A Rare Chinese Archaic Jade and Bronze Dagger Strikes Interest Among Chinese Collectors, Propels Lark Mason Associates Asian Art Sale to the $2.6 Million Mark
New York: With a very strong collection of archaic Chinese jades and Japanese weapons–two categories that rarely appear in large quantities at auction– Lark Mason Associates Asian Art sale, on igavelauctions.com, achieved $2,605,619 including buyer’s premium.
Says Lark Mason, “The items uniformly had provenances from esteemed collectors or dealers and the results bore out the importance with the top lot, a Chinese Archaic Jade and Bronze Dagger, from the Shang/Early Western Zhou Dynasty, which sky-rocketed to $450,000 from its original estimate of $5,000-8,000. According to Mason, there was a 98% sell-through of Japanese swords from the collection of Dr. Bob Clemons including the Wakizashi Katana Set, which sold for $18,125, double the original estimate.
Among the other pieces that soared above their estimates were: a Chinese strand of jade and turquoise beads, Liangzhu Culture, 3rd Millennium BC that fetched $150,000 over its $1,200-1,800 estimate; a Chinese Yellow Jade Figure of a Hound, from the Song Dynasty which was snapped up for $137,500, over its $6,000-9,000 estimate; a Chinese Yellow Jade Water Coupe with Rams, from the Qing Dynasty climbed to $121,875, exceeding its $10,000-15,000 estimate; a Chinese Celadon Jade Cong realized $90,626, over the $4,000-6,000 estimate; a Chinese Archaic Jade Cylindrical Carving, Western Zhou Dynasty, climbed over its $700-1,000 estimate to ring up $58,751; and a Chinese Carved Celadon Jade Figure of a Bodhisattva that fetched $58,750, over the estimate $1,000-1500.
Additional sales climbed far beyond their original estimates including: a Chinese Mottled Jade Ax Blade Qi, Shang Dynasty sold for $57,500; an 18th century Chinese Mottled Celadon and Russet Jade Carved Figure of a Dragon and Phoenix fetched $40,013; Chinese Mottled Russet and Greyish White Jade Double Duck Carving went for $32,500; and a Shang Dynasty Chinese Jade Archaic Pendant, which rang up $32,500.
“With competitive bidding, the buyers for many of the top lots were primarily from Mainland China,” says Mason.
About Lark Mason
With locations in New Braunfels, Texas and New York City, Lark Mason Associates, the eponymous, auction house specializing in Asian, ethnographic, and ancient works of art, was founded by Lark Mason after many years as an expert at Sotheby’s New York.
Mason served as a General Appraiser from 1979 until 1985, and as a Senior Vice President and specialist in Chinese art with Sotheby’s Chinese Works of Art Department from 1985-2003. From 2000-2003 he concurrently was a Director of Online Auctions for Sothebys.com. He also served as a consulting curator at the Trammel and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas from 2003-2009. He is a generalist in American and European works of art and paintings, as well as an expert in the field of Chinese art and has valued and advised many private collectors and institutions.
Lark Mason Associates regularly hosts auctions on the iGavel Auctions platform and has an established history of record sales of Chinese and other works of art and holds the record for the highest price achieved for any work of art in an online sale, for a painting sold in May 2014 that realized close to $4.2m. Mason, the owner and CEO of iGavel Auctions, is noted for his regular appearances on “The Antiques Road Show.”
