Dealers and auction houses will test demand for Asian antiques and art this week in London with works priced up to 5 million pounds ($8.1 million).
Collectors are being offered everything from a bronze Buddha to jade carvings. Nearly 50 commercial galleries and 17 museums are showing artworks ranging from Islamic to Japanese — spanning 5,000 years — in the 11th annual Asian Art in London, running through Nov. 12. The week also features auctions of  Asian material by Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and Bonhams.
The event comes at a time when losses on the world’s stock markets and contracting economic growth have begun to reduce sales of Asian art. On Sept. 16 at Sotheby’s, New York, a 312-lot auction of Chinese ceramics and works of art found buyers for 56 percent of the material. On Oct. 7, a Christie’s sale of Islamic and Indian art in London had a success rate of 47 percent.
“There’s an air of caution around,” said the Mayfair-based dealer Roger Keverne, a specialist in Chinese art, who this week is offering an 18th-century green jade brushpot priced at 250,000 pounds. “Anything of top quality continues to sell, but there’s definitely been a softening at the lower end.”
During the last five years, competition between Western and Asian collectors pushed up prices for Chinese white jade artifacts and colored 18th-century and 19th-century porcelain by up to 40 percent, said Keverne. (Bloomberg)