the US, which recorded 32 per cent, and Britain, which had 18 per cent.

However, China falls behind those countries when the bigger art industry picture is taken into consideration, because deals are also made by dealers and galleries at sales exhibitions and art fairs, as well as via expanding online sales.

The report said the US maintains the premier position. It accounts for 40 per cent of global share by value, followed by the UK with 21 per cent and China with 20 per cent.

It also said the global art market generated $56.6bn in total sales, and the top three markets－the US, UK and China－cemented a combined dominant position that has endured for a decade.

Last year, Chinese auctions brought several expensive sales in the classical Chinese paintings and antiques market. A 14th-century coloured ink-brush painting went for more than 303 million yuan ($44m) in December in Beijing. A 15th-century blue-and-white dragon-patterned jar grossed HK$158m ($20m) in a Hong Kong sale.

Works of 20th-century ink-brush masters also hit mind-boggling heights. Fu Baoshi’s The God of Rain and The Lord of Fate, and Zhang Daqian’s Peach Blossoms each sold for more than 220 million yuan, ranking them among the top three Chinese paintings at auction last year.

The annual report of the China Association of Auctioneers shows that there were about 436 houses in the mainland’s art and antiques auction market by the end of 2015.

According to the Art Basel and UBS report, auction sales dominated the market in China, with a share of almost 68 per cent by value.

The full article is available at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/china-watch/culture/china-in-global-art-market/

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