Sotheby’s
Upcoming Asian Art auctions
Asian Art / 5 000 years
Online auction from 23 to 30 April 2024
Public exhibition from 26 to 30 April
Monday - Friday 10am-6pm
Saturday 11am - 7pm
Sunday 14h-18h
Embracing 5000 years of Asian art history, this season’s ‘Asian Art / 5000 Years’ sale features a wide variety of ceramics, sculptures and jade spanning the length and breadth of Asia. A notable highlight of the sale is a number of Chinese artefacts from the estate of Father Émile Ducarme (杜嘉猷) including an exceptionally rare illuminated Ming dynasty manuscript, the Beidoujing 北斗經, commissioned by the wife of the Jiajing Emperor in 1542; two ink rubbings with extracts from the ‘Qianlong Stone Classics’ stele; and a number of personal effects including scholar artefacts and jades.
Born in Raismes on 2 April 1884, Ducarme was among a small group of seminary students sent to China in 1903. Ordained in Jiaxing in April 1905, Father Ducarme went on to serve as the first priest of Changxindian, the director of the entire Nantang district of Beijing and, finally, as curé of the Église Saint-Michel which stands to this day in the former French Legation.
A rare album of illuminated Daoist sutra ‘Taishang xuanling beidou benming yansheng benming zhenjing’
Jiajing period, dated to the renyin year
(in accordance with 1542)
Illuminated manuscript on paper, 130 leaves, 25 paintings (9 double-page) with a colophon in the end states that it was commissioned the empress on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month in the twenty-second year of the Jiajing Emperor's reign (1543), bound concertina-style, yellow silk upper cover, cloth label on upper cover, housed in custom wood box.
Estimate: 100,000 - 150,000 EUR
Two rubbings of the imperial steles
Qing dynasty
Ink rubbed on paper, comprising an album of forty-four leaves from Qianlong Shijing and an album of forty-two leaves from Kaicheng Shijing
Estimate: 8,000 - 12,000 EUR
A large pair of cloisonné enamel vases and covers
Japan, Meiji period
Height 72.8 cm, 28⅝ in.
Estimate: 8,000 - 12,000 EUR
Arts d’Asie
Auction in Paris on 14 June 2024
Public exhibition from 8 to 13 June
Monday - Friday 10am-6pm
Saturday 11am - 7pm
Sunday 14h-18h
This season’s Arts d'Asie sale, to be held on 14 June during the Printemps Asiatique in Paris, features a wide variety of paintings, ceramics, sculptures and jade spanning the length and breadth of Asia.
Highlights of the sale include Buddhist and Hinduist sculptures of superlative quality, including the personal collection of Indian and Himalayan art of the Late Robert Willocx, Chinese paintings and calligraphies, classical Huanghuali furniture, Song ceramics and Qing dynasty porcelains.
Nguyen Phan Chanh's chef d'oeuvre "Les Chanteuses de Campagne" is the highlight of a Vietnamese painting section, which is strong in works by Lê Phổ, Vũ Cao Đàm and Mai Thrung Thứ.
A rare gilt copper alloy figure of Vajrasattva Khasa Malla,
Nepal or Tibet
13th century
Estimate: €300 000 - 400 000
Contact :
Christian Bouvet
Senior Director
Head of Department, Paris
Asian Art Department
+33 6 42 86 02 63
+33 1 53 05 52 42
Liting Hung
Deputy Director
Specialist, Asian Paintings
Asian Art Department
+33 1 53 05 52 04