Chinese Art Dealer in Unpaid YSL Bronzes Furor Weeps as he realizes that his credibility is shot.

March 10 (Bloomberg) — Cai Mingchao (蔡铭超) the Chinese art dealer who is refusing to pay for the $40 million Qing bronzes he successfully bid for in the Yves Saint Laurent auction, wept when he realized that his credibility was shot and he may now have to close his business.

Cai, 44, spoke in an interview after turning away hundreds of calls from reporters about the Feb. 25 sale. He was praised in China for walking away from the bronzes, which were plundered by foreign troops, and has been condemned by other dealers. In the world of high-end art sales, where millions of dollars worth of items may sell on the basis of a phone call or handshake, defaulting is seen as unprofessional.

“This has damaged me: I have lost the business I love,” said Cai, in his office in the southeastern city of Xiamen. Cai said he had bid with the intention of paying, then had second thoughts and decided it’s wrong to do so. He again denied acting in concert with China’s government.

The Christie’s International sale is renewing debate in art circles on the moral and legal right of auction houses to sell controversial items, including those that some nations regard as looted. Cai’s default may also heighten calls for more checks on bidders. Art transactions were worth 43.3 billion euros ($54.5 billion) in 2006, according to a 2008 report by the European Fine Art Foundation.

International Law

Christie’s has always held that the sale of all of the Saint Laurent items, including the sculptures, was legitimate because the items had legal titles. Not so, said an ad hoc group of lawyers in China that in January threatened to sue Christie’s for offering the animal-head bronzes, saying it contravened international law.

The mid-18th-century sculptures of a rabbit and a rat were taken from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by invading French and British soldiers in 1860.

The 1995 United Nations Unidroit Convention limits claims on stolen cultural artifacts to within 50 years of their theft.

On Feb. 23 in Paris (Xiamen is seven hours ahead of France), a court ruled that the sale could go ahead. Hours later, Cai called Christie’s Shanghai-based business development director Wang Jie from his favorite leather couch on his dark-wood, second-floor office and registered to bid.

“I thought to myself, ‘It’s impossible to find these items again,’” Cai said.

No Documents

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, Cai said, Wang called to say Christie’s agreed, after an internal meeting, that he would have three to four months to settle the bill if he won. None of the agreements was documented, Cai said. That contravenes Christie’s own terms-of-sale rules, stated at the back of its brochure, that “a prospective buyer must complete and sign a registration form and provide identification before bidding.”

Christie’s Hong Kong-based spokeswoman Kate Malin would not verify Cai’s identity and said the company would not comment on the bronzes sale because of client confidentiality.

It’s not uncommon for auction houses to let their best customers and those they consider wealthy bid on big-ticket items without asking guarantees or proof of ability to pay, said George Sutton, a Minneapolis-based analyst with Craig-Hallum Capital Group, who covers Christie’s rival Sotheby’s. French billionaire Francois Pinault owns London-based Christie’s.

“Something like this isn’t good for the reputation of the auction house,” said Sutton, “And will cause the need for change. This suggests possibly that change should happen.”

“These days,” said Cai, “you can’t even get a loan of 10,000 yuan ($1,289) without pledging your house or car as collateral, and I could just bid on an item worth hundreds of millions of yuan with one phone call.”

Buzz Cut

Cai’s black, unbuttoned choker-collar suit hung loosely on his tanned 5-foot-2-inch frame. He wore a buzz cut, rubber-soled black canvas shoes and a three-day-old moustache. Cai moved as quickly as he spoke, with a Fujian accent that flattened loud vowels. He smoked three Kent cigarettes in 30 minutes, sometimes struggling to hold back more tears.

Cai, a native of Xiamen, wouldn’t say how much he’s worth. The third of a cloth merchant’s four children, he said he inherited some money and made the rest in stocks and real estate. Cai said he left Xiamen’s art school at 18 and started in business by renting a store trading cloth. In 2005, he opened Xiamen Xinhe Art International Auction Co. after leaving the state-backed Xiamen Auction Co. where he said he started the art-sale department.

Ming Buddha

In October 2006, Cai made headlines when he paid a record HK$117 million ($15 million) for a Ming Dynasty Shakyamuni bronze Buddha at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong. Cai said he settled the bill in three months and it shouldn’t matter how he did so. He said he still owns the Buddha, which is kept in a safe.

“He has a very good reputation with art dealers,” said Roger Keverne, 62, head of his namesake gallery and chairman of Asian Art in London, an annual exhibition by the city’s galleries. Keverne said he’d met Cai in Beijing and Hong Kong in the past few years. “I found him charming, his manners immaculate. I have only heard good things about him.”

At about 2 a.m. Xiamen time on Feb. 26, the last day of the Saint Laurent sale was under way in Paris. With seven lots to go before the bronzes came up, Cai got a call from Christie’s Asia Deputy Chairman Ken Yeh to prepare to bid. Cai watched the auction live from a Phoenix Television broadcast. First came the rat head. Cai looked on as the bidding on Lot 677 climbed from 9 million euros to 10 million euros to 11 million euros.

“Just as they were about to close the deal, I went in,” said Cai. “I felt if I didn’t bid, I will lose it forever.”

Bid Applause

He offered 12 million euros. A rival countered with 13 million euros, so Cai went up to 14 million euros — the final bid. Applause broke out. Next up was the rabbit head. Cai’s 14 million-euro bid beat a rival’s 13.5 million euros and he secured the second bronze.

“At that time, maybe I didn’t consider if I could pay for them,” said Cai. “At the most, I would sell some of my ceramics to pay for them.”

Hours after the auction ended, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage responded to the sale with a circular requiring Christie’s to detail the ownership and provenance of artifacts it brings into or out of China. When Cai heard of this, he started to question his purchase.

“I felt an internal struggle,” he said. “I felt, ‘If I paid this money and I can’t get the goods, what do I do?’”

Unpaid Adviser

That afternoon, Cai called and asked for a meeting with Niu Xianfeng, a Beijing-based deputy director of Ministry of Culture affiliate National Treasures Fund, which helps retrieve lost relics abroad. Cai has been an unpaid adviser with the fund since December 2007.

Cai said he kept calling Christie’s Wang between Feb. 26 and March 1 seeking the bill and the condition report of the bronzes. Cai said Wang told him Christie’s was chaotic and that people were away and that he should try later. Cai said he didn’t get any documents from Christie’s about the sale. Christie’s Malin declined to comment about this.

Cai came to think that accepting the bronzes was like buying “two time bombs and placing them at home, not knowing when they will explode.” Asked if he considered that before bidding, Cai said he couldn’t tell what prompted him to, just that he felt “mixed emotions” when the sculptures were on the block.

On Feb. 28, Niu and colleague Wang Weiming arrived at the Xinhe office and Cai told them he won the auction.

Officials ‘Shocked’

“They were shocked,” Cai said. “Then they said, ‘Good, good, we thought foreigners had bought them.’”

Niu didn’t answer his cell phone seeking comment.

Cai said he asked Niu and Wang to organize a news conference in Beijing under the National Treasures Fund’s banner to end speculation on who bought the bronzes.

After his March 2 news conference, Cai had the art world speculating on his motives and whether he had state backing. That night, he flew back to his office in Xiamen, a city of 2.5 million people just across the sea from Taiwan, sat on his couch and wept.

A March 4 Xinhua commentary compared Cai’s default with not paying ransom to kidnappers. “Paying would encourage more such stealing, and make the robbers happy,” the commentary said.

Berge’s Choice

Pierre Berge, partner of the late Yves Saint Laurent and the man who put the art collection up for sale, will keep the bronzes at home if they don’t sell, Agence France-Presse reported on March 3, citing him in an interview with French radio. Berge couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“If he wants to keep them at home, let him do it,” said Cai.

Hong Kong antiques dealer Yumi Kunizuka, whose family consigned a collection in London in 1989, said this case is not so much a lesson in law and art-auction protocol than manners.

“The whole matter could have been handled with more grace and wisdom by Christie’s, Berge and Cai,” said Kunizuka. Berge could have done more for Saint Laurent’s memory by not flaunting the bronzes, Christie’s shouldn’t have agreed to auction the items and Cai was unprofessional in what he did, Kunizuka said.

Hong Kong, where the auction house and main rival Sotheby’s hold biannual art sales, is Christie’s hub for the sale of Chinese antiquities, with revenue of more than HK$1 billion last year. Including other art categories, Christie’s Hong Kong sales last year tallied $452.3 million, about 11 percent of its total.

Export License

On March 6, Xinhua said, citing Cultural Heritage Administration Director Shan Jixiang, that its circular on Christie’s “does not limit the return” of the bronzes. According to the terms of sale stated in Christie’s brochure, it’s “the buyer’s sole responsibility to obtain any relevant export or import license. The denial of license or the delay in obtaining licenses” don’t justify the rescission of sale.

China isn’t the only nation trying to repatriate lost treasures, said He Shuzhong, founder of Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, a nongovernmental organization.

Last week, the Indian government said it facilitated the return of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi’s personal effects from a New York auction after the Indian public decried the sale. Indian liquor magnate Vijay Mallya paid $2.1 million for the items, which included Gandhi’s glasses, sandals and pocket watch.

Bounds of Law

Retrieving the items should be done in a calm way that is within the bounds of law and respectable conduct, said He. Rash actions in the name of patriotism would backfire, he said.

Art-auction defaults aren’t new. In 1987, Australian businessman Alan Bond bid a record $53.9 million at Sotheby’s New York for Vincent van Gogh’s “Irises,” then a record price for any work of art, and couldn’t pay for it. The painting had to be resold.

In September last year, Sotheby’s sued Cnet Inc. founder Halsey Minor to recover $16.8 million that the auction house said it’s owed for three pieces he bought at sales. Later that month, Minor sued Sotheby’s for not disclosing that the consignor of a painting he bought owes the auction house money.

The default on the bronzes purchase raises the question of how well auction houses perform their due diligence and whose interest they represent. Christie’s brochure states it “acts as agent for the seller.”

Auction houses make most of their commission from buyers, who pay up to 25 percent of the hammer price on their purchases, as they lower or waive commission for sellers to secure the right to represent the most valuable collections.

European Auction

The dispute marred the most successful auction in Europe, with 373.9 million euros raised and 96 percent of lots sold including the bronzes. Cai’s winning bid totaled 31.5 million euros, including Christie’s 3.5 million-euro commission.

In Cai’s 2,000-square-foot office, hydraulic-powered mahogany doors opened to reveal a sanctum lined with ceramics and Buddhas dating back as far back as the 14th century.

He swiped his wallet across a section of wall embedded with an electronic lock and a secret stairway appeared, leading to an underground showroom with hundreds of antiques.

Cai said that, fearing for his reputation, he’s canceling Xinhe’s spring sale, which tallied 47.4 million yuan last year, one of the Fujian province’s biggest. The fall sale may also be called off.

If he could do it again, Cai isn’t sure he would bid for the bronzes.

“No one (in the government) knew what I was doing,” said Cai. “Even if they knew, they wouldn’t look for me. Why should I help? I am not on their payroll.”

He said he’s now trying to pick up the pieces of his life. If he ends his art-auction activity, Cai said he may focus on his real-estate and securities trading businesses.

“When I turn on my cell phone and walk out of this place, I really don’t know what kind of life I will have,” he said.

To contact the writer on the story: Le-Min Lim in Hong Kong at lmlim@bloomberg.net

China conveniently forgets the provenance of ‘looted’ bronze heads

Hero or hooligan — opinions are divided on Cai Mingchao, the Chinese man who bid US$50-million for two bronze heads from the collection of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, but then announced he had no intention of paying for them. The Qing dynasty sculptures of a rat and a dog were looted by British and French troops from the old imperial Summer Palace near Beijing more than 150 years ago.

China says its feelings were “hurt” by the sale, but it’s arguable British and French feelings were also hurt by the incident that preceded the looting.

First, though, Cai and his “patriotic” stand. In a story carried on the front page of The China Daily, he put the loftiest spin on his actions: “The auction negated the history that the cultural relics were looted, defied the ethics of international society, and breached the rules of commercial auctions,” he said. An online survey conducted by sina.com.cn, a Chinese government-run Web site, also showed more than 70% of the netizens support Cai’s action for he had safeguarded China’s interests.

As the BBC noted, another commentator, writing in the Beijing News, also lavished praise on the bogus bidder. “Cai Mingchao’s bid was a patriotic political act to strike back at an illegal auction,” said Wang Zhanyang, a professor at the Central Socialist Academy. In a typical example of Chinese double-think, he added the art expert had not caused any trouble because the Chinese government did not recognize the legality of the sale.

Elsewhere, responses were less enthusiastic. According to Agence France-Presse, Liang Fafu, a blogger, said Cai had made the Chinese “look even worse on the international scene.”

“We come across as untrustworthy people, a bunch of con men. Who wants to deal with that kind of people in the future?”

Zhao Yu, a senior culture ministry official, told the Beijing Times Cai’s behaviour had done his compatriots no favour. “In overseas auctions… bidders usually need no deposit and simply rely on their reputation,” he said. “The fact that Cai Mingchao has gone back on his word in reality means he has undermined the credibility enjoyed by Chinese people at large international auctions.”

His muted response also has something to do with the provenance of the heads themselves. As Richard Spencer, The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Beijing, explains in his blog, “State media, while particularly sensitive to the European insult, are often rather careful to avoid hyping these items up as examples of high Chinese culture: for good reason, as they are not really Chinese, and the whole story of the fountain of which they are part is shrouded in ambiguity.”

It’s also worth recalling how the heads came to be in western hands in the first place. It’s not as if the British and French woke up one day and decided to launch an expedition to loot the Yuanming Yuan. Rather they were responding to an atrocity perpetrated by the emperor Xianfeng —  the torture of two western envoys sent under a flag of truce to negotiate, and the murder of most of their small escort of British, French and Indian troopers.

As Geremie Barmé writes in his history of the palace, The Garden of Perfect Brightness, A Life in Ruins (link through Spencer blog), “In the autumn of 1860, a delegation of English and French negotiators were despatched to Peking to exchange treaties with the Chinese court following a peace settlement that had been forced on Peking …

“After numerous prevarications, bluffs and acts of deception on the part of the Qing Court, the emissaries of the emperor … detained 39 members of the delegation. They were imprisoned in the Yuan Ming Yuan, used as hostages in the negotiations with the foreign powers, and subsequently tortured. Of their number 18 died and, when their bodies were eventually returned to the Allied forces in October, 1860, even the liberal use of lime in their coffins could not conceal the fact that they had suffered horribly before expiring.”

In giving the order to loot the palace, Lord Elgin, the British high commissioner to China, wanted to punish the emperor and his officials, not his people.  Memory of this part of the proceedings has faded from Chinese consciousness, Barmé goes on.

“Although without doubt an act of wanton barbarism, it is revealing that in popular Mainland Chinese accounts of the sackings of the palaces available to readers since the 1980s, one is hard pressed to find any mention of the atrocities committed by the Qing negotiators that led to this final act of vandalism. Nor in these popular histories are there detailed descriptions of the sly manipulations of the Qing Court in the tense days leading up to the sacking.”

National Post

awordsworth@nationalpost.com

http://network.nationalpost.com/

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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June 26 (Bloomberg) — Few people gave Zhao Xin a second look when he strolled into the biggest antique show in China’s coal city of Taiyuan, Shanxi, wearing straw-trimmed canvas shoes, black polyester-mix clothes, and a tobacco-stained grin.

That changed when he went to a booth run by Hong Kong dealer Raymond Chak. Pointing at Chinese gilt-bronze Buddha statues, he said, “Show me this, that, and that.” Ten minutes later, Zhao had bought about eight antiques for nearly 1.5 million yuan ($220,000). In the next hour, he spent at least another 2 million yuan on paintings, ceramics and other artworks at other booths, as bystanders looked on.

Zhao is one of the world’s biggest buyers of Chinese antiques, say art dealers like Shanghai-based Lu Feifei. He also belongs to a group of tycoons in China’s top coal-producing province of Shanxi, many of whom earned their wealth selling the fuel, and in recent years began paying top dollar for Chinese relics at auctions and galleries from Hong Kong to New York.

Reached on his mobile phone, Zhao simply said he was retired and wouldn’t say how he earned his money.

To court buyers in Shanxi — which has a reputation for being a cultural capital of sorts — about 50 of the world’s top names in Chinese antique sale flew from Hong Kong, London and the U.S. into Taiyuan to sell millions of dollars worth of ceramics, jade and snuff bottles. The city has an average per capita income of 15,230 yuan last year, and operates two flights a week to Hong Kong. Taiyuan is an hour by flight from Beijing.

Spotting Money

“In Shanxi, it’s hard to tell who the rich guys are,” said Ronald Chak, a nephew of Raymond who helps run one of Hong Kong antique dealership Chak’s Co. Ltd., which organized the Taiyuan fair. “You’d think some were ordinary folks and then you see them step into their Mercedes 500.”

“According to estimates from Artron, total global auction sales of both fine and decorative Chinese art in 2007 summed to approximately 2.3 billion euros,” said the European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) in a report published in March this year. About $500 million of items are auctioned by Christie’s International and Sotheby’s, based on company figures and estimates. The others are sold in galleries or in person.

Like diamonds, the portability of antiques make them more attractive than property or bulkier assets for buyers who have to relocate in a rush and frequently, said Stephen Vickers, chief executive of Hong Kong-based FTI International Risk Ltd. Owners could then convert them back into cash once they have settled in a new location.

Mainland Challenge

While Westerners still dominate the most-expensive segment of this market at auction, they are increasingly being challenged by buyers from mainland China, according to John Berwald, of New York-based dealership Berwald Oriental Art.

Christie’s says Americans are its biggest clients in this category of art, followed by mainland Chinese and Hong Kongers. While Shanxi buyers are new to the international art-trading scene compared with their Beijing and Shanghai peers, they are gaining a name as some of China’s fiercest bidders.

“They are a force to reckon with, no doubt about it,” said Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby’s Asia, who attended the Taiyuan fair. On paper, Shanxi buyers formally accounted for just $4 million of Sotheby’s Chinese antiques at its Hong Kong auctions, though the actual figure is much larger because many bid through agents in the city, he said, declining to give specifics.

There are about 51,000 people in China who have 100 million yuan or more, according to Hurun’s latest China rich list, released in April. Of these, 1,050 are in Shanxi. The actual number of rich individuals in the province is probably more than twice the number on the list, said Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of Hurun Report, which compiles China’s rich list.

‘Hidden Wealth’

“There’s a lot of hidden wealth in Shanxi,” he said.

Zhao owns the best private collection of ceramics kept by Qing Dynasty Emperor Daoguang (reign: 1820-1850) and dealers consider him a very important antiques buyer, according to Lu.

At the fair, Zhao asked about a red-beaded bracelet Raymond Chak wore; Chak immediately rolled it off his hand and handed it over. Zhao wound the new purchase on his wrist and carried on his shopping spree.

“Come to the antiques fair now,” he said into his mobile phone. “Today is their last day and a perfect opportunity to rip off Raymond Chak.”

His posse laughed, Chak wiped his forehead and chuckled dryly.

Investment Choice

“Zhao might not know which piece makes the best investment, but his aesthetics sense in antiques is probably better than even the dealers,” said Chak in an interview as Zhao shopped.

At first glance, there seems little about this northern province of 34 million people that hints at its wealth. Unlike coastal Shanghai or Guangdong, whose trade with the outside world created a class of traders and entrepreneurs, Shanxi is landlocked. In 2006, the per-capita income of its urban residents was 10,794 yuan, below the national average.

Still, Shanxi produces about 80 percent of China’s coal, the nation’s main source of fuel; it accounts for the biggest share of the province’s economy. As prices more than quintupled between 2002 and 2008, a class of new rich, dubbed “Coal Bosses” emerged in Shanxi.

Shanxi’s new rich have a reputation in China for brashness and ostentatious spending. In Taiyuan, taxi drivers recount stories of coal barons buying entire apartment blocks or Louis Vuitton bags by the dozens.

Buying Hummers

A coal baron of Xiaoyi City once bought 15 Hummers in one go, says state-run Jingji Cankao Bao. They also travel in groups to Beijing and Shanghai to buy property, state media say.

Even though coal’s value has nearly halved since its peak in August as growth slowed, many Shanxi tycoons are still putting their money in antiques, where the rarest items are fetching record prices as property prices tanked, said dealer Lu.

In May, property prices in 70 Chinese cities had their sixth straight month of decline, according to the Statistical Bureau.

At Christie’s Hong Kong sale last month, a pair of Qing Dynasty imperial gilt-bronze bells fetched HK$45.5 million, the priciest at auction.

“Antiques make better investments than most,” said Nie Zhihui, a collector who says he made his fortune selling coal to steel companies in the region. Nie, 40, wearing a buzz cut and black T-shirt, declined to say how much he’s worth.

Filmy Air

In Taiyuan, nylon flags advertising the fair flapped in the filmy air, which reduced visibility to about 300 meters. In alleys, vendors touted pyramid stacks of watermelons by the road; street-side stores flashed neon signs advertising noodles and medicine. In some empty lots, the rubble of demolished structures is covered by blue-and-red tarp sheets.

The widest road in Taiyuan, a city of 3.4 million people, is a thoroughfare, six lanes each way, built soon after the 1949 Communist Party came to power in China, called Yingze Jie, which means Road to Welcome Mao Zedong. Mao never came to Taiyuan.

At the antiques fair, some haggled in the open as dozens gathered to watch the commotion, while others negotiated behind partitions; when it came time to pay, one buyer reached into his bowling bag and pulled out bundles of red 100-yuan notes, the biggest denomination of the Chinese currency, another said he would wire-transfer the money. After paying, some just tucked the purchases in their bags and left.

The organizer, Chak’s Co., didn’t answer requests seeking attendance and sales figures.

Buddha Beads

Most of the booths reported strong sales. Hui Zengjiu, a Beijing-based dealer specializing in antique Buddha beads and enamels, said he had recouped the 50,000 yuan he paid for his 3 meter-by-3 meter booth. The booth of Priestley & Ferraro, with a store on London’s King Street, was seen selling some ceramics.

“A lot of China’s finest treasures are in the hands of Shanxi collectors,” said Ching.

None has found its way in the form of loans or donations to the Shanxi Museum, about 3 kilometers southwest of the World Trade Hotel, where the antiques fair is held.

Chen Fenxia, a Shanxi Museum spokeswoman, said she’s heard of art buying by the province’s tycoons.

Asked if Shanxi Museum, which gets its annual funding of 10 million yuan from the government, would accept loans or donations by tycoons, she said, “I imagine they bought the antiques only as investments.”

At the fair, Zhao turned and told an accompanying friend, Feng Buwu, “Find something you like and buy it. Be quick.”

Antiques dealers must be thinking the same.

To contact the writer on the story: Le-Min Lim in Hong Kong at lmlim@bloomberg.net

June 25, 2009

Original article here:

China Coal City’s Tycoons Splurge on Antiques as Dealers Swoop (Bloomberg)

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

Related posts:

1. Treasure Hunt: City Weekend goes in search of Beijing’s genuine antiques
2. Sotheby’s sues Chinese buyers for ‘non-payment’
3. ACF China appears on China Central Television’s “Culture Express” program

Sotheby’s is suing two mainland Chinese buyers for HK$2.1m ($270,000) in Hong Kong after they allegedly failed to pay for five Chinese paintings and an antique incense burner that they won at auctions last October.

The disputes highlight a challenge for Sotheby’s, which is increasing its dealings with less experienced buyers from new markets such as China, who are not familiar with international bidding rules. As China’s economy continued its break-neck growth in the past few years, many people turned to overseas markets to park their new-found wealth, buying everything from properties to wines.

The new rich have also been some of the most aggressive bidders at auctions.

“A lot of people have become interested in bidding in overseas auctions. But they are not used to the terms and conditions in places outside of China,” said Kevin Ching, Sotheby’s Asia chief executive.

In 2006, Sotheby’s was forced to file its first arrears cases in Hong Kong in at least a decade when it sued a Chinese buyer for HK$1.9m over two Chinese paintings. It later took the case to a mainland court, the first time the auction house issued a writ of that kind in China.

Two years ago, it sued a Chinese collector for HK$6.8m, saying the buyer failed to pay for a contemporary Chinese painting that he won in an auction in Hong Kong.

Now, Sotheby’s is suing a Shenzhen resident who made the top bid of HK$1.3m, including buyer’s premium, for five Chinese ink and colour paintings in its autumn sale in Hong Kong last October, but has allegedly refused to pay.

The auctioneer has also filed a separate writ against a Beijing bidder who bought an 18th century incense burner, or censer, at the autumn auction for HK$800,000, but has also allegedly not paid.

Original article here: 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d11c5382-14d8-11df-8f1d-00144feab49a,s01=1.html

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

Related posts:

1. Smuggling fuels worldwide trade in Chinese antiquities
2. China Coal City’s Tycoons Splurge on Antiques as Dealers Swoop
3. Chinese buyer who refused to pay for looted bronzes weeps as he realizes that his credibility is shot.

Appraised Value:

$710,000 – $1,070,000

Watch the appraisal video here on the Antiques Roadshow website. Or even better, watch this interview with the owner in North Carolina.

GUEST: My father was in China two different times– I think in the late ’30s and sometime during the ’40s, with the Army, and he was a liaison of some sort. He was just a Kentucky farm boy, but he learned Chinese and he met a Mr. Liang at number ten Jade Street, and that’s pretty much what I remember him always telling me. Mr. Liang would call him and say, “John, I have some pieces you might want to look at.” As children, we heard that some of them had imperial seals, and then I just always have been curious.

APPRAISER: Well, that Mr. Liang must have been a very, very good friend of your father’s, because he led him down the path of great collecting. Generally you see people who purchase things in China at that period of time, and they purchased things that were very, very poor quality. These things are all of very, very fine quality. Did you have any idea about the value on these things?

GUEST: This dragon bowl, as we’ve always called it, we’ve always heard that it may be worth a lot of money, but no, I don’t know the value.

APPRAISER: You start with, basically, the runt of the litter in terms of these groups is that bowl there. And that’s a bowl that’s based on a style from India that they refer to as Mogul style. And it’s Chinese, 18th century. Very, very thin carving, really beautiful, crisp workmanship. This one here is the same style, but only a little more ornate. This is also Mogul style, also 18th century.

GUEST: So 1700s.

APPRAISER: Yeah, they all date from the Qianlong period, which is 1735 to 1796. This one here is set with a ruby in the top and very, very finely carved. The animal is a thing they call bixie. It means to ward off evil. And that animal is just a beautiful piece of celadon jade, wonderfully carved. And then we have the top piece of the group. This one has an inscription in the bottom that is imperial. It has a cyclical date there, which they’re kind of hard to read, because they run in 62-year cycles. But it also has the mark “by imperial order.” Rather than just “made.” So it was made specifically for the emperor himself.

GUEST: Oh, fantastic.

APPRAISER: But you start getting into the value of these objects, and the bowl there, a conservative auction estimate on that bowl would be $30,000 to $50,000.

GUEST: No! Oh, my gosh!

APPRAISER: A conservative estimate on this vase here would be $80,000 to $120,000.

GUEST: Oh, I love this one.

APPRAISER: This animal here, beautifully carved, wonderful quality, would be $200,000 to $300,000.

GUEST: Uh… I can’t believe you.

APPRAISER: And this bowl here, because of the imperial inscription, this would be probably very, very conservatively, $400,000 to $600,000.

GUEST: Oh, I don’t bel… Oh, my gosh.

APPRAISER: For a total amount of between $710,000 to $1,070,000.

GUEST: Damn.

APPRAISER: It’s an incredible collection, and he also bought at a period of time where I would doubt if he paid more than a hundred dollars for any one of these pieces.

GUEST: Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. I just can’t… I had no idea.

APPRAISER: It’s the best thing I have ever seen on the Roadshow.

GUEST: Oh, my gosh! I love hearing that. Thank you.

APPRAISER: By far.

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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THE OWNERS of a Chinese imperial vase which sold for €110,000 at a Co Laois auction on Tuesday – a record-breaking price for ceramics at an Irish antiques sale – plan to sell the remainder of an inherited collection of oriental porcelain.

While the Co Carlow family wish to retain strict anonymity, the auctioneers acting on their behalf said they were unaware of the vase’s historical significance and its value when it was consigned for sale. The family did not attend the auction and missed seeing the vase sell for 1,000 times its estimated value.

Durrow-based auctioneers Sheppards said the owners were “shocked but also delighted and chuffed” by the sale. They were also coming to terms with the potential value and importance of the remaining items in the collection.

The family inherited the collection from two sisters who have since died, who had emigrated to the United States in the 1940s. The women lived and worked there for many years and amassed a collection of ceramics which they brought back to Ireland. The vase may have been bought in the city of Philadelphia.

A selection of about 20 pieces from the collection was included in the general sale of furniture and collectibles at Sheppards Irish Auction House in Durrow, Co Laois, earlier this week. Most of the Chinese lots, including the vase, had pre-sale estimates of €100-€150.

However, international collectors who had spotted the vase on the internet recognised it as part of the personal collection of 18th-century Chinese emperor Qianlong. They travelled to Co Laois and sparked frenzied bidding, which resulted in the vase being sold for €110,000. A separate lot of two vases, with the same estimate, sold for €41,000.

Both lots were acquired by a London antiques dealer who outbid the wife of a collector in China, who had travelled from Beijing in a quest to buy the vase.

Auctioneer Philip Sheppard said the vase was “part of the first tranche” of the collection and the remainder would be sold at a future auction in Durrow.

The purchaser of the vase said he expected to make “a handsome profit” on its resale. Richard Peters said from his shop on Kensington Church Street that he was “absolutely delighted” with his purchase and described the vase as “incredibly perfect and a very special piece”. He will offer it for resale shortly and is confident it will appeal to collectors of oriental ceramics “especially in London and China”.

Mr Peters is “likely” to return to Co Laois for the sale of the rest of the Carlow collection.

Arabella Bishop, the head of Sotheby’s Ireland, was “excited about what happened in Durrow”. The Chinese market was “especially strong at the moment – particularly for good, fresh pieces, particularly those with an imperial connection”.

Dublin’s Chester Beatty Library, which has a world-class collection of oriental manuscripts, paintings and rare books, also houses a small collection of imperial Chinese porcelain which is available for public viewing “by appointment”.

Acting curator Laura Muldowney, said while she “could not comment on values”, thought the vase sold in Durrow “looks like a lovely piece” based on photographs. She said the Chester Beatty collection did not have any porcelain from the period of Emperor Qianlong but had pieces from the era of his grandfather, Emperor Kangxi.

MICHAEL PARSONS

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0304/1224265559078.html

Chinese vase smashes €150 guide price and sells for €110,000 in Laois

MICHAEL PARSONS in Durrow, Co Laois

A CHINESE vase with an asking price of just €150 sold at a Co Laois auction yesterday for €110,000.

The 12-inch-high blue-and-white porcelain vase attracted an opening bid of €50 – before a bidding war erupted between two international antique collectors.

Both had recognised it online as an authentic Imperial vase, and flew in for the one-day sale of furniture and collectibles at Sheppards Irish Auction House in Durrow.

Afterwards, the purchaser, London antique dealer Richard Peters (48), said: “I got a bargain.”

Underbidder Rong Chen (48), who had travelled from Beijing especially for the auction, said she was “very sad and disappointed”.

Her husband, an accountant and antique collector, had spotted the vase on the internet and believed “This is the one – we think it was in the Imperial household.”

The item was part of a collection of Chinese porcelain inherited by an unnamed Co Carlow family and consigned for sale. They were last night “chuffed and delighted” by the sale, the auctioneers said.

Mr Peters, who runs an antiques business in Kensington, said the vase was “made for the personal collection of the Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century”. He explained that the vase, in a shape known in Chinese as hu-yu-chun-ping, was decorated simply with “images of banana and bamboo trees”.

It had “probably been looted from the Imperial Palace in Peking by French or British or American soldiers sometime during the 19th century”, he added, describing the field of Chinese ceramics as “difficult because the market is filled with fakes and forgeries”.

When auctioneer Michael Sheppard called for an opening bid for the vase shortly after noon, he received an offer of just €50. But, within seconds, intense and frenzied bidding was under way and bids jumped, first in multiples of hundreds, and then thousands of euro. Mr Peters, who was seated, bid by nodding discreetly, while Ms Chen stood as she took instructions on a mobile phone from her husband. Later, she told The Irish Times that he had told her “to drop out at €100,000”.

When Mr Sheppard brought down the gavel at €110,000, there were gasps and then applause in the tightly packed saleroom.

Mr Sheppard said “that was the highest figure ever achieved for any item” in the 60-year history of the family-run firm of auctioneers and valuers. He said “something like this happens once in a lifetime”.

Mr Peters bought a second lot – a pair of Chinese polychrome vases – for €41,000. Like the Imperial vase, the items had carried a guide price of €100-€150.

Mr Peters returned to London last night with the items, which he is likely to sell to a Chinese client.

As the salesroom emptied, attendees spoke of their astonishment. David Stapleton, from the nearby town of Ballyragget, said “It was one of those moments. You had to be there – like the GPO in 1916.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0303/1224265504158.html

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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The Chinese have always prized hardwoods for their dense grain, durability and rich color. But with Beijing being located in the north of China, one must wonder where all those tropical hardwoods being made into classical Chinese furniture today come from? Well, in most cases the answer is the Dong Ba Timber Market or “Dōngbà  mùcái Shìchǎng” (东坝 木材 市场) in Chinese. (Website: http://www.cbdwood.com/)
View Map

Located just on the outskirts of Beijing (outside the 4th ring road on Dong Wei Road), Dong Ba is a large clustering of timber merchants, wood merchants and hard wood suppliers selling lumber and logs reclaimed wood to the nearby furniture  and decorating industry. Obviously this is not a place for the “retail buyer” and for those outside of the furniture industry a visit would be boring a best. But for the carpenter, furniture designer or anyone else interested in digging down deep into the depths of the classical furniture industry in China, Dong Ba makes for a fascinating few hours.

There is a staggering number of imported hardwoods for sale here, ranging from sandalwood to rosewood to ebony, brought in from far reaching places across the globe including Brazil, Laos, Vietnam and West Africa.

The ENORMOUS conference table is made from a single section of a tree – the question is, where did this tree originally come from and was it illegally logged? Your guess is as good as mine…

More commonly used woods such as imported American mahogany, maple, cherry, birch and walnut are plentiful here.

Dongba Market Timber Merchant Directory

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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1. Exotic hardwoods used in chinese furniture
2. Beijing Field trip: Outdoor Wholesale Chinese Antique Market Tour
3. Weekend shopping at the PanJiaYuan antique market in Beijing

Note: All images are clickable.

A common feature on many genuine antiques is defacement from the cultural revolution or “Wénhuà Dà Gémìng,” a period of great political and social turmoil in China’s recent history. From roughly 1966 to 1976 Mao Zedong launched a massive campaign to destroy the “four olds”, namely old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. During this time, Red Guards burned antique books, ransacked architecture, shattered old porcelain and destroyed or defaced carvings and even whole pieces of furniture. On the table below, the faces have been rudely hacked away.

The “chao tou” or wing-like swooping edges of the table are carved from a single large log with no visual seams or joints; a practice rarely used in contemporary times.

A second clue to its age and origin is the thin layer or coarse horse hair mesh, between the wood and the lacquer. Not quite refined enough to be considered fabric, this rough layer of hair allows the wood below some freedom to expand and contract according the climate and humidity without cracking the lacquer above.

And then there is the original finish, crackled beautifully through the endless passing of time.

Needless to say, this amazing piece of furniture will not be showing up on ebay anytime soon.

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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Doug Kanter for The New York Times

BEIJING — The destruction of this 800-year-old city usually proceeds as follows: the Chinese character for “demolish” mysteriously appears on the front of an old building, the residents wage a fruitless battle to save their homes, and quicker than you can say “Celebrate the New Beijing,” a wrecking crew arrives, often accompanied by the police, to pulverize the brick-and-timber structure.

But before another chunk of ancient Beijing disappears entirely, a hospice administrator named Li Songtang can often be found poking around the rubble, looking for remnants that honor what was among the world’s best-preserved metropolises until a merciless wave of redevelopment gained the upper hand.

Since the 1970s, when Mao inspired his Red Guards to pummel every “reactionary” Confucius temple and Ming Dynasty statue they could find, Mr. Li has been salvaging architectural remnants and stowing them away, sometimes at considerable risk.

Manchu hitching posts. Ornate wooden doorways. A giant granite horse that graced an emperor’s palace. These and thousands of other objects fill Mr. Li’s warehouse and spill across the grounds of the hospice he runs in Beijing’s eastern suburbs.

Every item has a tale. That Song Dynasty lintel etched with a frenzy of folk scenes? Pulled from a pig sty. The lacquered screen that tells the history of a clan of scholars? Fished from the burn pile.

The most historically significant items are displayed in his private museum, where every Sunday he can be found leading tours and exhorting people to cherish the old before it is too late. “For 50 years I’ve been watching the destruction of this magnificent city,” he’ll say in admonishment. “We’ve been treating history like garbage.”

It is difficult to overstate how much of China’s old imperial capital has disappeared in recent years. When the Communists took power in 1949, they inherited a city marbled with 7,000 alleyways, or hutong, a Mongol word that referred to the space between tents. In Old Beijing, hutong were the capillaries that fed the walled compounds where most people lived.

Even if the Communists forced aristocratic families to share their courtyard homes with scores of working-class families, the structures, and their stone-and-wood artistry, remained largely intact. Monument-building and road-widening claimed swaths of the old city in the 1950s and ’60s, and more damage was done during the Cultural Revolution, but the pace surged in the 1990s, when China’s embrace of market economics fueled a redevelopment juggernaut.

In the years leading up to the Beijing Olympics in August, the destruction took on a manic pace. According to UNESCO, more than 88 percent of the city’s old residential quarters are gone, including many government-designated heritage zones whose protections existed only on paper. Today, just 1,300 hutong remain, and many more neighborhoods, like the colorful Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square, are scheduled for renewal.

Michael Meyer, who documents Qianmen’s hutong life in his book “The Last Days of Old Beijing,” says most residents are not terribly nostalgic about the old city. For them, a freshly painted facsimile of a 500-year-old Buddhist temple is just fine.

“Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that Chelsea, then Greenwich Village, have been replaced by malls,” he said. “Those who are trying to preserve a bit of the city’s legacy are increasingly isolated and powerless.”

One of Mr. Li’s earliest childhood memories is of the destruction of his family’s courtyard house. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, he watched neighbors burn their own books and smash heirlooms. “People were so afraid that the Red Guards would find antiques in their home, they would toss them into the river at night so no one would see,” said Mr. Li, who came from a family of doctors and teachers.

Like many from the educated classes, Mr. Li was ridiculed, beaten by classmates and then sent to the countryside, where he toiled alongside farmers for nine years. After returning to the city, he devoted himself to rescuing whatever scraps of history he could find. His efforts have sometimes attracted the attention of officials, who have accused him of stealing and obliquely criticizing government policies.

He acknowledges he never paid for anything, although he might give demolition workers a few dollars to cart away a heavy object. “I came to realize that so much of Beijing was destroyed because no one was willing to pay these men for overtime” to haul away relics, he said, half-jokingly.

Mr. Li’s struggle to open his Songtangzhai Museum is a tortured tale that involved five years of kowtowing, cajoling and a “gift” of 148 prized items to the Culture Ministry. The $4.50 entrance fee to his museum, which occupies an 18th-century house, does not cover the cost of operations, so Mr. Li subsidizes it from his own pocket. He says he has never sold any artifacts.

“I have 1,000 stories that I can never tell,” he said conspiratorially, and then offered a few choice words to describe those who blocked his way — and those who have promoted the demise of Old Beijing. But then he corrected himself. “The Communist Party has improved Beijing immeasurably,” he said with a taut smile. “They are doing a wonderful job.”

Source: The New York Times

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: January 18, 2009

Address: No. 14, East Liulichang Road, 100050
Open: 9:00 – 18:00
Tel: 8610-83164662

More on Li Song Tang:

• 
  

  Song Tang Zhai Museum

• Layman-turned-relics hunter rescues China’s antiquities
• Songtangzhai Folk Carving Museum
• A Private Museum – Songtangzhai Folk Carving Museum

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

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This past weekend, ACF China and  The Hutong organized a field trip for local expats here in Beijing to visit an genuine outdoor wholesale antique market, where peasants from the countryside bring un-restored antique furniture and other curios to sell to wholesalers, collectors and restorers. The trip proved a success, allowing attendees a fascinating peek directly into the hidden corners of the antiques industry. A bit dusty, a bit dirty, and situated on the far outskirts of Beijing, this market exists solely through word of mouth and is not found on any map or guidebook. Chris Buckley, owner of Torana Carpets and author of the book “Tibetan Furniture” accompanied us on our excursion and his own post about our tip on his RugDogBlog sums up our trip much better then I can:

“In years gone by furniture vendors from the countryside came right into the city to sell their furniture, but these days with increasing ground rents and lack of space in the city the trade is conducted much further out from the city, in this case about 45 minutes drive from Guo Mao. This spot is strictly a wholesale market, with unrestored items piled high in the warehouses of individual sellers from different parts of China.

In a couple of hours we were only able to scratch the surface of what is a very large market. We visited several vendors from north China (Shanxi and Inner Mongolia), though apparently there are sellers at the market from most regions. It’s been a long time since I have looked at wholesale furniture like this (the last time I looked at it seriously was back in the mid-90s) and it was reassuring to see that there is still old furniture out there! Vendors are now going a lot further afield for their old furniture than in the ’90s and many are bringing in furniture from the border regions versus the central China styles that were more common in previous years. “

Though this particular trip was not a buying trip, we will organize future excursions, buying trips and longer outings, so check back here regularly and/or on  The Hutong’s Website for upcoming dates.  Thanks to Chris Buckley for tagging along and for providing the wonderful group photos shown here.

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

Related posts:

1. Beijing Field trip: Outdoor Wholesale Chinese Antique Market Tour
2. Insiders Guide to Chinese Antiques: A new workshop at the Beijing Hutong School
3. Weekend shopping at the PanJiaYuan antique market in Beijing

ACF China and the The Hutong will be co-organizing a field trip this Saturday morning to visit a outdoor wholesale market where peasants from the countryside bring antique furniture to sell to wholesalers, specialists and restorers. This is an extremely rare opportunity to see where antique furniture comes from and what it looks like in its original un-restored form. 100% wholesale only, this market exists only through word of mouth and cannot be found in any guidebook or map. ACF’s Roger Schwendeman will be accompanying the group as a specialists and guide as well as to answer questions about styles, origins and history.

Estimated time (including travel) will be approximately 2.5 hours total (including 20 minutes each direction of travel time). The group will meet in front of the China World Trade Center (in front of Starbucks across from HSBC) at 10 AM sharp.
View Larger Map

Space is limited for this trip and we can accommodate up to ten people only which means you MUST pre-register. Cost will include transportation. Please wear comfortable clothing which can get dirty as this market is extremely dusty.

This content comes from The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. located at http://www.antique-chinese-furniture.com/blog/ For more articles please visit The specialists guide to Chinese antiques. - A unique insiders peek at the world of Chinese antiques & reproductions, Asian culture, exotic decor and oriental-inspired design from the far east. Everything you ever wanted to know!

Related posts:

1. Weekend shopping at the PanJiaYuan antique market in Beijing
2. Insiders Guide to Chinese Antiques: A new workshop at the Beijing Hutong School
3. Buying exotic hardwoods in Beijing: A visit to the Dong Ba Timber Market