NEW YORK.-On September 21 & 22, 2005, Sotheby's will hold its sales of Fine Chinese Ceramics, Works of Art and Paintings and the Arts of the Buddha as a part of the twice-yearly celebration of Asia Week in New York. The sales are expected to bring in excess of $12 millionand $5 million, respectively.

Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art - Following the tremendous spring Asia Week in March 2005, in which Sotheby's sold 23 lots over $100,000 and achieved the three highest auction prices for Asian art that week, including a previously undiscovered 14th Century copper-red bottle which brought $2 million, the September sales of Chinese and Asian art will feature a number of treasures, including a monumental pair of late Ming dynasty lacquer cabinets with reignmarks of the Wanli emperor (1573-1619). Acquired in Beijing in 1918 by a scion of the Goodrich Tyre fortune of Akron, Ohio, the cabinets were purchased upon their removal from a temple within the Imperial palace grounds. At almost 11 feet high, these oversized cabinets with their matching hat-chests could only have graced the cavernous halls of Imperial palaces. The quality and consistency of the lacquer is astounding, and after 400 years they remain in superb condition, exhibiting a very even craquelure. Their long vertical exteriors are treated as hanging scroll landscapes, with 'Shangri-La' scenes of faraway pavilions and misty mountains amid rivers drawing the viewer's eye up their massive doors and sides. The cabinets are estimated to bring $1/1.5 million.

Highlighting the sale are three Ming blue-and-white porcelain vases, each a consummate masterpiece of its type and made within 100 years of each other. These works provide insight into the changing political and artistic developments during a key period of Chinese history, the 15th century. One of these fabled vases, a 'prunus blossom vase' or meiping, was used as a lamp by philanthropist Laurance S. Rockefeller in his upstate New York residence, Kent House, up until last year. At 14 inches, it is one of the larger sizes of this form and its refinement in construction and decoration are breathtaking. Painted with a central field set with six detached sprays of luscious fruit, it reveals all the key characteristics of Ming porcelain. The design is executed from nature with almost documentary precision so that each different fruit is identifiable – peach, pomegranate, crab-apple, loquat, lychee and longan. The creamy white porcelain is treated like an unfolding handscroll, moving clearly away from the over-crowded banded designs of the 14th Century which occupied every inch of ceramic space. Instead, the vases from the Yongle period display their decoration in a restrained and lyrical manner, with the boldness of the cobalt-blue reaching a purity that would be unsurpassed for hundreds of years. While several meiping are in major institutional collections, a smaller meiping was recently sold by Sotheby's Hong Kong in May 2005 for $1.18 million. This vase is expected to bring $300/400,000.

A wider blue and white jar, in guan form, painted with a ferocious five-clawed dragon striding among clouds, was executed around the 1440s. Made just at the beginning of this tumultuous period, termed 'the Interregnum', the dragon guan jar is actually a political statement, declaring the authority of the Son of Heaven. Seen as a benevolent yet powerful dragon, the strong claws and writhing scaly body pull clouds and elemental forces to bring rain, fecundity and prosperity to the people of China. It is estimated to sell for $100/150,000.

The third major discovery is a circa 1460s meiping from a famous collection formed in the 1930s by Shanghai collector J.M. Hu. It is one of the finest pieces executed in the so-called 'windswept' style. A horseman is flanked by sword-bearer and servant with baskets of food and wine, while the mood is conveyed by breezes rustling the leaves of arching willows and pines. This is possibly a depiction of the historical episode, 'Xiao He pursuing Han Xin by Moonlight,' whose theme of honor and duty to the empire found resonance as the Ming dynastic line regained the Mandate of Heaven upon the Zhengtong's release (est. $150/200,000).

Three other unique masterpieces reveal the development of the Imperial concept during the succeeding Qing dynasty. The first is an unparalleled rarity, a grand-scale court painting of a Prince of the Royal Blood, Prince Guo (1733-1765) (pictured right), sixth son of the emperor Yongzheng and half-brother of the emperor Qianlong. Commemorative court paintings with sitters depicted in rigid symmetry and frontality were strictly propagandist depictions of the authority of the state, but this unruly character is hinted at in the portrait. It is recorded that at age seven, he was caught watching fireworks instead of attending class, and having run from the presence of the emperor, an even worse affront, his chief eunuch was given sixty lashes This attempt at individualization and expression was revolutionary, and an innovation only introduced by Western Jesuit painters to the Qing court in the early 18th Century. In the discovery of the original ink under-drawing beneath the colors on silk, evident is the sure and expressive hand of the famed artist Giuseppe Castiglione and his studio, who was the favorite of the Court. Three other depictions of Prince Guo are known, including two in the Arthur M Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, but no other grand-scale court painting of this quality has appeared at auction in recent years (est. $300/500,000). In addition, there will be a selection of Modern Chinese paintings from the collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth featuring a Lin Fengmian, Mountain Landscape, 1970s (est. $150/200,000), an extraordinary rare Pan Tianshou Calligraphy from 1961 (est. $50/70,000), an early Qi Baishi landscape from 1922 (est. $150/200,000) and several lovely works by Zhang Daqian.