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The finest private collection of Chinese porcelain in the West is about to be sold
ON APRIL 7th, as part of its spring season in Hong Kong, Sotheby's will be selling 77 lots of imperial Chinese porcelain from the Meiyintang collection. The announcement, made last month on the day that the auction house held a record-breaking modernist art sale in London, has attracted little public attention. But to those who follow the market in Chinese artworks, news of the Hong Kong auction was nothing short of a thunderbolt. For Meiyintang is regarded as the greatest collection of Chinese treasures still in private hands in the West, a name ranked alongside Alfred Clark and Sir Percival David, passionate scholars whose collections were among the most important ever made outside the great museums of Beijing and Taipei.
Not so long ago the Chinese were prevented by the Communist Party from celebrating the achievements of their forebears. But with new fortunes being created all the time now in China, dealers and collectors from Hong Kong and the mainland have become enthusiastic buyers. They have a thirst for their own history, especially for anything that connects modern China with the glories of its imperial past. For the first time last year, according to a report released on March 14th, China overtook Britain to become the biggest art market in the world after America.
Demand for Chinese artworks has driven up prices, which in turn is drawing fresh treasures on to the market. The traffic is almost entirely one way. Chinese fine art from America and Europe is moving back to China in the biggest migration of culture since European masterpieces travelled inexorably westward to America in the 19th century. Buyers prize rarity, quality and provenance above all
The Meiyintang collection will generate considerable Chinese interest because of its quality and the secrecy surrounding its creation. Despite its fame,...