antiquesandartireland.com

The global search for collectors of rare precious objects marks one way in which the auction world has adapted very quickly to changed circumstances. In 2021 there is nothing particularly unusual about the fact that an Irish firm –James Adam – has already held a Paris preview for a sale of Fine Asian Art due to take place in Dublin on June 29 and 30.The Paris view is not entirely unconnected to the fact that Adams has created its own Asian department and appointed Thibault Duval as its Dublin based head.  M Duval was latterly head of the Asian Art Department at Drouot in Paris.  This appointment marks a recognition of sorts that if major auction houses in Ireland are to survive and prosper in the 21st century they must open out to the new global realities and view Brexit as an opportunity rather than a threat.

A company like Sheppards in Durrow, Co. Laois with a track record of breaking records for Asian objects and then breaking them again has amply demonstrated that if you can produce the goods the buyers will come.

Adams has some interesting goods to offer in its sale on Tuesday and Wednesday week.  Notable consignments include a collection of rare Chinese antiques from the estate of Carlos Alfredo Tornquist Altgelt (1885-1953), a hound scroll painting inscribed with the signature of Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione, also known as Lang Shining, from the collection of Juan Carlos Katzenstein (1925-2018) who served as Ambassador to the Holy See and a wooden ruyi scepter from  the collection of Nadezhda, widow of the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov.  There is a famous portrait of Madame Rimsky-Korsakov by Franz Xaver Winterhalter in the collection of the Orsay Museum. In Chinese Buddhism a ruyi can be a ceremonial scepter or a talisman symbolising power and good fortune in Chinese folklore.

There are Chinese jades last seen at auction at Drouot in 1925 and a jade horse formerly in the collection of Baron Pierre DeMenasce who contributed to an exhibition at the V & A Museum in 1975. A collection of Chinese Republican Period porcelains and an 18th century Meiping vase will feature among the 550 lots on offer.