Call dibs on a historic range of fine porcelain that is on offer at Saffronart's first Asian art sale
Dr Harish Dhillon. Pic/The Dhillon family/Saffronart
This month's online auction at Saffronart promises to be a dream in cobalt blue and white. If you have wanted to own vintage porcelain from China and Japan, then that's sufficient reason to bid at this sale, slated for August 9 and 10.
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The auction house's first sale of Asian art, to be held online, has porcelain pieces that belong to the collection of the late Dr Harish Dhillon. Dhillon was a well-known educator, headmaster and writer who was also a great lover of antiquities. The Dhillon family says that he started collecting as a young teacher, while at Lucknow University. "He was passionate about blue-and-white porcelain, which were his favourite colours too," they said. In 1995, a fire broke out at his home and he lost everything, including some very important pieces. Initially disheartened, Dhillon went on to rebuild his collection from scratch. He mainly acquired his pieces during his travels, cherry-picking at spots such as Paul Art Gallery in Singapore and Harrods in London.
The collection has some select pieces from the Nanking Cargo, a hoard of 1,50,000 Chinese porcelain and 125 pure gold ingots that were discovered in the South China Sea and sold at Christie's in 1986. Whether it's cutlery from this cargo or a turquoise and aubergine coloured figure of a celestial guardian, the collection is a statement in pristine beauty. "What the Chinese do with porcelain is well-conceived from a design perspective and they use blue-and-white to its greatest effect, producing pieces that are iconic and timeless. Dhillon was a passionate and knowledgeable collector and we want to tell that story to inspire new collectors," says Hugo Weihe, CEO of Saffronart.
With lower estimates starting at Rs 10,000, the 74 lots include Tibetan and Himalayan pieces, such as a terracotta head of Bhairava from Nepal and altar vessels from Tibet. Weihe says that the sale is representative of the interconnectivity within Asia, the old trade routes and the exchange of cultural practices. "We think of a global world today but in the past too that was very much the case, such as the historic ties that were formed during the Tang dynasty," he says.
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WHEN: August 9-10
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