Garth's to Begin Chinese New Year with Amazing Asian items & more With Asian material encompassing more than half of the 762 lots offered in their January 26 auction, Garth’s Auctioneers & Appraisers is hoping to celebrate the Chinese New Year just a few days early.
News-Antique.com - Jan 07,2013 - With Asian material encompassing more than half of the 762 lots offered in their late January auction, Garth’s Auctioneers & Appraisers is hoping to celebrate the Chinese New Year just a few weeks early with fireworks in the sale room. “The variety and quality in this auction is terrific,” comments Garth’s owner, Amelia Jeffers. “Just choosing a cover image for the printed catalog was tough. After considering jewelry, paintings, jade, snuffs and scrolls, we finally settled on a monumental ivory carving that came to us from a wonderful Cleveland, Ohio estate.” The 32” high carving of a Hindu deity is elaborately carved with twenty-two arms, each holding a unique attribute, and is conservatively estimated at $1,500 - $2,500. Another monumental ivory choice comes in the form of a chess set with Emperor, Empress, eight immortals, and other wonderfully carved pieces estimated to bring between $3,000 and $5,000. Complete with a fitted box that doubles as a board, the pieces range in height from 6” to 10” and carry an impressive 8,500 grams of ivory. A mainstay at most Asian auctions these days, the ivory Netsuke choices do not disappoint. Several dozen examples are highlighted by a figural group carving with a woman, monkey and peach; a detailed reclining rat; and a coiled snake. While the ivory selection in this auction is too extensive to detail here, one item of note has assumed a place in the Garth’s history books: a Japanese ivory carving in the form of a skull, with spirits mounted on the top and sides and signed “Gi Yu Ku Zen”, it measures 7.5” tall and is estimated at $3,000 - $5,000. “On one of our first cross-country trips together,” begins Jeffers, “Sarah [Zhu, Garth’s new Asian Arts Specialist] and I met in New York to visit clients and exchange some of the important pieces of jade and ivory for this auction. As if the packing and unpacking of carry-ons in our hotel room did not seem clandestine enough, I was stopped by a very confused TSA agent during the security check. Apparently, the ivory skull is a bit disarming when viewed through the lens of the x-ray screening process!” Jeffers says with a chuckle.
One timely option for the catalog cover could have been the wonderful red Peking glass carved overlay snuff bottle with the Chinese Zodiac (Est. $1,500 - $2,500). With more than 50 snuff bottles ranging from jade to agate, turquoise to lapis, painted to porcelain and forms too numerous to name, one of the more special examples is a beautifully mottled nephrite jade pebble snuff bottle with very nice skin and a coral stopper. From a private California collection, it is estimated at $5,500-$6,500. An 18th Century carved agate snuff bottle from the Suzhou school has bat and rock designs and four character marks (Est. $10,000 - $12,000).
Bidders looking for unusual, high-quality Asian objects will not be disappointed reviewing jade, coral, porcelain, paintings, cloisonne, shibayama and more. Asian consignments from both coasts came
