A menagerie of jade animals and figures spanning from 1200 – 1800 AD will highlight the sale, featuring: a Ming Dynasty Yellow and Russet Jade Figure of Zhou Yanzi, a carving depicting the Confucian parable of Zhou Yanzi, a boy who bravely cloaked himself in deerskin among a herd of does to collect milk to reverse his elderly parents’ blindness (estimate $40/60,000); a White and Gray Jade Carving of a Hare, which embodies the Song dynasty approach of essentialist carving in which the fundamental nature of the animal is conveyed through its body language alone and stripped of superfluous detail (estimate $30/50,000); and a rare Song-Ming Dynasty Yellow and Russet Jade Carving of a Tapir, known for its mythical properties believed to eat nightmares in East Asian legends (pictured above, estimate $80/120,000). Jade carvings of tapirs are exceptionally rare, and within this small group, the present carving was produced particularly early and bears atypical physical features and exceptional quality of stone and carving.

KANGXI: THE JIE RUI TANG COLLECTION, PART II
Auction 19 March @ 2:00PM
Following the success of KANGXI: The Jie Rui Tang Collection in March 2018, we are pleased to present another selection of Kangxi-era ceramics from the Collection of Jeffrey P. Stamen. Built over a 30-year period, the Jie Rui Tang collection is one of the finest, most comprehensive assemblages of Kangxi porcelain in private hands.

This upcoming sale features examples of major ceramic categories representative of the period, led by The Fonthill ‘Phoenix’ Vase, a Magnificent and Rare Rose-Verte Rouleau Vase from the Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period (estimate $300/500,000). The vase previously belonged to famous Victorian era collector Alfred Morrison, who designed his Fonthill estate to display his impressive collection of Chinese porcelains, including the present piece. Only one other similar vase of this form, massive size and distinctive palette is known, sold in our April 2017 Hong Kong auction.

IMPORTANT CHINESE ART
Auction 20 March @ 10:00AM
The Important Chinese Art auction features nearly 300 works dating from the Neolithic to Republic periods and comprising all major collecting categories – notably early bronzes, Buddhist sculpture, ceramics, imperial porcelain, jades and classical furniture. The selection is highlighted by an Exceedingly Rare and Important Complete Set of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment by the Qianlong Emperor, Dated Qianlong Bingyin Year, Corresponding to 1746 (estimate $300/500,000). Every detail in the production of this Sutra reflects the supremacy of imperial quality, executed to the highest standards overall. The Lotus Sutra is known to have been copied by the Qianlong Emperor to celebrate the birthday of his mother, the Empress Dowager Chongqing. The present Sutra also has a long collecting history in the West, that can be traced to Bernard Alfred Quaritch, a German bookseller who opened a bookshop in London in 1847 specializing in old and rare books, which still exists today.

The sale is also led by a group of 22 jades offered from The Art Institute of Chicago. Many of the works were previously held in the Nickerson Collection, gifted to the Art Institute in 1900 and exhibited in the museum the same year. Highlights of the collection include two exceptional Qing dynasty jade brushpots, A Rare White Jade ‘Imperial Procession’ Brushpot (pictured right, estimate $800,000/1,200,000) and A Finely Carved Spinach-Green Jade ‘Scholars’ Brushpot (estimate $400/600,0000), each fashioned from superlative quality stone and deeply carved in the round to form a virtual diorama. Produced during the mid-Qing dynasty, the cylindrical forms of jade brushpots yield a suitably large, continuous, and regular pictorial surface onto which they could translate complex compositional narrative scenes. Jade brushpots of this type possess not only the continuity of a scroll painting but also the volumetric illusionism of sculpture.

INDIAN, HIMALAYAN & SOUTHEAST ASIAN WORKS OF ART
Auction 21 March @ 10:00AM
The week continues with an array of objects created over the course of 20 centuries in South Asia and the Himalayas, including sculptures in bronze and stone such as an impressive 7th Century Buddha from Eastern India, as well as fine miniature paintings and ritual and devotional works such as a spectacular cloth painting (Paubha) from Nepal. A group of exceptional thangkas is led by A Thangka Depicting a Hevajra Mandala, numbered 26th in a series of which at least 18 other paintings are known (estimate $800,000/1,200,000). The series represents perhaps the finest of all mandala painting from Tibet in the fourteenth century. Designed and painted with exquisite attention to detail and vibrant palette, this painting has been unseen since it was first acquired by a collector in the early 1970s. Sotheby’s is proud to lead our sale with this discovery piece.