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Marc My Words: Antiques
My admiration is for those people who can divine these items. I’ve worked with such experts. Of course, we know of many objects which have turned up as sleepers raising the roof of a provincial auction house and selling for £350,000 on a £200£300 estimate.
So what drives these artefacts to make such high amounts? Well, Chinese culture is very much bound up with notions of competition and achievement in business and education. Could it be this drive which, in turn, stimulates the Asian art market pushing some items to achieve headier prices than they actually deserve?
Marc My Words
Collectors enter the quixotic Asian art realm at their peril, writes Antiques Roadshow expert Marc Allum
It’s that time of the year again and the Asian art sales are in full swing as auction houses and dealers vie for the finest pieces of predominantly Chinese and Japanese works of art. The friendly rivalry is fierce and reputations can be won and lost on the fall of a hammer. Yet it’s such a mercurial market founded on the back of the new-found wealth of the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) with highly-competitive collectors and fragile markets.
I generally watch from a safe distance and get involved in the odd deal when my general valuation work takes me into such opportunities but, quite frankly, I find some of it is just a little bit scary. as I climbed the auctioneering ladder in my younger days.
Even now I can remember the good items that were very affordable 25 years ago and have since risen exponentially in price to the value of a small house.
And while it’s easy to say “it’s no use crying over spilt milk”, I have first-hand experiences of people who have done exactly that. One friend and dealer in particular was ecstatic some 25 years ago when she sold a blue and white Chinese vase at auction for £36,000. Some years later she called me – literally crying – when she found out it had re-sold in Hong Kong for £1m! C’est la vie.
JAPANESE VALUE
But who am I to determine such matters? I’m also both saddened and confounded by items of higher-quality craftsmanship, such as Japanese works of art, which have suffered from the lost decades and stagnation of the country’s past economic overextension.
Despite this, prices for good Japanese pieces do seem to be gaining some ground. I hope this season’s Asian art sales will see an increase in value of such works, alongside the usual staggering results that the UK trade seems so good at producing. I shall be watching with interest.
Marc Allum is an author, lecturer and specialist on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. For more details go to www.marcallum.co.uk
Above Treasures await: a Qing bianhu, or moon flask, has an estimate of £10,000-£15,000 at Sworders’ Asian art sale on November 5
Right Good return: a Chinese Doucai ribbed vase, estimated at £100 sold for £200,000, image courtesy of Diamond Mills, Felixstowe
CRYSTAL BALL
However, I’ve had my fair share of interesting experiences and handling the odd £2.5m vase can be a rather intoxicating occurrence, particularly when you understand the history and nuances behind it. If only I’d had a crystal ball that actually worked (I do own a crystal ball)
