In early October, Sotheby's in Hong Kong presented a series of highly anticipated auctions that focused on Chinese art, in particular the treasures brought together by two important collectors of the 20th century.
On October 7, however, jewelry and precious stones were on the agenda, with one very special lot even getting its own auction: The Williamson Pink Star, one of the purest and most intensely colored pink diamonds in auction history.
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The 11.15-carat fancy vivid pink internally flawless cushion-cut diamond sparked a bidding war that spanned nearly 50 bids and lasted 20 minutes, until private collectors from the US won the jewel for $453.2 million HKD ($57.7 million USD). The sum represents a world record price per carat for a diamond or gemstone and makes the Williamson Pink Star the second most expensive jewel ever sold at auction. The late Queen Elizabeth II famously owned the Williamson Pink Diamond, also from the same mine, which was given to her in its uncut state upon her wedding in 1947 and then cut and fashioned into the centerpiece of a floral brooch by Cartier.
On October 8, the first part of Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist Sir Joseph Hotung's fantastic collection was auctioned off. One of the top lots in this offer was an outstanding and extremely rare Ming Dynasty folding chair with a horseshoe-shaped backrest made from Huanghuali wood, which was estimated at 10-15 million HKD ($1.2-1.9 million).
This type of furniture, called jiaoyi ("crossed chair") in Chinese because of their appearance, was invented for easy transport on horseback and initially had a straight backrest, but from the 12th century the more comfortable horseshoe-shaped backrest was used. The outstanding specimens of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) are particularly sought after by collectors, of which fewer than 30 have survived the centuries.
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The Huanghuali armchair from the Hotung collection was therefore hotly contested: the bidding war lasted 15 minutes, during which more than 60 bids finally caused the price to rise to 124.6 million HKD (approx. $15.8 million) – a new world record for such a piece of furniture.
Although it didn't end up setting a new auction record, the battle for what is believed to be a one -of-a-kind Yangcai "Trigram" vase surpassed the two bidding wars described above: more than 80 bids were submitted in 30 nerve-wracking minutes. The winner was a telephone bidder who paid a total of 177.5 million HKD (approx. $22.6 million) for the vase.
The vase was offered as part of another important collection of Chinese art, that of diplomat Dr. Wou Kiuan, who founded the Wou Lien-Pai Museum in the 1960s. The second part of his collection came up for auction at Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 9, with the extraordinary vase, valued at 60-120 million HKD ($7.6-15.2 million) prior to the auction, as one of the highlights.
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The Qianlong period vase is a "testimony to the unprecedented and incomparable pinnacle of technical virtuosity in porcelain manufacture between 1741 and 1743." Earlier, the emperor had complained about the increasing lack of quality of the porcelain products, whereupon the masters of the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen worked hard to regain the favor of their ruler. One result of this new heyday was the present ruby-ground Yangcai vase, which inspires with fine sgraffito and eight trigrams cut into the wall. The eight trigrams, consisting of three solid or broken lines, are ancient Chinese oracle signs.
“We are honored to be in charge of the illustrious collections of some of the world's greatest Chinese art collectors. The strong sales results are a testament to increasing demand from a growing collector base for this category as we have seen active bids from across the region and beyond,” said Nicolas Chow, President of Asia and Chinese Art at Sotheby's, summing up the two days of Chinese Art auctions. which achieved a total of 918 million HKD (approx. $116.9 million).
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