T he Asian Art online sale in Paris will feature several examples of Buddhist statuary, Chinese works of arts, ceramics and jades. There will be a special focus on Japanese art with a few fine examples of Japanese ukiyo-e, Arita ceramics and wood netsuke. An interesting group of textiles and benjarong ceramics from the kingdom of Siam will complete this interesting journey through Asia.
A section of the sale features a selection of Chinese and Japanese ceramics from the collection la Rochefoucauld at the Chateau de Verteuil, amongst them some spectacular examples of blue and white Arita and Imari vases from Japan and several examples of later Chinese porcelains characteristic of the castles' grand furnishing in France over the 18th and 19th century.
This autumn, Sotheby's will present Chinese porcelain, furniture and objets d'art from the collection of La Rochefoucauld at the Château de Verteuil in Charente.
The history of the La Rochefoucauld family is also linked to this imposing building, which has dominated the Charente region in France for a thousand years, from the first stronghold built in the Middle Ages to the present day castle. François I de La Rochefoucauld received King François I there in 1516, Charles V stayed there a few years later and in the 16th century, under the impetus of Anne de Polignac, the famous library was built. The lords of Verteuil rallied around the Protestants and all along kings and queens were welcomed to the castle: Henri IV, Catherine de Médicis, Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. It survived the Revolution and during the Restoration, minister Hippolyte de La Rochefoucauld, turned it into a romantic haven that endured into the 19th century, retaining its decoration borrowed from past centuries. It is this spirit that is reflected today in the pieces to be offered at auction. The provenance, collection of La Rochefoucauld from the Château de Verteuil, is indicated for each lot, allowing new buyers to appropriate a small part of the rich history of this extraordinary place.
This sale caters to connoisseurs looking for hidden gems in all areas of Chinese, Japanese and Indian arts at affordable prices, most offered without reserve. This include some exhibited examples of early sancai figures from a Luxembourg collection, private groups of later Chinese bronzes, Chinese export porcelains, including a rare famille-rose buffalo from the Dreesman collection, and later Qing porcelain.
The sale features a selection of Japanese woodblock prints ukiyo-e, including some fine examples from the collection of Swedish academic Emil Hultmark (1872-1943). Amongst them an exceptional portrait of the actor Ogino Isaburô as Shintônai Kuranosuke by Utagawa Toyokuni, Toyokuni I (1769-1825) (lot 198). One of the co-founders of the ‘Kinaklubben’ (China Club) in Stockholm in the 1920s, together with Carl Kempe and Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, Emil Hulltmark was a pioneering collector of Asian art in Europe. A significant part of the Hultmark collection is now kept alongside the Swedish Royal collection in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm.
Coming by direct family descent from the collection of Georges Padoux (1867-1961), a French diplomat and Plenipotentiary Minister to Siam (1905-1913) and China (1913-1931), this group includes very rare examples of benjarong ceramics as well as examples of phanung, a traditional cotton tunique woven and dyed in India (Madras) during the 19th century for the Thai court. Before moving to Republican China in 1913, Georges Padoux was posted to the Kingdom of Siam where he worked on the writing of the Thai Penal code. His children donated a significant part of his textile collection to the Musée Guimet, where it is currently kept except a few examples they kept for themselves, including the pieces presented here.
