On October 28th Roseberys were pleased to present a sale of Antiquities, Islamic and Indian Arts, which reached the highest total to date for the department. We were thrilled at the buoyancy of the market, encouraged by the number of private collections and high quality works on offer. We were also thrilled to have won the 2022 Asian Art in London Outstanding Work of Art in our category for Lot 84.
Lot 85: A hexagonal Cintimani tile, Ottoman Syria, 16th century
Our solo standout lot was Lot 85. This wonderful 16th-century Ottoman hexagonal tile smashed its pre-sale estimate to achieve £88,000 hammer. Featuring a wonderful and highly desirable Cintamani design in striking turquoise and black, the large size and desirability of Iznik pottery and good provenance lead this tile to achieve an outstanding result.
Lot 84: A very rare early illustration to a mid-13th century obscene poem
It was Lot 84 was our second highest lot achieving over £20,000 including premium and winning the 2022 Asian Art in London Outstanding Works of Islamic and Indian Art in the auction house category. This important 16th-century illustration of an erotic poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Sa’adi is a rare type of visual representation of the erotic poetry tradition in Iran, of which we have little surviving documented evidence. Although Sa’adi wrote his erotic works in the 13th century and they form part of their larger collection works or kulliyat, most manuscripts have the erotic material removed. There is only one other known surviving example of an illustration of this work, held in the British Library.
Lot 228: Juz 19 of a Chinese Qur'an, China, dated 953AH/1546AD
Lot 228 formed part of what would have been a resplendent 30-volume Qur’an. In addition to its wonderful Sini script and lavish gold and polychrome decorated opening, the juz contains a colophon statement in red script on the last folio which says it was copied by Shams al-Din ibn Musa al-Sini in the month of Safar of the year 953 AH (1546 AD) in the city of Yunnan. Such colophons are rare and very important in placing the calligraphers and dating of Chinese Qur’ans. Lot 228 achieved £20,800 including premium.
Lot 334: Property from the Private Collection of J.P. Losty (1945-2021)
The reference library of the former curator of Indian Visual Materials at the British Library J.P. Losty (1945-2021) was just one of a number of works which we sold from his private collection. Comprising over 300 books and catalogues in Indian art, Lot 334 tripled its pre-sale auction estimate at £16,900 including premium. Losty was much admired by students and fellow academics alike. His publications include a book on Delhi’s topography, Delhi 360: Mazhar Ali Khan’s View From Lahore Gate, and on the visual arts: Indian Book Painting; Paintings from the Royal Courts of India; The Art of the Book in India; Krishna: A Hindu Vision of God; The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India’s Great Epic; Picturesque Views of India: Sita Ram; and Calcutta: City of Palaces, published in 1990 on this city’s tercentenary. He also co-authored Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, and was working on English painter William Daniell’s diaries for almost 25 years.
We were delighted to sell the Ozengell Anglo-Saxon grave finds in our Antiquities, Islamic and Indian Arts auction. The objects making up Lot 28 were excavated in the 1970s and were housed at the Cottom-Powell Museum for over 20 years and were sold to the Kent Archaeological Society prior to the auction. The finds return to Kent were a happy result for both vendor and buyer and their conservation and eventual display is much anticipated. The over-1,700 objects which made up the lot included a wonderful gem-set parcel gilt brooch, a number of fittings and buckles, intact glass and pottery vessels, spears, daggers, and shield bosses.
Lot 434 - a stunning pictorial Sikh Amlikar Rumal (embroidered shawl) - sold for £15,600 including premium. The 20th-century shawl embroidered in wool and silk depicts scenes from the life of Alexander, replicating the famous shawl of Maharaja Gulab Singh (r.1846-57) from Jammu and Kashmir, which is dated 1852 and is now in the Government Museum and Art Gallery of Chandigarh. These embroidered shawls were introduced into the Kashmir shawl-manufacturing process in the late 1820s, as a quicker means of producing a shawl and of avoiding the high taxes imposed on woven goods. Embroidered designs at first imitated woven ones but a new genre arose in about 1830 that incorporated new motifs of human figures and animals, often taken from Persian art and literature. These designs also appeared on Kashmir painted papier- mache furniture.
Lot 464: A Tanjore painting of the Gajendra Moksha, South India, late 19th-early 20th century
A final highlight from our October 28th auction was Lot 464 - a fabulous South Indian painting depicting the painting of the Gajendra Moksha. The artwork dated to the late 19th century was fiercely fought over, sending the pre-sale estimate of £300 - £400 soaring to a final total of £11,700 including premium.
This auction took place on Friday 28 October, at 10.00 am
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