Three Rare Jade Congs From The Liangzhu Culture

This is about our upcoming auction on April 16th and 17th. Two-day auction of fine Asian art. We'll talk about a few songs today which are here in the catalogue. This is the big one and then we have the white one and then we have the green one here. And they're very different. They also have different provenances. So from these three songs, yeah, these two are from the collection of Lord Anthony Jacobs. And then from there went to the collection of Marla Kosich. And during the time when these pieces were in these two collections, they were also authenticated by Dr. Goufang. Whereas this one here has a different history. This one was at Christie's in 1993 where it was acquired by a collector who kept it for 33 years ever since. And so the first one I'm talking about is the small one here which as you can see has a spectacular green color which has been referenced as spinach green. I don't completely agree. I'd rather say this is sea green or grass green. There is a very similar one from the same group which has been sold for 250,000 euros only three years ago at Sotheby's. It's a bit smaller though than this one. The interesting thing is that this one has the eyes or the masks, if you will, in the center register. Whereas the one that was at Sotheby's has them in the lower register. That's apparently one of the difference. So this one is a bit higher because it has a lower and an upper register. The interesting thing is that these striations here, these calcifications are scattered and create this amazing pattern throughout the front of the pieces, the four faces of the piece. You can also see very well from the inside that it's been drilled from both sides. Yeah, that's a key element. And essentially there is a little loss to the material that is owed to the deep calcification that took place here and only here. This is literally impossible to imitate. The polish of this is, of course, it's a manual polish. It's a very, very fine polish, which is only rarely seen on this type of song. So overall, this is an absolutely spectacular and exceptional piece. You find also one in the British Museum that is quite similar. We have all this documentation here, which has the certificate of Dr. Gu Fang, who referred this as an excellent quality piece. When you have seen a lot of documents and appraisals and certificates from Dr. Gu Fang, you will note that he only grades pieces as excellent, which is his highest rating, like one in a thousand pieces. This is really incredibly rare to have. And then on top of that, also Sam Myers made a valuation of it 10 years ago. And in his appraisal, it was listed at the time at a value of 85,000 euros. There's a little bit of guidance. We started in the auction at 15,000 euros only. And there's no reserve. I think there's going to be a lot of interest, which brings us to the much, much bigger one here. It's a very large and massive song, as you can see, which on the video looks almost black. But if you see the images on the strong light, you actually realize that this is only a very dark green. So it really depends on whether you look at this in normal light or in actual daylight or sunlight. The polish on this one is magnificent. And it has only some polish to a bruise that was in this area, a few minor losses and a few minor intrinsic fissures. And then, of course, some pitting and what they normally have. But the condition otherwise is absolutely excellent. And very large song of this type are extremely rare. You see here one that is in the Beijing Palace Museum. This one here. This is also, by the way, in the Beijing Palace Museum. But this one here is very, very close, the way it's designed and the color of the stone. So there's very few of this type known. And this also has a very nice old Zitan base, probably from the 18th century. So this gives us a little bit of a hint. When the base was made for this one, it's clearly a fitted base, that that was around the time when the piece was actually found and entered collection for the first time after having been rediscovered. So that was probably in the 18th century. When you look at the quality, how this base is curved and also the design it has, which is very typical for the time around 1750, 1780. Could be a bit earlier though. Could also be a bit later. The edges are quite sharp and very symmetric. Yeah, there's also a little loss here on this area, but otherwise the edges are all intact. So again, very, very good condition for this one. Even though the comparisons go into price areas for this one here, we have 291,000. To be very honest, this is not even close in the quality to our piece. There's a lot of calcification, a lot of damage here in this area. It is smaller and the carving is not as sharp. This one here is in fantastic condition. It's larger. We put a starting price again. Only this is really, really, really low, 7,500 euros. This is 10% of what it was on the market 30 years ago. The price is really almost a joke. The third one here is a very, very important tongue because it's white in color and it has all these registers with all the masks. And the first thing you see on this one is that the masks are incredibly fine. The quality of the carving is absolutely magnificent. We have a few images that show the interplay between the masks and the eyes. And when the sunlight passes through the piece, which is really interesting to see. And then you see the way the masks are here. Incredibly dramatic. And when the sunlight moves through it, there is an interplay between the two. And this is really dramatic. We have a few pictures that show that very well. From the condition here, of course, this one is highly calcified. And so for this reason, very fragile. And we can see there is a crack here. And there is a few intrinsic fissures here, which have been stabilized. There's old fills around them. And there's also some touch-ups mostly to the interior. So there are condition issues. And we invite any prospective bidders to have a look at our blue light video. Given the quality and, of course, the authentication by Dr. Gu Fang, we have seen that this kind of quality of white tongues often have condition issues. Because of their enormous fragility. We have seen one example that we sold a couple of years back for 105,000 euros. And then another one that sold at Christie's Hong Kong just a few months ago for 330,000 euros, which had also condition issues. So this gives a little bit of a scope in which region this song plays. And the starting price is only 10,000 euros. There's even this fitted stand that Lord Jacobs had created, especially so you can turn it around. It's really nice. So if you look at these three tongues together, you can actually see, and that's what I like most, is that how much variety is just between these pieces. So they are basically all from the same culture. But they look very, very different. You have very different jade, dark green, almost black jade, green jade, white jade, pale celadon jade. Actually, it has calcified to an ivory white tone. And they're all different when it comes to their design. Yeah, this one is much thinner. This one is much thicker. This one has a broader opening than the others. All in all, it just tells you how much variety is in these tongues. All in all, they are extremely rare. I doubt that we will anytime soon have the chance to present three high-quality tongues that are so different, despite the fact they are from the same culture. I hope you can win at least one of them. And I wish you good luck in bidding.