Art: The Chinese Are Buying?

Sep 17, 2015    |    My Money MD     |    Shirley Mueller, MD

From MANDARIN & MENAGERIE: THE SOWELL COLLECTION Part I (left) and Part II (right) From Christie’s.com

 
“Timing is everything when selling art.” This is what Geraldine Lenain said to me when I visited her in Shanghai, China while speaking at a conference there. Lenain was then international head of Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art for Christie’s Auction House in Shanghai and now is with their Paris office.

For me, at no time could her words be more potent. The recent sale of The Sowell Collection II of Chinese export art at Christie’s in New York City on Wednesday could be described as painful. Only 44% of the auction’s offerings sold. This was roughly half of what the Sowell Collection I sold for back in January at the same auction house in the identical city. Then, 74% of the Chinese export porcelains offered sold. The items in the two sales were from the same collector and not substantially different. What did change, I believe, was the willingness of the Chinese to buy back their heritage. I wrote about this phenomenon back in March, in a column entitled, “The Chinese are Buying and Americans Receive the Benefit.”

Today, there appears to be a shift and indicators point to the Chinese economics as the cause. The Chinese economy has virtually gone from boom to bust. This situation, of course, could influence any Chinese buyer and make her shy of spending her money on possessions she may want but really doesn’t need. That era may be over, at least temporally, for most Chinese. Though there are still bidders from China (I heard the auctioneer refer to them on the phone while listening in on this week’s sale), there likely are fewer that want to spend big sums of money.

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The Chinese are Buying!

Mar 22, 2012    |    My Money MD    |   Shirley M. Mueller, MD

Editor: Shirley learned the hard way that sellers should beware too! Read about the troubles she and others have run into.

Anyone with Chinese art around the house, whether purchased before 2000 or inherited from the family, might want to take a closer look to determine its current vale. The Chinese art market is hot right now as nationals are buying back their heritage that was exported abroad.

In 1984 I purchased a lacquer box at a “going out of business sale” at a reputable NYC Madison Avenue shop. At the time I bought it both because it seemed like a good deal and I liked it.
“Send it in,” the Asian art specialist at Christie’s said to me. “The Chinese are buying.”

He was referring to the recent upswing in sales to Chinese collectors at Christie’s and other auction houses. I had a Chinese cinnabar lacquer box that consequently might sell well.

The large carved red lacquer globular box and cover that I sent to Auction. Ming Dynasty, late 16th/17th century. Courtesy Christies.

Indeed, the Chinese are buying. According to the Mei Moses Index, a respected art buying guide, the purchase of traditional Chinese art burst forth like an Asian firecracker during 2000 to 2011. It achieved a compound annual return of 15.82% compared to 0.47% for Standard and Poor’s 500 Index (the leading indicator of the U.S. equity market).

The Mei Moses World Collecting Comparative Performance Table 2000-2011 (September) above shows the returns of the S&P and the Traditional Chinese market on the right in bold. The traditional Chinese market is composed of art that the Chinese produced for themselves rather than export to the West. Still, some of it was exported abroad. All categories lagged behind the Traditional Chinese, in part because the recession in Europe and the U.S. diminished buyers in the impressionist, old masters and post war categories in which these countries commonly purchased.

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The Chinese are Buying (They’re Just Not Paying!)

May 31, 2012    |    My Money MD|   Shirley M. Mueller, MD

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Americans who do business in China know that they will be operating under unfamiliar rules. Now United States owners of Chinese antiquities are finding the same thing when they sell to mainland Chinese.

This hit me personally. I sold a 16th/17th century cinnabar box at Christies, NYC at its March 22, 2012 sale. It fetched a respectable price. Though this was cause for celebration, more than two months later I haven’t been paid. The reason according to the auction house is that the buyer didn’t reimburse them.

The large carved red lacquer globular box and cover that I sold at Christies during their March 22, 2012 sale is above. The buyer has not paid. Photo: Courtesy Christies.

When I pressed as to whether the purchaser was Chinese, the Christie’s person wouldn’t say for reasons of confidentially; however, it’s probably a good bet. The market for antique cinnabar boxes tends to be wealthy mainland Chinese, and, unfortunately, this group is notorious for not paying for the items they buy at auction.

 According to Melissa M. Chan who writes for the China Digital Times, almost half of Chinese auction bids are unpaid. Other articles, such as the one in Newsweek Magazine, reported the same scenario. Though both publications focused on Hong Kong and Asian auction houses, there is no reason the same thing can’t happen in the United States and elsewhere when mainland Chinese bid.

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The Chinese are Buying Back Their Heritage

Shirley M. Mueller

At the recent March 2015 auctions during Asian Week in New York City, I was feeling very lonely. My usual gang was gone. The attendees were virtually all Chinese.

Grey Limestone Figure of a Standing Bodhisattva, China, Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). Lot 758, Sale 11421. Christie’s, Rockefeller Center, NYC. March 20, 2015
Provenance C.T. Loo and Co. New York, 1941.
The Collection of Robert H. Ellsworth, New York before 1984.

New York City auction houses were humming during Asia Week in mid-March. The buzz, however, was not due to English being spoken as in the past. It was Mandarin and Cantonese that was producing the background din. The sale of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth engendered a mini temporary exodus from China and Taiwan to Manhattan.  

The main floor of Christie’s Rockefeller Center, NYC where the preview of the March 2015 Ellsworth sale began.

Ellsworth was arguably the most prominent dealer of all things Chinese and Asian in the middle decades of the 20th century. He died in August 2014 at age 85. The remaining items from his 22-room home on Fifth Avenue in NYC were auctioned by Christie’s. The Chinese and Asian artifacts from other prominent collectors such as Julia and John Curtis were also being offered simultaneously. Sotheby’s, Bonham’s and Doyle’s, also auction houses in NYC, were on the bandwagon with their own Asian sales. This provided an opportunity for mainland Chinese and Taiwanese to come to the city and bring back what had been taken from their homeland more than 60 years earlier.

Doyle’s Auction in NYC about 11:30 AM 3 13 15. As far as the eye could see, all attendees at the auction preview were Chinese. I saw only one Caucasian face in roughly every 50 or 100.

For example, the gray limestone figure in the first illustration was purchased originally from C.T. Loo in 1941 in NYC. Mr. Loo obtained this and objects like it in war-torn China and sold them to eager Americans and others who coveted objects from the East. Think of the Rockefellers and their collection at the Asia Society.

For sure, no one will be buying what the Asia Society Collection now owns. But, the possessions of deceased Ellsworth, a dealer, are fair play. 

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