The consignment of the largest, and most important, private collections of Asian art to come to market was sufficient reason for Christie’s, New York to stage its first ever evening auction dedicated to the field on 17 March. This landmark event was just one part of a larger extravaganza: Christie’s dedicated five days of auctions and one week of online sales to the Indian, Himalayan, Southeast Asian, Japanese and Chinese works of art that had belonged to Robert Ellsworth, the legendary connoisseur known as the “King of Ming”, who died last year.
The evening auction started with a swing as a small gilt-bronze figure of a seated bear dating from the Western Han dynasty (206BC-AD8) flew past its $300,000 high estimate to sell for $2.85m. The event was a white-glove auction, with each of the 57 lots finding buyers. In total, the evening auction made $61.1m and four world records were set, including the $9.7m paid for huanghuali (yellow rosewood) furniture. This rare set of four Ming dynasty chairs, dating from the 17th-century (est $800,000-$1.2m) was the evening’s top lot, selling to a private Asian buyer.
The same week that the sales began, the executor of the Ellsworth estate brought a lawsuit against the attorney George Bischof in the New York Supreme Court. Masahiro Hashiguchi is accusing Bischof—who was retained by Ellsworth before his death to draft and execute a will—of negligence in creating a defective charitable trust in the will which Hashiguchi says is costing the estate an extra $25m in taxes, according to the legal news site law360.com.
As we went to press, the auctions of the Ellsworth collection were still ongoing and the suit unresolved.
