KOLLER VIEW 4/22

17 3 2 Preview of the Asian Art auction on 29 November 2022 The sound of bells at the Imperial court An important bianzhong bell (ill. 4) in our November auction bears the imperial Qianlong mark and is dated 1745 on a cartouche. A second cartouche records the pitch –bei wu yi – of the bell, which was cast from more than 20 kilograms of bronze and fire-gilded. It comes from a set of 16 ritual bells with which twelve tone steps and four additional tones from the lower octave could be played. The bells in this set, which were used in Confucian ritual music at the imperial court, are all of the same size, the pitch being varied by the graduated thickness of the casting. Xu Beihong (1895–1953), one of the most famous Chinese painters of the 20th century, painted the hanging scroll showing a horse from behind (ill. 6). Xu was one of the first to break away from traditional Chinese iconography, paving the way for Western influences. He studied art in Europe from 1919 to 1927, and the impressions he gathered there had a lasting influence on his style. He combined Chinese brush and ink techniques with Western perspectives and compositional methods. The virtuoso depiction of horses became his favourite subject and is re- garded as his trademark. Two artistically crafted jade brush pots come from a col lection in western Switzerland, the third genera- tion to possess them (ill. 2). The motifs carved over the entire surface show rocky landscapes with pine fore sts and hidden pavilions. A sage walks through the landscape accompanied by a servant and two chi ldren. The bats symbolise the wish for happiness; pin e trees and the peaches held by the children refer to longevity. A Chinese bronze Buddha (ill. 1) of impressive size is the cornerstone of an extensive Asian art col- lection formed in Geneva in the late 1960s that includes objects from China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia. The first part of the collection will be auctioned on 29 November. Shining with her elegant appearance Tara, the Tibetan compassionate saviour (ill. 3), comes from an illustrious source: the Zurich Tibetan Art specialist Berti Aschmann, whose collec- tion has been on display at the Museum Riet- berg since 1995. 5 6 4 © 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich