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THE MAGAZINE AUCTION RESULTS
€101,250
Ming bowl
This yellow monochrome porcelain bowl, which bears the six-character
mark of Emperor Jiajing (1507–1567), had been conservatively valued at
€4,000–6,000. This valuation, however, did not make allowances for the
passion of those who love Chinese porcelain pieces, particularly those
from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In the early years of the Ming
dynasty, the ritual objects used for official acts of worship, previously
made of gold, silver and bronze, began to be made of porcelain. Each
temple had a specific colour for its ritual objects: blue monochromes, for
example, were used for worshipping the sky, while yellows were used for
worshipping the earth. This elegant bowl with its delicate tulip-shaped
rim attracted a great deal of interest from art lovers at Paris’s Daguerre
auction house on 29 March, eventually going to a European buyer for
€101,250. It came from a collection built up before the Second World War
and had been purchased from the London auction house Marchant,
which has specialised in Asian art since 1925. In other news from the
same auction, four ritual bronzes will be making their way back to Asia
after being bought by Hong Kong collections (see page 106).
. Stéphanie Perris-Delmas