The Jar of Bonhams and the Jar of Christie's

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The price of antique Imperial Chinese wares is often hard to predict, although the best auction houses know clearly to identify the top pieces.

Yesterday in London, Bonhams sold for £ 1.1 million charge included a blue and white Jiajing jar. The lower estimate had been 180 K£ only, but Bonhams had published two press releases for it, showing that they understood the true value of this lot.

So it is no surprise that Christie's has not published an estimate for two pieces of their sale of May 27 in Hong Kong.

Chance of the auction sales: one of the two lots at Christie's is a white jar decorated in cobalt blue, with same globular shape and similar size (26 and 30 cm high, respectively) than at Bonhams. Both pieces bear under the base the six character Jiajing mark. This emperor of the Ming dynasty reigned 450 years ago.

For aesthetics, I prefer the subtlety of Bonhams' jar, decorated in enamel with pretty golden fishes swimming in the middle of the blue plant motifs. Christie's jar is more anecdotal, showing young boys engaged in various games.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Aesthetics is very important in the price of Chinese ceramics. Christie's copy was sold $ 11.8 MHK including expenses, i.e. approximately 15% below that of Bonhams, which was so nice. The anecdotal nature of the design of Christie's jar was not enough to generate higher prices.