Met's Chinese ceramics ready for auction block

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is offering more than 700 pieces of Chinese ceramics for sale through live and online auctions at Christie's next week.

The lot features works from the Song through Qing dynasties (960-1911) that originally were in the collections of John D. Rockefeller Jr, Samuel Putnam Avery and other prominent US collectors.

Proceeds from the auction, titled "Collected in America: Ceramics From the Metropolitan Museum of Art", will benefit the museum's acquisitions fund. There will be a live sale on Sept 15 and an online sale from Sept 13 to 22.

The pieces are all part of the museum's permanent collection, either purchased or presented as gifts.

One of the earliest pieces came to the museum in 1879, when the Met began purchasing Chinese art, according to Margi Gristina, Christie's head of Chinese art.

Gristina said the museum is selling pieces that they either already had duplicates of or that were not considered to be of museum quality. "They were looking for things to reduce their volume a little bit, while being able to raise some money for their acquisition fund," she said.

"It could be a period piece... but maybe the painter was not having a good day, or maybe it's not in very good condition. Or we have some really beautiful top quality things that they have two or three of the same type, so they're selling those," she added.

Pieces from the sale went on tour in Hong Kong and London, where they drew strong interest from potential buyers.

In particular, pieces from the Rockefeller collection and imperial pieces, including those from scholars' desks, got a lot of positive feedback from interested buyers, Gristina said.

A peach-bloom glazed chrysanthemum vase was expected to fetch between $700,000 and $900,000. A rare green and yellow-glazed dragon jar could bring in $50,000 to $70,000.

"We've had a lot of interest from China from what I understand," she said. "But I think it's also going to attract American collectors who recognize these provenances from Rockefeller to J.P. Morgan to Benjamin Altman, and perhaps will appreciate a piece and be a little forgiving on the condition just to get a piece from that collection."

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com