by Debbie Rix
Since Miranda Sharp had sent over the information about the vase’s provenance, the fine ceramics department had been hard at work putting together expert opinion and endeavouring to discover a little more about how this Ming storage jar had come into the possession of the Kaerel family.
A genealogist had been employed at considerable expense to uncover the family’s bloodline and had come to some remarkable conclusions. The Kaerels were one of the original families involved in the Dutch East India Trading Company. They had specialized in imports of Chinese porcelain from 1625 and had been crucial to the development of the blue and white porcelain export industry in Europe. But this vase pre-dated that. This was where the information became a little more complicated. Kaerel’s great grandmother, Margarethe Haas, had been traced back to Antwerp. Pushing on further, they discovered that she had been born in Bruges. But the search had reached a fever pitch when a specialist in Anstruthers’ art department uncovered a relatively unknown Dutch painter’s portrait of a young couple believed to be Margarethe Haas and her husband. Not being considered of top quality, it had been languishing in a storeroom at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Called ‘The Betrothal’, it featured a beautiful young woman dressed in turquoise blue silk, her young husband holding her hand. A little dog lay at her feet. A Ming bowl filled with oranges stood on the chest at the side, and in the centre of the picture, on the mantle shelf, stood a Ming vase with an angry dragon chasing around its centre. It appeared to be identical to the one that Anstruthers had at that moment in their vault.
Hennessy had been ecstatic at the news. ‘This is a game-changer, Antonia,’ he said to the art historian. ‘How on earth did you find it?’
‘Well, it was odd. I had done some research for my PhD years ago, which was about the influence of foreign trade on art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Low Countries. I had been to all the museums in Bruges, Amsterdam and so on, and to Venice and Florence too, of course. And I had a nagging memory of this picture. You know that the Flemish Baroque painters had a passion for mixing ordinary household objects – wine jugs, a dead pheasant – with more valuable items like Ming bowls filled with fruit, or whatever. I was interested in that juxtaposition of exquisite items, used in an everyday context, to demonstrate the enormous wealth of those Flemish cities. You know, how they’d arrange a bowl precariously on its side on a lovely linen cloth, with crystal glasses and wine nearby. Or a piece of Ming, used as a vase for flowers. It’s a sort of decadence, I suppose. While I was visiting the team at the Rijksmuseum, they mentioned this picture. It was from the school of Jan van Eyck, who painted that marvellous painting of the Arnolfini wedding, also done in Bruges. Do you know it? But the brushwork in ‘The Betrothal’ is not so good. The quality of light is less luminous. And so it had been relegated to the storeroom. I think they bring it out occasionally for special Baroque exhibitions. They asked if I’d like to see it. I referenced it, in fact, in my final thesis. And to be honest, I’d forgotten all about it. But when you asked for help in tracing this piece, it came to me in the middle of the night. I’d seen that vase before. I’ve asked the team at Rijksmuseum for a JPEG of the painting and they are sending it today. We can put it online or use it during the sale.’
‘Well done, Antonia, that’s great work.’
‘There’s more. I don’t know how we can use this bit of information for the sale, but I thought you’d like to know.’
‘Go on,’ said Michael Hennessy, leaning forward in anticipation.
‘There’s another painting at the Rijksmuseum. They acquired it many years ago, and although of quite a different style, they crossed-referenced it with ‘The Betrothal’. It’s a Chinese painting. But it features two women, one older than the other – perhaps a mother and daughter. They are sitting in a garden, fairly clearly in the Imperial Palace, in the Forbidden City, in Beijing. The garden is exquisitely painted, of course; blossom trees, birds and so on. And in the centre of the painting, sitting looking out onto the garden, are these two women. They are clearly not Chinese, even though they are dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, but their hair is loose – which was most unusual – and both have quite remarkable bright blue eyes, turquoise almost. The younger of the two looks so remarkably like the woman in ‘The Betrothal’ painting that some bright spark at the museum had a feeling they must be connected, perhaps even related. They are sending a copy of that to us too.’
‘Do they know who painted it?’
‘Well, this is the thing. It has all the hallmarks of the Emperor Xuande himself. You know, of course, that he was the only one of the Ming Emperors who demonstrated quite remarkable talent as an artist. He preferred subjects like animals and flowers. But he also did that wonderful picture of the two gibbons – do you know it?’
Hennessy nodded.
‘Well, this picture of the two women is marked with characters that imply it was painted in the Hall Of Military Grace in 1435 – the year he died.’
‘My God,’ said Hennesy. ‘Are you saying that the woman in the Chinese painting is the same woman as the one in the painting in Bruges?’
‘Well, she can’t be the same woman, as that painting was done in 1435, and the Bruges painting was done in 1469. But she might be a relation of some kind. She certainly looks very similar. It can only be conjecture, you know. But it might provide a theory for how the vase came to Europe. If these two women were part of a merchant family who travelled in the Far East, they would of course have brought back items from that part of the world; perhaps even items from the Palace itself. We could cross-check all the merchant travellers from Europe to China at that time and see if someone suitable comes to light?’
‘Well, it’s tempting Antonia, but I think not. It’s too much of a long shot and I’m not sure we can prove anything from it. Besides, we’re running out of time. I think we need to show the Chinese painting, and perhaps you could write it up for me and I’ll have a think about how we can use it. But we can’t, in all honesty, claim it has a connection to the vase. No, Antonia, you have done your work, and very, very well done.’
The saleroom was packed. Ranged down one side, at tables specially set up with screens and phones, were the dealers who would manage the online and telephone bids. The room was laid out with over one hundred gilt banqueting chairs. Coffee and tea were served in an anteroom, along with homemade shortbread biscuits. The auction house contrived to be a little bit of England in the heart of Hong Kong.
Potential bidders from across the world were ranged up ready to purchase the fabulous collection of porcelain that Anstruthers had assembled for the sale. But there was no doubting the star lot: Lot Number Forty-Two, the Ming vase, Xuande period, a previously undiscovered Ming storage jar in perfect condition.
Hennessy and a colleague, Jonnie Chambers, would share the auctioneering. This was to be a long process and they could only manage around one hour each. Chambers started the bidding off on the first lots, fielding telephone and online bids effortlessly with those in the room. ‘Lot One: a remarkable example of Kraak porcelain; made for export to Holland in approximately 1620. What am I bid?’
Paddles with numbers were raised in the room. Young men and women fielding the phones raised their hands periodically.
‘Paddle 1871, Sir,’ said one pretty blonde employee.
‘I have ten thousand Hong Kong dollars; fifteen thousand; ’ said Chambers. ‘Thank you, good swift bidding online, thank you for that, we appreciate the speed.’ He nodded at the pretty blonde girl. ‘Twenty-five thousand in the room… Just in time… It’s now or never. Ah, another telephone bid, thank you… Thirty thousand… Are we all done now? Warning you, on the phone and online… Going once, going twice.’ He smashed his gavel down hard on the lectern.
He rattled through the lots, the items gathering speed and becoming more and more valuable. ‘Lot Twenty-Seven: one small Qing dynasty bowl. I have a bid with me here for three-hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars,’ he said, staring at the scr
een on his lectern. ‘Who will start me at three-hundred-and-fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars?’ The bidding rose frantically to four-hundred thousand.
A dark-haired girl with an Italian accent raised her paddle. ‘Sir, I have to translate…’ Chambers looked irritated at this delay, as she proceeded to speak in fluent Chinese to her client on the phone.
‘Carlotta,’ said Chambers, ‘do you wish to pay four-hundred-and-fifty thousand?’
Carlotta gesticulated towards the phone, where her client was clearly speaking rapidly to her in Chinese. She responded to him, a sense of urgency in her voice.
‘Still with you,’ said the auctioneer fractiously, tapping his fingers on the lectern.
A bidder in the room raised his hand.
‘Four-hundred-and-fifty thousand,’ Chambers said, ‘in the room.’
‘Four-hundred five… Against you,’ he said, gesturing to the previous bidder, before turning to the Italian girl once again. ‘Does your man want to bid at five-hundred thousand?’ Carlotta nodded eagerly whilst speaking quickly and quietly to her mystery bidder on the phone.
‘I must bring the hammer down sometime soon,’ said Chambers in a languid manner, as if this was really the most irritating process to have to endure. ‘Still with you,’ he said, pointing to Carlotta. But another bidder in the room joined in the process.
‘Five-hundred-and–fifty in the room.’
This went on for another five minutes until Chambers finally, and apparently with complete indifference, bought that particular lot to an end. ‘With warning, I’m selling at six-hundred thousand.’ He brought his gavel down with a flourish.
In Anstruthers’ London offices, Miranda, Georgie, Jeremy and Miranda’s parents sat together in a room that had been set aside for a handful of customers, whose bids were dealt with by a small team from Anstruthers with a hotline to Hong Kong. It was usual for those who couldn’t get to the actual sale to bid online from home, but clearly one or two enjoyed the atmosphere in the saleroom and had come especially to London.
Miranda and her party sat at the back of the room with a member of the porcelain team from Anstruthers’ London offices at their side. They drank tea and coffee and watched the sale unfold with fascination. Miranda had an overwhelming sense of anticipation. Her palms were damp and she kept fiddling with her mobile phone. ‘When is our lot coming up?’ she asked the young employee.
‘It won’t be long now,’ he replied with the air of a young hospital doctor encouraging a mother in labour. He wore a rather tired blue suit, had floppy blond hair that fell over his eyes and a suggestion of acne sprinkled across his cheeks. He was probably no more than twenty-three years old.
‘How long have you worked here?’ asked Miranda, desperate for distraction.
‘Oh, about six months – it’s my first job after uni,’ he replied enthusiastically.
‘Oh, what did you study?’ she asked, not truly interested in the answer.
‘History of art,’ he replied, predictably.
‘Is it interesting, working here?’
‘Oh yes, jolly interesting.’
‘Do you like porcelain?’
‘Well, I’m learning, you know?’
Back in Hong Kong, Chambers was coming to the end of his shift. Hennessy paced the edge of the room. He felt curiously nervous, rather as he had done when he first started as an auctioneer. Phone and online staff ambled in and out of the saleroom, materialising when a particular lot their client was interested in came up. It had the air of a busy market. The noise in the room was quite loud, with clients chatting and drinking coffee. Only those people who were actually bidding for a particular item were concentrating on the matter in hand. Everyone else appeared to be treating the event as a sort of glorified party.
At Lot Number Thirty, Chambers left the lectern and handed Hennessy the gavel. He got off to a good start and ploughed through the lots. ‘Lot Thirty-Four – a very nice nineteenth-century porcelain vase from Guangdong province. I’ve got bids here… Of nine thousand Hong Kong dollars.’ He looked around the room and spotted one of the Internet bidders waving her paddle at him. He checked the screen on his lectern.
‘I’ve got a bidder in Taiwan on the Internet trying to get in… Fifteen thousand… That’s a Taiwanese bid. Are we all done?’ He paused to let the bidders in the room catch up. ‘Ah, it’s a telephone bid. It’s in the room, on the telephone, against the Internet. It’s going abroad then. Are we all done?’ He smashed his gavel down.
The lots unfolded, fetching smaller or larger amounts of money. Lot Thirty-Eight went for over four million dollars; Lot Number Forty for over eight million. Finally they arrived at Lot Number Forty-Two.
‘Lot Forty-Two’, began Michael, his voice calm and cool. ‘A rare example of early Xuande Ming China, signed by Shendu. We have provenance. The details are all in the insert in the catalogue and have been online. The piece was owned by the Kaerel family based in Amsterdam, who were part of the Dutch East India company who brought a huge amount of Ming into Europe. This piece pre-dates that. We have a painting up here on the big screens now, painted in 1464, of a merchant’s daughter in Bruges. Her name was Margarethe Haas, and she is shown here with her betrothed, Cornelius van Vaerwye; it’s the school of Van Eyck. You will see the vase – at least it appears to be the vase – in the centre of the painting. The piece came from the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen. Some of the finest examples of Ming China were produced at that time, under the rule of Emperor Xuande. The decoration is particularly fine, with the dragon motif – just three claws on the dragon, indicating it was a gift for a foreign ruler. So, what am I bid? I have bids here with me for thirty-five million Hong Kong dollars. Who will give me forty million?’
Jeremy in London leapt to his feet and shouted, ‘Yes!’ He glanced down excitedly at Miranda, who sat transfixed by the big screen in the saleroom showing Michael Hennessy on the stage in Hong Kong. ‘Forty million!’ shouted Jeremy. ‘How much is that exactly?’
The young man from the porcelain department took out his phone and made a quick calculation.
‘Nearly three-and-a-half million sterling; I’ll get the guys round the back to put up an automatic calculator so you can see what it is in real money.’ He disappeared behind the big screens in the saleroom.
The bidding went fast, the Internet and telephone bidders scarcely able to keep up with one another. They were constantly dialling clients. ‘Hello, this is Maddie from Anstruthers. Can you confirm your name to me? We are on Lot Forty-Two now. Can you stay on the line? Bidding’s at sixty million Hong Kong dollars now. Would you like to place a bid?’
Hennessy spoke clearly into the microphone on his lectern, his eyes constantly scanning his screen for Internet bids and restlessly searching the room and the line of telephone bidders. ‘Seventy million on the Internet – bid nice and swiftly in Spain, would you, there’s a bit of a time lag; seventy-five million, with me in the room – thank you; eighty million, it’s a Hong Kong buyer with Geoffrey on the phone.’
‘Ninety million, Sir,’ called one of the phone bidders.
‘Thank you,’ said Michael. ‘One-hundred million now though, with me here, flesh and blood.’
The bidding rose inexorably.
‘Three-hundred million on the phone, with you, Carlotta.’ He stared at the girl, who was frantically talking to her client in fluent Chinese. ‘I’ve got three-hundred-and-fifty on the Internet, are you bidding again, Carlotta?’
It appeared that the bidding had come down to two clients: one on the phone and one on the Internet.
The room had fallen silent. The coffee cups had been put down on the carpeted floor and the hundred or so possible buyers sat in rapt attention as Michael Hennessy conducted one of the biggest and most expensive sales of porcelain that had ever taken place.
‘Three–hundred-and-fifty million now, on the Internet. Are you bidding, Carlotta?’ She held her hand up to Michael as if asking him to pause. She was clearly listening to her cli
ent. ‘This is beginning to drag rather,’ Michael said, with courageous insouciance.
Carlotta flapped her hand and almost shouted, ‘Four hundred million.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hennessy calmly. ‘Are we all done then? At four-hundred million Hong Kong dollars… Going once… Going twice.’ He brought the gavel down so hard on the lectern that his screen rocked.
The room erupted into furious applause. Michael Hennessy leant on the lectern; he felt as if his legs were going to buckle beneath him. Jonnie Chambers sidled over to him and gently took his arm.
‘Well done, old chap,’ he said, guiding his friend and colleague to a nearby chair. ‘A master class, if I might say so, in how to do it.’
The phone bidders were congratulating Carlotta, who was still attached almost umbilically to her mobile phone and her Chinese client. But she nevertheless accepted kisses on the cheek and pats on the back. Finally, her duty completed, details noted, she put down the phone. Michael came across to her.
‘Well done, Carlotta. Good work.’
‘Thank you, sir, and well done yourself. That was fantastic!’ For the first time that day, she allowed herself a huge smile.
Back in London, Miranda sat in complete silence, clutching Georgie’s hand. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Jeremy was virtually dancing round the room.
‘I simply cannot believe it… Four-hundred million Hong Kong dollars; that’s thirty-four million fucking pounds!’
‘Jeremy!’ said Miranda’s mother. ‘There’s no need for that sort of language!’
‘Sorry, sorry, but I mean it’s unbelievable.’
