Catalog (321)

PLEASE NOTE: WE HAVE RECENTLY RE-ACQUIRED THIS VERY FINE COCOON JAR FROM A CLIENT WHO IS LIQUIDATING HIS ANTIQUE HOLDINGS DUE TO HEALTH ISSUES AND MEDICAL EXPENSES: WHILE WE ARE VERY SADDENED TO LEARN OF THIS CLIENT'S CONDITION AND CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES, WE ARE GRATIFIED AT LEAST TO BE ABLE TO ASSIST THIS WONDERFUL GENTLEMAN IN THIS MANNER, AND TO RE-OFFER THIS FINE COCOON JAR ONCE AGAIN: From our Early Chinese Collection, a very good Qin or Han Dynasty (221 BC- 220 AD) cocoon jar, of well-know...

From our Early Chinese Collection, an excellent neolithic tripod (Li) pottery vessel from the Xiajiadian Culture of either Inner Mongolia or Liaoning Province, circa 2500-1500 BC. These strange, other-worldly looking vessels belie their true age, which is an astonishing 3500 to 4500 years old. Constructed of a buff colored earthenware with partially hollowed-out udder-shaped legs, it has a slender and well-burnished body that flares out to a wide rim. This particular piece has signs of root grow...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a very good Han Dynasty hu jar, most probably Western Han (circa 100 BC - AD 08), of well-known and documented form with a dish-shaped mouth, a molded animal frieze on the upper shoulder, and with two taotie mask handles on either side of the jar. Constructed of reddish earthenware covered in a green lead flux glaze that is somewhat crackled and has fired to an attractive brown in some spots, this jar has acquired a silvery iridescence from burial.

Han D...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a large Machang Phase jar from the Majiayao Culture (2300 - 2000 BC), originating from what is now Gansu province, China. Of well-known and documented form, this fascinating vessel is approximately 4,000 years old and comes with an Oxford TL test. Larger and better potted than is usually found, it is painted with anthropomorphic designs in purplish-black mineral pigments typical of these wares. The meaning of these designs is still the subject of scholarly deba...

From our Early Chinese Collection, an exceptional Northern Qi Dynasty Tomb Guardian (550 - 577 AD), boldly modeled in full military armor with chest and back plates, fringed mail tunics over knee guards, and battle helmet with leather side flaps. His left hand rests upon a leonine shield, the right hand would have clenched a wooden spear which has decomposed long ago. This imposing figure reflects the strong facial features typical of other known Northern Qi statuary, such as the ominous bulging...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a fine and rare pair of Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 AD) qingbai vases on integral bases, with a molded six panel floral sprig design and flared petal-form aperture. The glaze is a very good and very attractive translucent blue/blue green color, deeper where pooled in the recesses. The underside is burnt orange-brown from the firing. They bear exhibition labels from the "1953 South Africa National Gallery Chinese Exhibition," and also the "Henry Brown Collection....

From our Early Chinese Collection, a very rare, large, and striking Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) stoneware jar with lid, executed in a straw colored glaze over buff colored stoneware (or proto-porcelain as it is sometimes referred to, which is clay fired at higher temperatures than pottery but lower temperatures than true porcelain, which had yet to be invented at that time). The jar has four sets of very distinctive and unusual udder-shaped protuberances in columns of 5, and four illegible, presu...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a rare glazed buddhist offering vessel with Oxford TL test from Yunnan Province, Song Dynasty China (960-1279 AD). The reddish-tinged and heavily potted buff body is decorated with a carved lotus leaf pattern in high relief, signifying “purity,” with the entire vessel covered in a rich emerald-green glaze with a few areas of slight iridescence from burial.

This offering vessel is one of the best examples we have seen from a group of highly obscure a...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a large and magnificent Southern Song Dynasty qingbai funerary urn (960 - 1279 AD). Based upon published and nearly identical examples dated to 1209 AD, we can probably safely date this piece closer to circa 1190 - 1230 AD. The lower bell of this extraordinary lidded urn is smooth and glazed, while the upper section is deeply ribbed and glazed featuring hand-formed and applied figures of people and animals, including a coiled dragon, a tortoise, a cockerel, a...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a rare earthenware Buddhist offering vessel dating from either the Song or Yuan Dynasty (960-1368 AD). This offering vessel is one of a group of several highly obscure and esoteric pottery pieces hailing from Yunnan Province in Southwestern China. The formal scholarship on these pieces is unfortunately thin at best, and we are currently aware of only one publication addressing these pieces at all, which is Michael Teller's Offering Vessels of Yunnan. As Teller ...

From our Japanese Collection, a good Fuyode Ko-Imari Arita blue and white porcelain dish, the term "Fuyode" referring to late 17th century Japanese porcelain painted in the style of Chinese Ming Dynasty porcelain. This is one of the earliest examples of Japanese Arita ware. This dish is painted in underglaze blue with a central panel of flowering peony, and with panels of the “Three Friends of Winter" design (pine, bamboo, and prunus) in the border. The reverse is sparsely painted with karaku...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a rare Kangxi Period (1662-1722) porcelain dish depicting a stylized version of an earlier Ming Dynasty kraakware design, featuring an eight-sided buddhist wheel or star in the center medallion, surrounded by ogival panels of buddhist emblems, auspicious symbols, and swatiska motifs in the outer border.

Within the vast gamut of Kangxi blue and white wares in general, there is a much smaller sub-category of Kangxi wares that were made in imitatio...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a good Ming Dynasty kraakware dish, late Wanli Period circa 1600-1620, of well-known and documented form, executed in Border VIII style with a central bird some scholars opine is either a magpie or a duck, sitting upon a lotus pond outcropping and encircled by a ten-point buddhist star, further encircled by ten ogival panels of buddhist symbols in the outer border, all executed in a slightly greyish blue on a barbed-form dish with slightly upturned lip...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a Transitional Period (1635 - 1650) blue and white kraakware charger of the rare Border IX Type, depicting 2 figures in a central garden setting, surrounded by alternating figures with Iznik style flowers in the border, known as Border IX . See Kraakware, A Moment in the History of Trade, by Maura Rinaldi, pp 112- 115; (Rinaldi's work is widely considered to be the seminal treatise on Chinese kraakware).

The so-called Transitional Period (or I...

From our Chinese Monochrome Collection, a very fine pair of blanc de chine (dehua) fu dogs modeled as taper stick holders, either late Ming / early Shunzhi (1620-1650), or possibly early Kangxi Period (circa 1662-1690), of well-known and documented form, with each fu dog perched atop a rectangular base with a brocaded ball under its paw and a ribbon held in its mouth. Additionally, each piece exhibits a high degree of hand applique modeling with respect to the ribbons, manes, bells, and tassels,...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, an exceptional and large Transitional Period (1635 - 1650) kraakware porcelain bowl of the rare Border IX Type. The center well depicts a scholar being served tea, three trapezoidal-shaped panels on the bowl's inner wall depict figures in various landscape settings, and the outside of the bowl is decorated with six additional panels of figures in various landscape settings. All scenes are separated by narrower panels of what are alternatively calle...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a very fine and elegant Kangxi Period (1662-1722) phoenix bowl, early Kangxi Period circa 1675-1690, decorated with two well-painted phoenixes and a treed outcropping, all well-executed in a strong blue against a delicately potted pure white body with everted rim. The interior features a single flower encircled within a medallion of double lines. The base is plain. The footrim is especially finely cut and very neatly glazed exposing just a narrow swath...

From our Shipwreck Ceramics Collection, a charming blanc de chine Guanyin from the Vung Tau Shipwreck circa 1690-1700 (Kangxi Period), one of only 30 ever recovered from this wreck and in this sense quite rare. The Vung Tau Shipwreck refers to a cargo ship of Chinese ceramics that sank in the waters of the Can Doa Islands, nearby to Vung Tao Vietnam between 1690 and 1700, where it had briefly stopped to re-supply on its way to Batavia (Jakarta Indonesia). The wreck, which consisted mostly of ...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a very fine Ming bronze of Guanyin, 16th-17th century, crisply cast with a wonderfully serene countenance, a tiered and pierced diadem (crown), urna on the forehead signifying divine sight, body jewelry, and seated with right hand in verada mudra upon a double lotus base. This piece has developed a nice deep brown / dark gray patina with several areas of greenish verdigris suggesting high copper content to the bronze. We think this piece compares well with tw...

From our Early Chinese Collection, a fine and large Ming Dynasty lead-glazed pottery ridge (roof) tile, 15th-16th century, Hongzhi through Jiajing Period (1488-1566), depicting a guardian-demon ferociously modeled with bulging eyes, protruding fangs, pointed horns, thick musculature, and standing in defensive posture astride a cloud-swirl with fists clenched around what would have been a weapon made of wood or iron, now since rotted away and lost to time. This cloud-swirl between the demon and t...

From our European Collection, a very good 17th century copper plate engraving, most likely English circa 1650-1700, depicting a Chinese official accompanied by his entourage, with subjects kowtowing in the foreground and a crowd of spectators to the rear.

Size and Condition: 7 inches by 5 1/4 inches, very well preserved with only slight creasing.

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a very fine, large, and rare late Shunzhi / early Kangxi porcelain charger circa 1645-1665. This charger is well-painted in a rich blue featuring symmetrically arranged peony sprays within a six-pointed star-shaped central medallion, surrounded on the cavetto with a continuous ring of ruyi head motifs. The reverse features an uncommon double footrim along with Buddhist symbols on the outer border. Interestingly, "chatter marks," (radial lines around t...

An elegant and highly stylized zun-shaped lacquered bronze vase, either Chinese Late Ming Period (1600's) or Japanese Early Edo Period (1600's). This very interesting and attractive piece with its splayed footed base, angular shoulder, and trumpet-shaped mouth that resembles opened floral petals when viewed from the interior, was most likely intended as a flower vase itself, but its intended purpose is no more certain than its actual country of origin. Indeed, despite its presentation of a figur...

From our European Collection, a very good 17th century Italian School oil on canvas, 'Ecce Homo.' An enduringly poignant and iconic image of Christ in Pathos and everything else that this represents, it needs no further elaboration from us.

Size and Condition: Framed dimensions, 31.5 x 25.5 inches; Unframed image size is 25.75 inches x 19.75 inches. The painting has crazing / craquelure consistent with its 17th century age. There is some paint flaking / paint loss towards the bottom, but...

From our European Porcelain Collection, a fine German Volkstedt neoclassical-style milk jug, late 18th century circa 1780-1790, depicting two reserves of young boys engaged in intellectual and artistic pursuits, all very well-executed in polychrome enamels with generous use of gilding.

Size and condition: 3 3/4 inches tall, 4 inches across spout to handle. Enamel and gilding are essentially 99% intact. There is one very small chip with associated gilding loss on the spout, visible only wh...

From our European Porcelain Collection, a fine French Niderviller neoclassical-style porcelain saucer, heavily potted, late 18th century circa 1774-1784. This saucer is executed en grisaille in very fine detail of a sleeping cupid, rendered against a very dark cobalt blue ground that almost appears black. The border is richly gilded, and the reverse contains markings that stand for Count Philibert de Custine, who owned the Niderviller factory during this time period.

Size and Condition: ...

From our European Porcelain Collection, a very fine Doccia (Italian) tin-glazed, hard paste porcelain teacup and saucer, late 18th century circa 1780-1790, probably Ginori factory, very well-painted with a bucolic landscape of what looks like a country estate executed in puce, with a rich baroque border of gilding against a dark cobalt blue ground. This is a truly splendid high quality set.

Size and Condition: Saucer 5 1/4 inches diameter, teacup 3 inches across, 2 7/8 inches tall. Only s...

From our European Porcelain Collection, an exceptionally well-painted 18th century Meissen coffee pot from the so-called "Dot Period" (1732-1773), probably 1740-1760, depicting a serenade or courtship scene with what is either two musicians or perhaps two suitors, attempting to curry the favor of a Lady, all executed in puce with gilt highlights upon a very white, hard paste porcelain body. Meissen crossed swords with dot in blue on the base.

What is interesting for collectors of both Chin...

From our European Porcelain Collection, an important and historically significant Meissen armorial plate, ex-Sotheby's, from the Munchhaussen family dinner service gifted by Augustus III to Gerlach Adolf von Munchhaussen in 1745. The decoration is executed in puce with gilt highlights, painted in the "fabletier" style of mythical beasts set against a landscape of birds and insects, all set beneath the Munchhaussen family coat of arms with a foliate scroll border on the rim. Meissen crossed sword...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a lovely Kangxi Period (1662-1722) export dish with barbed rim, depicting a flowering tree in a fenced garden setting in the center medallion, with eight panels in smaller scale repeating the same pattern on the border, and with flowering branches and an auspicious buddhist symbol in double circles on the reverse, all painted in a deep and attractive Kangxi blue.

Size and Condition: 8 3/4 inches in diameter, 1 1/4 inches deep, one small chip to ...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, an interesting so-called "Scholar's Examination Dish,” Kangxi Period (1662-1722), decorated in a slightly greyish underglaze blue, depicting a leaping carp juxtaposed against a fierce dragon clutching at the flaming pearl of wisdom, with wave shaped aquatic motifs on the border, and a square fu character on the reverse.

We have not researched the symbolism of this particular piece ourselves, but we are told by a colleague that the leaping carp...

From our Chinese Blue and White Collection, a very interesting late 18th century export porcelain plate, depicting an unusual subject matter of a gondolier in what is either an Italian canal in Venice, or a Dutch canal in Amsterdam. The plate is executed in a good underglaze blue with an unidentified edifice in the foreground, and a border of floral motifs. Perhaps architecture buffs can recognize with specificity what the edifice is, and nail down for us whether this is actually an Italian or D...

From our Chinese Monochrome Collection, a fine blanc de chine (dehua) porcelain figure of a seated dignitary, Kangxi Period (1662-1722), seated on a low plinth and crisply modeled with an elaborate dragon badge to chest, a ruyi scepter in his left hand, and a pensive downward gaze. Holes under the ears and around the mouth were originally for placement of animal hair to form the beard. In virtually perfect condition, there are two small firing cracks, but these are original to the manufacture an...

From our Shipwreck Porcelain Collection, a good teacup and saucer ex-Sotheby's, from the Ca Mau Cargo, Yongzheng Period (1723-1735), executed in the "Tu Hai" pattern in underglaze blue.

This particular teacup and saucer is a very good example that somehow managed to survive over two centuries under the sea, essentially unscathed. Shipwreck porcelain comes off the sea floor in a wide variety of conditions, with many pieces utterly destroyed, others cracked and chipped, others whole but enc...

From our Shipwreck Porcelain Collection, a good blue and white teacup and saucer in the "Batavian Bamboo Pattern," ex-Christie's, from the so-called "Nanking Cargo," which is the term applied to the porcelain recovered from the wreck of the Geldermalsen that sank on January 3rd, 1752. The Geldermalsen was a cargo ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company that struck a reef on its way back from Canton China, and sank off the coast of Indonesia in the Linnga archipelago. It took with it to th...

From our Shipwreck Porcelain Collection, a fine blue and white dish, ex-Christie's, executed in the "Peony and Pomegranate Pattern" from the so-called "Nanking Cargo," which is the term applied to the porcelain recovered from the wreck of the Geldermalsen that sank on January 3rd, 1752. The Geldermalsen was a cargo ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company that struck a reef on its way back from Canton China, and sank off the coast of Indonesia in the Linnga archipelago. It took with it to...