Asian art leads London sale
Indian miniatures, Islamic tiles, an attic amphora and a Tantric rug all offer centuries of collecting in an upcoming sale at Olympia Auctions in London this summer.
Their forthcoming auction of Indian, Islamic, Himalayan and South-East Asian Art and Greek and Roman, Antiquities takes place on June 4.
The sale offers a vibrant and diverse selection of 302 lots, spanning centuries of artistic brilliance in different cultures, faiths and forms. The auction house said that many of the lots come to sale after decades in private families and some can be traced back to the collections of 18th and 19th-century connoisseurs.
Two very different examples illustrate a superb range of tiles and ceramics. A set of three Iznik tiles, c.1600, with a classic Ottoman design of scrolling saz leaves and prunus blossoms, is estimated to fetch £8,000-12,000. Formerly in a Greek private collection since the 1960s, an old label on the back of the frame states ‘from the display case in the dining room’.
An exceptionally rich and colourful range of textiles includes an interesting collection, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, acquired by London-based Australian pianist Geoffrey Saba who toured South-East Asia with his wife during the 1960s and 70s.
An important group of rugs and textiles from Anatolia, Central Asia and China includes a striking Konya Kilim, estimated at £3,000-5,000; a Turkmen Saryk carpet with an estimate of £5,000-10,000 and a Ningshia Tantric rug, carrying a £3,000-4,000 estimate. Depicting a flayed man, the rug would have been used in Esoteric rites to celebrate the power of detachment from the corporal body that advanced Buddhist practitioners strive to attain. A Piskent suzani with a particularly dynamic and joyful design in which yellow outlines and motifs animate a rich red field is estimated at £6,000-8,000. Also from Uzbekistan is a fine 19th-century Ikat panel from Bukhara, with an estimate of £3,000-5,000.
Rare wood items include an 11th-century model of the Buddhist temple at Bodh Gaya in Northern India, made for a pilgrim to take home, estimated at £4,000-6,000. While some stone versions exist in museums, wood models are scarce, probably because of the perishable material.
At the other end of the date scale is a brass model of a Western Indian temple to Siva, estimated at £2,500-3,500, with every detail faithfully reproduced including Nandi bull, the vehicle of Siva, in a canopied hall in front. Among a considerable number of other interesting metal objects and images, is a fine 16th-century bronze figure of the popular elephant god, Ganesha, from Kerala, in the South-West of India, carrying an estimate of £4,000-6,000.
A collection of Tibetan thang-ka paintings – Buddhist scrolls – comes to sale from the family of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1901- 1995), a Viennese anthropologist whose fieldwork took him all over India and Nepal for four decades from 1936. In 1950 he was appointed Professor of Anthropology at SOAS where he established the Department of Anthropology and his archive, donated to SOAS, is considered the world’s most comprehensive study of tribal cultures in South Asia and the Himalayas. Collected on his travels in Nepal in the 1940s, the thang-ka paintings, range in estimate from £300-3,000.
Also included is a fine black ground thang-ka depicting Mahakala, Tibet, 18th/19th century, from a London consignor. Estimated at £10,000 -15,000.
The auction includes three illustrations from a Safavid 16th century manuscript of the Shahnameh, as well as a 17th century illustration from Mughal India.
An illustrated page from a manuscript copy of The Shahnama (The Book of Kings, an epic composed 977-1010 CE by the poet Firdausi) comes to sale having been owned and treasured by a succession of the greatest bibliophiles in 19th century England. Depicting The Trial by Fire of Siyavush, and dating from sub-Imperial Mughal India, c.1630, it is unique among only five known pages from the same manuscript in that it has text on the verso. It also bears early annotations probably in the hand of Mrs Richardson Currer, frequently referred to as England’s first female bibliophile but before her it was owned by Mrs. Bliss of Kensington who may have more right to this claim. Estimated at £3,000-5,000.
From the collection of the late artist Howard Hodgkin comes an illustration to Bhairav Raga, an ancient raga (melody) in Indian classical music known for its rich, devotional character. This example shows the god, Bhairava, depicted on the bull with an attendant with a fly whisk. Painted in the distinct style associated with Mankot, capital of a former kingdom in the Punjab hills, c.1720-30, it is estimated to fetch £5,000-8,000.
Colonel Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier (1741–1795) was a Swiss engineer and polymath who spent thirty years in India, He was empathetic to both cultures and whilst promoting the interests of the East India Company at the court of Lucknow, began the production of a series of albums, muraqqa, a page from one of which is included in the sale, estimated at £3,000-5,000. One side features an early 17th century Mughal portrait of a courtier (possibly evoking Emperor Jahangir or a nobleman like Mirza Muzaffar or Khan ‘Alam) holding a falcon and its prey. References in Polier’s albums to falcons representing courtiers include a legend in which a royal falcon meets its death at the hands of the King despite its attempts to protect him. This was probably copied by ‘Ata Khan, Polier’s calligrapher, and it could be that they shared a sense of being court attendants whose sage advice was not always valued by their rulers.
More than just a beautiful image, this page is a palimpsest, telling the story of an 18th-century cosmopolitan navigating empire, art, and his place in the world. After Polier’s death the album including the present page was acquired by the famously eccentric English collector William Beckford, and by the present owner in the 1980s.
An Attic black figure amphora from mainland Greece, circa 540- 520 BC, is estimated to sell for £20,000-30,000. Its terracotta surface is painted with a gigantomachy, a mythological combat in which the Olympian gods battled the Giants who sought to overthrow them. There are figures of Athena and other helmeted gods, a fallen warrior beneath rearing horses and friezes of lotus flowers and pointed leaves. First bought at Sotheby’s in 1967, it is attributed to the “Swing Painter”, an unnamed artist whose rarely seen works include three other amphorae in the British Museum.