Henri Vever (1854-1942) was the most celebrated Parisian jeweler of La Belle Époque in France. An obsessive collector, he amassed a number of very important collections. Among these was a collection of Indian and Persian art which was thought to lost until it was found in France in 1984. It was subsequently sold to an A ...click for details

Ht. 2 1/4 ins. (5.8 cms). This fine and unusual netsuke is very similar to one illustrated in "Inro and Other Miniature Forms....." by Melvin & Betty Jahss (London n.d) Plate 168 (see photos). The present netsuke is so similar, especially in the features, that it is almost certainly by the same hand as the Jahss piece which is ...click for details

Ht. 7 1/2 ins. (19 cms). This fine piece is made of keyaki wood (zelkova serrata) with its characteristic graining. The beautifully balanced design is based on the Pawlonia tree with its leaves which form the basis of the Imperial Mon. The Rimpa style can be traced back to the great Ogata Korin (1658-1715) and there were major reviv ...click for details

This fine water jar for the Tea Ceremony is 6 ins. (15 cms) in height and is modelled in the form of a section of tree trunk. It has the usual lacquered wood lid associated with such items. There is a short firing crack near the rim which has an old Japanese gold lacquer repair (partly missing). Underneath is an incised three character mark whic ...click for details

This book, Soken Sansui Gafu (A Book of landscape Drawings by Soken), is complete in 2 volumes, and is one of the classic works of the Shijo school of painting. The collation is as per the entry in The Illustrated Books of the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo.... by Charles Mitchell. Los Angeles 1972. We have shown the details in one of the ph ...click for details

The design shows three Chinese literati drinking tea and looking at books in a woodland setting with a waterfall in the background. In the foreground a servant is preparing tea by heating up the tea pot on a brazier. It is possible this design is unrecorded, it certainly does not occur in the standard works such as Barbara Harri ...click for details

This very large and impressive pottery model of a horse was made during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220). Similar examples have been found in Han Dynasty tombs in Sichuan province in the west of China. Much of the surface has been coated in a brownish-red pigment. The saddle was made separately. ...click for details

Oshin was a Kyoto craftsman who made objects for use in the Sencha Tea Ceremony which is based on Chinese influenced utensils and ideas. Rootwood sculpture, although know in Japan, was much more typically Chinese and the present piece would have been conside ...click for details

Length 10 ins. (25.5 cms). In the sencha or Chinese-influenced tea ceremony, the fine tea leaves would be ruined by boiling water and so the utensils include a vessel (torei) designed to cool the boiled water to the correct temperature. To make the vessel more efficient this cooler is very thick heavy porcelain whic ...click for details