The Met Is Selling Off 300 Works of Chinese Art From a Single Collection in a Sale That Could Fetch Nearly $4 Million

Next month, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art will partner with Sotheby’s to deaccession more than
300 pieces of Chinese art from the museum’s collection.

The artworks, ranging from rare
jade artifacts to ancient hand-carved sculptures, were part of a
major 1,275-object gift to the museum by the late philanthropists
Florence and Herbert Irving. All proceeds from the sale will go
back to the Irving Acquisition Fund, allowing the Met to further
diversify its collection of Asian art. 

Should it go well, the
institution will have a sizeable chunk of change to work with:
Sotheby’s estimates the full collection to be worth between $2.6
and $3.8 million. (The collection does not carry a
guarantee.)

“Florence and Herbert Irving
were visionary and passionate collectors whose devotion and
generosity have dramatically transformed the museum’s holdings,”
Maxwell K. Hearn, the Met’s chairman of Asian Art said in a
statement. “We are deeply grateful that their gifts will enable us
to continue to enhance the Met’s collection.”

Most of the works will be
included in Sotheby’s Asian Art sale on Saturday, September 14. But
roughly 120 items will hit
the block in another auction on on Tuesday, September 10, dedicated
only to the Irvings’ collection. Highlighting that auction is a
hand-carved jade brushpot from the Qing Dynasty of the Qianlong
period (1735–1795), which depicts “immortals” surrounded by
symbolic elements. It is estimated to go for upwards
$700,000.

Other Qing Dynasty objects of
note include a celadon and russet jade “Quail and Millet” boulder
sculpture (estimated to sell for $150,000–250,000), a spinach-green
jade “dragon” basin ($100,000–150,000), and a jadeite landscape
table screen ($80,000–120,000).

“Our sales are representative of
the Irvings’ exceptional taste in Chinese art, which features a
strong emphasis on organic materials and works hewn from nature, as
well as extraordinary Chinese jades produced during the reign of
the Qianlong emperor,” Angela McAteer, head of Sotheby’s Chinese
art department in New York, said in a statement.

Herbert Irving was a co-founder
of the Sysco Corporation, one of the largest—and most
profitable—food-distribution companies in the world. He died in
2016 at the age of 98. Florence died at the same age in July
2018.

The couple, who owned a 5th
Avenue apartment overlooking the Met, had a long and fruitful
relationship with the museum. In 1991, the duo lent work to a standalone
exhibition titled “East Asian Lacquer from the Collection of
Florence and Herbert Irving.”

The museum named a series of
galleries after the couple in 1994 (the Florence and Herbert Irving
Galleries for South and Southeast Asian Art) and added a few more
three years later (the Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for
Chinese Decorative Arts). In 2004, the Met dedicated its entire
Asian art wing to the Irvings. 

The Irvings donated more than
1,300 works of Asian art to the Met in 2015, a collection that
spanned five millennia, multiple countries, and virtually every
major artistic medium. Recognizing that the gift might create
redundancies in the museum’s existing collection, the couple
stipulated that the museum
could sell the works as long as proceeds supported future
acquisitions. 

The post The Met Is Selling Off 300 Works of Chinese Art
From a Single Collection in a Sale That Could Fetch Nearly $4
Million appeared first on artnet News.