As an important source of Chinese cultural relics and artworks, Japan has long been the object of coveting by auction houses around the world.
Many of the important porcelains of international auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's are from Japan. Many auction houses in China have also operated in Japan for many years, working hard to tap resources. So, what is the situation of the ancient Chinese porcelain resources in Japan? After years of solicitation, have these resources been exhausted?
| The mysterious antique exchange meeting |
In Japan, the Antiques Exchange Is the oldest way to trade antiques and is an exchange trading platform within the antiques dealer community. Here, antique dealers transfer their own things to the next home, or buy things from other antique dealers, and the exchange will collect a certain commission from them, which is similar to that of an auction house.
For example, Goro Sakamoto sold his "Rat Shino" cup at the "Sankokukai" and sold it for 1 million yen. Sakamoto lost 100,000 yen in the deal due to the 10% commission deduction, and he spent 1 million yen on the original purchase of this thing, but in order to raise funds to buy a celadon bottle of the day, he had to endure the pain of love.
The resources of the Japanese antique industry are closed and independent "square shapes" of each one. Antique dealers will participate in different exchange meetings, but there is a competitive relationship between the exchange meetings, and the exchange meeting is closed, the credibility requirements are extremely high, not want to participate in it, need several members to jointly recommend as a guarantee, members agree to join the association. For example, the Tokyo Art Club.
| Tokyo Art Club |
As Japan's highest-level antiques exchange meeting, the Tokyo Art Club was founded in the Meiji period. Its membership requirement is that it is an important antique dealer in Japan, and it is necessary to work in at least three years of recognized antique shops in the industry to apply for membership, and it does not accept novices who have been in the industry for one or two years.
The Tokyo Art Club operates a shareholder system, and its shareholders are all first-class artists in Japan. The club holds exchange meetings in spring and autumn, and the participants are all members of the association, and there are also levels among members. When Goro Sakamoto joined the club, the seats were arranged according to seniority, and the front seats were prepared for the most famous antique dealers.
Sakamoto's goal at the time was to try to sit in the front row. Later, Goro Sakamoto bought shares in the Tokyo Art Club for several apprentices who had been apprentices in "Bu Yan Tang" for 10 years, and acted as a guarantor for their membership.
Later, Goro Sakamoto followed the example of the Tokyo Art Club and developed his own "Momo-Lee Society". Like "Bu Yan Tang", the name of "Momo Lee Kai" is also derived from "Momo Lee does not speak, the next becomes its own", originally only as an internal "exchange meeting" of the Sakamoto family's apprentices and apprentices, but gradually developed into one of the most influential antique exchange meetings in Japan, and is active to this day.
According to Zhang Rong, the "Peach and Plum Club" is an irregular auction, the operation is very simple, and a lot of things will be produced every year. A piece of the Southern Song Dynasty official kiln Bafang furnace recently auctioned in Kansai is from the "Peach and Plum Society". Each "Peach and Plum Club" has hundreds of antique dealers participating, and many antique dealers are independent and very active.
Other more famous exchange meetings include "Aoyama Kai", "Osawa Exchange Club", "Fukumoto Kai", "Tea Source Club" and so on. Zhang Rong himself is a member of the "Qingshan Society" and the "Tea Source Society".
Most of the Japanese antique dealers mainly invest in medium and long term. For them, the old antique dealer has a habit of buying something to cover for more than 5 years before selling, because when he first bought it, he still had an impression of this thing in the circle, and after 5 years, the impression was blurred, and the price was high, and it could even be doubled. Therefore, they usually throw things into the warehouse after buying things, and they don't even look at them. They usually use a form to record in detail the time of buying antiques, and when the time is almost up, they will sell them. In contrast, short-term operations can only earn the difference, the income is generally not high, unless it is a leak, but the probability of finding a leak is very low.
Song Jizhou kiln paper-cut plum blossom bowl
Japan Kansai Auction Autumn 2016 Auction
Northern Song Dynasty Ding kiln stroke flower eight large bowl Sotheby's Spring Auction 2014 in Hong Kong
Goro Sakamoto's goods
Southern Song Dynasty blue and white glaze carved flower dragon head pot New York Christie's Autumn Auction 2016
Linyu Mountain People Collection
| Japan is still the source of high-end lots |
The original auction method of the antique exchange is tenacious and relatively conservative, and the rules of the exchange have not changed in the slightest for decades, and the exclusivity is very strong. One of the important reasons why Sotheby's and Christie's did not succeed in the auction in Japan that year was this. However, this does not prevent a large number of high-end antiques in the Japanese antique circle from flowing to Christie's and Sotheby's. It can be said that Japan is still the source of high-end lots of international auction houses, although after more than ten years of return, many Chinese cultural relics have returned to China, but what we see now is only the tip of the iceberg, Japan still has a large number of porcelain masterpieces.
The Japanese are very obsessed with ancient Chinese art, and for thousands of years, Chinese art has been flowing into Japan. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese military plundered a large number of Chinese antiques, and before that, in the twenty years after the Xinhai Revolution, a large number of Japanese antique dealers searched for antiques throughout China and shipped them to Japan through the ports of Tianjin and Shanghai.
Taking the port of Tianjin as an example, the data shows that from 1909 to 1919, the proportion of antiques exported to Japan in all antique exports remained at 70% to 90%, and it can be said that during this period, Japan almost exclusively occupied Tianjin's antique exports, and was later overtaken by the United States. At that time, China's antique exports made two of Japan's major antique dealers, namely "Cocoon Mountain Dragon Spring Hall" and "Yamanaka Chamber of Commerce", in addition to hundreds of large and small Japanese antique dealers.
From 1909 to 1935, the valuation of Chinese antiques exported by Japan through the Tianjin Port Customs was as high as more than 1.4 million taels, and this figure was far lower than the true value of the actual exported antiques.
In Tomita's "Circulation and Appreciation of Chinese Art in Modern Japan", he once excerpted a passage from Hirota Matsubu's "The Story of tax collector Liu", which shows how customs and antique dealers used illegal means to complete the export of antiques at that time:
At that time, when buying ancient art from China and shipping them abroad, foreigners and Japanese people who came to purchase them also packed their goods and shipped them to Tianjin, where they were inspected by the customs.
The appraisal and evaluation of these items was a man surnamed Liu, who was originally an antique dealer and was later hired by Tianjin Customs. Because this tax was paid to the UK as collateral, the inspection was carried out in the presence of the British. At that time, the largest number of fine art works shipped abroad was the Yamanaka Chamber of Commerce, and there were many other large and small peers, and the tax rate was 35% of the price of the goods. However, the evaluation of 1510 is unbearable. So everyone bribed the appraiser Liu and asked him to estimate the price as half or one-third of the actual price. In addition, only two of the ten goods are opened, so if it happens to be a cheap and cheap goods at the original price, the valuation of this is used as a standard to levy taxes on other goods. Therefore, the number was written on the cargo box in advance, and then a bribe was sent to Liu to tell him the number of the box that was opened that day. The person who contacted Liu and sent him the bribe was the owner of a hotel or inn. It also costs a lot of fees...
In addition, the weight is less than four consecutive (1 consecutive = 3. 75kg) of goods can be transported by train. Among the things I buy in Beijing, things that can be repaired even if they are broken, such as Tang Sancai and pottery dolls, are often put into wooden cages and sent from Beijing...
In Japan, although the import tax rate is 100% of the price, the price is written by us, so it is not a problem...
The Beijing-Tianjin Railway was handed over as a british mortgage, and the railway transportation costs all went to the United Kingdom. For this reason, Chinese naturally lost their enthusiasm for labor and earned money by taking bribes and tipping.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Longquan kiln six-edged open light flower bird pattern plum bottle
Southern Song Dynasty Jizhou kiln tortoiseshell glaze paper-cut paste double phoenix pattern long-necked bottle
Christie's New York Fall 2016 auction
| Why japan is obsessed with Chinese high ancient porcelain |
Japan's porcelain collection is dominated by high ancient porcelain, and most of the Song and Yuan porcelains, especially Song porcelain. The Japanese are very much admiring of the culture of the Song Dynasty. Of course, Han and Tang culture also had a great influence in Japan, and Han green glaze is also a category that Japanese collectors attach great importance to. In the 1970s and 1980s, a small jar with a Chinese green glaze cost one or two million yen in Japan, while in the same period in China it was a maximum of a few tens of yuan. At that time, ancient ceramics were very popular in Japan, but they were not valued in China.
Although induced by the international platform at that time, some collectors also owned some Ming and Qing dynasty official kilns, but at best it was only the personal hobby of individual collectors, most Japanese collectors hated the overly gorgeous Ming and Qing porcelain, and even the Qing Dynasty official kilns were used as crafts by them, rather than the concept of antiques.
In Japan, traditional culture has been well inherited. The tea ceremony, flower ceremony, and incense ceremony are collectively known as yadao, and have been inherited and developed to this day. Many architectural forms and interior decorations are also traditional. Porcelain is also dominated by more simple and more literati high-ancient porcelain, so it is also despised ming and qing official kiln porcelain. In contrast to Japan's understanding of ancient Chinese porcelain, Zhang Rong believes that China's current porcelain market is still problematic, for example, the southern Song Dynasty official kilns have very few surviving, but they can not sell Ming and Qing dynasty official kilns.
Yuanqinghua is a scarce category in the world, so the stock of Yuanqinghua in Japan is also very small, and it is almost impossible to collect. Zhang Rong once collected a piece of yuanqinghua from a nursing home in Japan and sold it at an auction in Kansai for 50 million yen.
Japanese tea sets are mostly in the Ming Dynasty, at this time the Japanese tea ceremony has just emerged, and Chinese porcelain has been introduced to Japan from Yuhang Jinshan, forming the Japanese tea ceremony "Jinshan Stream". Most of the Tianmu bowls flowed into Japan during the Ming Dynasty. Tea sets introduced to Japan are thicker and slightly rougher than those introduced to China. Zhang Rong speculated that this may be considering transportation and practicality, if it is too thin, it is easy to break, and the Japanese believe that such a thick and simple tea set is very beautiful.
Southern Song Dynasty Longquan kiln phoenix ear plate bottle
Christie's New York Fall 2016
Southern Song Dynasty official kiln blue glaze eight square string pattern plate bottle
Sotheby's Hong Kong Spring Auction 2015
| The auction house chases deer in Japan |
In Japan, auction houses compete fiercely for fine porcelain. Christie's and Sotheby's both have fixed offices in Japan, and China's Poly, Guardian, Kuangshi and other auction houses have also been soliciting in Japan for many years.
Faced with a large number of collectors, which auction house will the Japanese choose to send their things to?
In general, older generation antiques chambers with fine porcelain prefer Christie's and Sotheby's because they may have maintained a strong relationship with Christie's and Sotheby's decades ago. Christie's and Sotheby's credibility are indeed very high, the investment is relatively large, from the early packaging, publicity to the completion of the entire auction, made a very big effort, they have already formed a habit and trust between them.
For example, Linyushan people will definitely choose Christie's. In September 2015, Christie's New York Asia Week launched the LinyuShanren special session. In 2015, at Sotheby's, the collector who sent the Southern Song Dynasty official kiln blue glaze eight square string pattern plate bottle was because he had a cerebral hemorrhage and felt that his descendants did not like antiques, so he chose to dispose of it. He sent a lot of Longquan kiln porcelain, as well as a Ruguan kiln. He chose Sotheby's for a simple reason, which was to look at the level of commitment.
Some young antique dealers who have risen in the past two or three decades, seeing the rise of Chinese auction houses, will also consider sending things to Beijing Poly and China Guardian. Because for them, Christie's and Sotheby's threshold is too high, their needs are limited, and the checks and screenings are very strict, things are almost not accepted, and they need to have 60 years of collection certificates. Guardian and Poly need a large amount of auction, and there is no particularly high threshold, high and low grades will be taken into account, and the most important thing is that there is no need to provide a certificate.
Japan's local auction houses, mainly mid-range antiques, are relatively cheap, which is also a big reason for attracting many collectors to Japan to pick up leaks, but in fact, Zhang Rong told us that not all lots are cheap. Taking Kansai Auction as an example, Zhang Rong said that in order to attract popularity, he will take out a part of his own collection every year to send for auction, and the price is very low to meet the needs of customers to pick up leaks and attract the attention of collectors.
More than half of the japanese auctioneers Chinese mainland collectors and antique dealers, as well as buyers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States. Many antique dealers come to Japan to find cheap and good supplies.
Yuanqinghua appliqué dragon beast face three-legged furnace
Southern Song Dynasty official kiln six square bagua drum nail pattern kiln
The problem is that the other side of the coin is that even if a Japanese auction house gets high-end antiques, it may not be able to get a first-class price. In Japan, the main difficulty in recruiting is pricing. Usually, after a piece of porcelain is transferred, the price that japanese people buy is often not cheap, and they like it, so the price will be set to be relatively high if they want to sell. Collecting top-quality products is not necessarily a good thing for Japanese auction houses, because the pricing will certainly be very high and may not be able to sell.
Zhang Rong once collected a bronze from 150 million yen, but did not put it on the auction after considering it repeatedly, because there was no sufficient customer source to consume this thing at that time, and once it was auctioned, it was very unfavorable to the seller, so the best way was to give up.
At present, although the modern method of auction is not as well resisted in Japan as before, it will take longer for Japanese auction houses to rise and compete with international auction houses.