In 2022, I was invited to open a column in Artron, a monthly "Say The Market", the first article of the new year, I would like to talk about some of my predictions and judgments on the trend of the porcelain auction market this year.
I have been deeply involved in the auction market for more than twenty years, the ebb and flow, experienced a lot of ups and downs, the past two years, because of the impact of the epidemic on the global economy and the industry ecology, we can all see that the porcelain market has some obvious new changes, for these changes and future trends, I summarized the macro and micro two parts and share with you, macro three points, talk about the trend, micro three points, talk about the specific plate, together is my 2022 porcelain auction market "three · three predictions", Listen to me, judges.
Qingqianlong Imperial Foreign Color Carmine Rolling Road Carved Porcelain Hollow "There is a phoenix to yi, hundred birds and phoenixes" figure double ant ear big turning bottle
Height 63cm
Transaction price: 265.65 million yuan
Beijing Poly 2021 Spring Auction
1, "Three concentrations" of resources
The first trend is the high concentration of porcelain supply, the market has experienced the past two decades of overseas repatriation, and the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, overseas mobilizable porcelain resources are almost exhausted, we can see that in the past two years, the new high-quality Chinese porcelain resources at all levels of the Western market are very small, and some international auction companies have also begun to cut off the relevant Chinese utensils department, I roughly counted, found that in the past two years, Hong Kong, London, New York these three traditional Chinese porcelain auction towns, The total number of porcelains auctioned at the million-dollar price point is not even more than that of Beijing alone, and what is more impressive is the top fifty porcelain in the world last year, of which thirty-four pieces were created by auction houses in Beijing, the remaining fourteen pieces were from Hong Kong, two from Shanghai, and none from London or New York. In 2022, I expect this trend to remain or even intensify, and the mainland market has the potential to become the only highly active Chinese porcelain auction market in the world.
Ming Yongle glaze red sea water cone arch Canglong godson figure big plum bottle
Height 41.3cm
Transaction price: 74.75 million yuan
China Guardian 2021 Autumn Auction
The second trend is the "de-Westernization" of buyer seller resources, with the past decade, the two major Western porcelain collection families "Mei Yin Tang" and "Ten Faces Lingbi Mountain Residence" will be shipped out one after another, in the future for a long time, we may not find a heavyweight porcelain buyer or seller from the Western world, in fact, looking back at the time of the change of the century, as the most active or "biggest" antique dealer representative in the West - the British Eskenach, his largest service customers in porcelain are these two families In the past few decades, the porcelain bought by Westerners in the international auction market has flowed into these two families, and the rest has basically been divided up by the Chinese rich people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, after 2010, it is difficult to find Western buyers who are willing to spend thousands of dollars on Chinese porcelain in the international auction market, and there are only one or two accidental phenomena, such as the Middle East royal family buying a Yongle plate, or Japanese buyers participating in the Song porcelain auction, but basically the overall flow of high-quality resources does not play any role. The buyers and sellers of the top 50 porcelains traded in the last year were mostly Chinese.
Qingqianlong Imperial carmine ground passion lotus flower set furnace jun glaze Taiping has an elephant turning vase
Height: 40.2cm
Transaction price: 82.225 million yuan
Beijing Poly 2021 Autumn Auction
The third trend is the intensification of the geographical concentration of porcelain auction companies, in the past two years, we have seen that Beijing has in fact replaced Hong Kong as the global Chinese antiques trading center, the sum of the number of porcelain auctioned on the major auction houses in Beijing, with an overwhelming advantage to dominate the global Chinese antique auction market, and all the auction houses with porcelain as their main business have also chosen to take root in Beijing, such as the two giant platforms Beijing Poly and China Guardian as the first, There are also porcelain antiques as the main or heavy business of the auction company such as Zhongmao, Hanhai, Zhonghan, Dayi (Yiqu), Chengxuan, Jun Yimingshi, etc., and the originally rooted in the south of the auction company, have also moved the porcelain plate to Beijing to auction, such as Xiamen's Bolide, Bomei, Guangdong Huayi, etc., looking at the global market, from the number of auction houses and the number of porcelain specials, no city can compete with Beijing. In addition to Beijing, the mainland's active porcelain auction market, only Fujian, Hangzhou, Guangdong and a few other regions, overseas is still Hong Kong, New York, London, Tokyo four places, while other such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and other places, is shrinking, some of the online active overseas auction houses, in fact, many behind are registered by Chinese, Chinese operated, but with the advantages of the network, change the geographical operation.
2, Three high-performing stocks in the porcelain sector
The first high-performing stock, I still choose the Qing Dynasty official kiln, last year's high-priced transaction of the top fifty porcelain, Ming and Qing porcelain accounted for ninety percent, this year this proportion is probably still not going to have a big change, high-quality old kiln porcelain resources available for open market trading is too scarce, and Ming and Qing porcelain has quality and quantity, more suitable for circulation, the past two years, the late Qing official kiln market is hot, to 2022, the late Qing official kiln will continue to "fire" down? I think that fine products will rise slightly, and the general product should not be blindly optimistic, from the auction market in the second half of last year, the general product in the late Qing official kiln has no longer risen sharply, after all, whether from the status of ceramic history or from the porcelain itself in terms of craftsmanship and artistic taste, the late Qing official kiln lags behind the Qing dynasty three generations of official kilns in all directions has long been an indisputable fact. Recently, with the rise of the late Qing Dynasty porcelain market, related academic and exhibition activities continue to emerge, which will inevitably have a role in the sale of fine products, such as Tongzhi Da Wedding Porcelain and Daya Zhai Royal Porcelain, etc., but the role of general Dayun porcelain may be limited, after all, when the price of a Guangxu appreciation bottle approaches the Daoguang appreciation bottle, people will turn to choose the Daoguang appreciation bottle; and when the price of the Daoguang appreciation bottle is close to the Qianlong appreciation bottle, people will choose the Qianlong appreciation bottle. And the price of the late Qing dynasty official kiln is higher, will it take the opportunity to push the price of the third generation of official kilns of the Qing Dynasty to a new height? I don't think so in the short term, at least not, like a big wave crashing on a reef and bouncing back. The high technical threshold identified by the three generations of official kilns in the Qing Dynasty and the high cost threshold left by the predecessors will be a natural barrier, and the people who cross this barrier will prove that you have stepped into the ranks of mature collectors, and whether you can still maintain your previous vision and taste and then look at the collections at the time of the new entry, there may be different choices.
Qingqianlong Blue and white "Spring Ploughing Chart" Fushou Ruyi Big Hugging Moon Bottle
Height 59cm
Transaction price: 69 million yuan
Beijing Huayi International 2021 Spring Auction
I believe that the "raw goods" in the official kilns of the third generation of the Qing Dynasty, that is, the fine products that have not been exposed too much by collectors for many years, will still achieve very dazzling results in the market in 2022. I expect that in 2022, among the top fifty porcelains sold at auction prices, the Qing Dynasty's third-generation official kilns may still occupy "half of the country", if you do not believe it, and we will see it in the last column summary at the end of the year.
The second outstanding stock, I choose the late Ming and early Qing dynasty fine folk kiln porcelain, the past twenty years, I personally experienced the market, well aware that this is the most stable performance of a high-performing stock, in the history of Ming and Qing ceramics there is a period more eye-catching, this period is the late Ming and early Qing, also known as the "transition period", its range is the late Ming Wanli to the early Qing Kangxi. The blue and white produced during this period was of very high quality, which can be said to be a school of its own, and influenced the manufacture of blue and white porcelain in later generations. They are not only well-made tire glaze, blue and white color beautiful, but also in the decorative techniques are very different from the previous generation, with an elegant and popular artistic style. The secularization of decorative themes and the literati of artistic techniques have become the distinctive features of porcelain decoration in this period, which is deeply loved by the porcelain collection group, the masses have the most "fans" and the largest "flow", so I expect that in 2022, the fine porcelain of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties will still have good transaction performance, especially in some smaller auctions, such porcelain will often become "star lots" and will achieve better results. These star lots, I estimate, will be Ming Chongzhen or Qing Kangxi's blue and white character story pen holder, large size depicting the story of landscape characters of various kinds of ornaments, and some small but exquisite literary utensils, which will support the price ceiling of this plate. Some low-priced general products will repeatedly appear in various online auctions and live broadcast rooms that have become popular in the past two years, becoming the hot favorite of the public collection.
The third high-performing stock, I selected the list of color glazed porcelain, which not only refers to the varieties that overlap with the Qingguan kiln, but also contains many fine monochrome glazes of the folk kilns. I myself am also a collector of Ming list color glazed porcelain, these years have also been in the market to find their favorite monochrome glazed porcelain, I found that in the past two or three years, in the major auction companies, the number of bright list color glazed porcelain auctions has greatly increased, and the transaction rate is extremely high, which reflects the buyer's demand for such collections from one side. For connoisseurs, another feature of the kiln monochrome glazed porcelain is that its profit margin is actually relatively large, due to the slight difference in the glaze of the physical glaze, it will make the two pieces of porcelain that look similar, the final transaction price difference is very different, which also makes those who rely on various online auction price databases to "compare prices" The practice has become meaningless, leaving a certain space for the connoisseur's operation.
For collectors, monochrome glazed porcelain is a ruler to measure his collection level and aesthetic level, China's porcelain auction market has begun to mature, both cultivated a group of senior "old players", but also gave birth to a lot of young "new forces", these two groups, I found that monochrome glazed porcelain have a wide range of love, in the common pursuit of different collection forces, I expect that the list of color glazed porcelain in 2022 will still have a very good market performance.
In 2022, I see a lot of new collectors paying attention to this market, some of them have just entered, the starting point is not high, but they have injected a lot of fresh vitality into this market, in what way will the new buyer group affect the porcelain auction market in 2022? I think the main thing is to look at the performance of a very small number of "head buyers", the porcelain auction market has developed to today, in fact, it has long been two-level differentiation, the "oligarch" level buyers who control large financial capital, although the number is very small, but their shots will eventually determine the ranking of the top fifty porcelain transactions.
Their collection choice will play an immeasurable decisive role in market confidence and plate hotspots, the vast collection group, of course, including me, although most of them are "eating melon masses", can not afford to buy those "sky-high" porcelain with a transaction price of hundreds of millions, but the attention and enthusiasm of the masses is an important cornerstone for shaping the reputation and popularity of sky-high porcelain. The porcelain auction market is like a pyramid, each of us involved is a brick, how the market is going this year, and see how we pile up this tower.
Liu Yue, a famous porcelain collector and writer, weibo name "Bone Dong Time". From 2002 to 2016, he was admitted to the Department of Archaeology of Peking University, and successively obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in archaeology, and from 2002 to 2016, he worked at China Guardian International Auction Co., Ltd., successively serving as the general manager of the porcelain handicraft department and the general manager of the ceramics department, planning and organizing hundreds of important auctions. He has published the best-selling novel collection "Bone Dong Time" and the novel "Dragon Tank", the ceramic monograph "The Eye of Collection", and founded the Bone Dong Time Micro Lecture Hall to teach the public the popularization of art collection.