DALLAS, TX.- As collectors and scholars gather for Asia Week New York (March 19–27), Heritage Auctions will present its March 25 Asian Art Signature® Auction, a carefully curated sale spanning centuries of artistic achievement across China and Japan. In conjunction with the week’s events, highlights from the auction will be on view at Heritage’s New York galleries March 19–21 and March 23–24, offering visitors an opportunity to experience key works firsthand during one of the art world’s most anticipated annual celebrations of Asian art.

This season’s auction is distinguished by a refined balance of Imperial Chinese works, Japanese paintings and prints, jades, export porcelains and Himalayan material, led in part by a compelling group of Chinese and Japanese paintings from the Estate of American-born Nihonga artist Robert Crowder.

“This auction reflects the depth and diversity that serious collectors look for during Asia Week,” says Charlene Wang, Heritage’s Consignment Director of Asian Art. “From imperial portraits and marked Qing porcelains to rare Japanese narrative handscrolls and modern print masters, the auction offers works that speak to scholarship and connoisseurship.”

The Estate of Robert Crowder: A Life Between East and West

A defining component of the auction is a selection of Chinese and Japanese paintings from the Estate of Robert Crowder (1921–2010), who was also known by his Japanese artist name Shoji Kuroda. Crowder was a pioneering American-born practitioner of Nihonga, the traditional Japanese painting style that emerged during the Meiji period.

In 1934, Crowder traveled to Pyongyang to teach at a missionary school, soon thereafter visiting Japan — a trip that profoundly shaped his artistic trajectory. From 1936 to 1943 he studied Nihonga under master Mochizuki Shunko, immersing himself in traditional techniques and materials. Upon returning to the United States, he settled in Beverly Hills, where he introduced elements of Japanese aesthetics into both his art and his home.

By the 1960s and ’70s, Crowder had achieved notable success painting folding screens and murals for Hollywood’s elite, employing traditional materials such as mica, gold leaf and boneless brush techniques. His landmark series Endangered Birds of Japan exemplifies his reverence for rare avian species rendered in luminous detail. He further chronicled his devotion to Japan in two memoirs, My Lost Japan (1996) and The Blue Furoshiki (2005). Even after his passing in 2010, his artistic and cultural legacy continues to resonate.

Among the Crowder estate highlights in the March 25 auction is an important and complete set of three 18th-century Japanese handscrolls depicting The Tale of Bunsho, the Saltmaker (Bunsho Sōshi), ink and color on paper. The narrative handscroll format, central to Japanese literary and visual culture, underscores the depth of Crowder’s collecting eye and his appreciation for classical storytelling traditions.

“Crowder’s collection reveals a deeply informed and personal engagement with Japanese art,” Wang says. “The Bunsho Sōshi handscrolls, in particular, embody the narrative elegance and refined technique that define Edo-period painting.”

Imperial Presence: Portraits of Rank and Authority

The sale is also headed by two important 18th-century imperial portraits: a First-Rank Court Official and his wife, each rendered in ink and color on silk against a luminous golden ground.

The portrait of the official depicts him seated upon a tiger-skin-draped armchair, dressed in a dark blue silk court robe adorned with a crane mandarin square (buzi), signifying his elite rank. He wears a coral and jadeite court necklace, and sits upon a patterned woven carpet — iconographic details consistent with comparable examples in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

Its companion portrait portrays the wife of a court official, likewise seated upon a tiger-skin-covered chair. She wears a dark blue and ochre silk robe embroidered with five-clawed dragons and three court necklaces, symbols of imperial association and status. Similar portraits reside in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Portrait Gallery.

“These portraits are exceptional not only for their condition and scale, but for the clarity with which they articulate Qing court hierarchy and symbolism,” Wang says. “Works of this caliber, with parallels in major museum collections, are increasingly sought after.”

Chinese Imperial Porcelain: Marks of Distinction

A strong selection of Chinese imperial porcelains further enhances the auction’s scholarly gravitas.

Leading the group is a Chinese Famille Rose Ruby-Ground Sgraffito ‘Medallion’ Bowl bearing a six-character Daoguang mark and of the period. The bowl features four finely painted landscape medallions — three in grisaille and one in famille rose enamel — reserved against a deep ruby-pink ground enriched with scrolling foliage. The interior centers a stylized ruyi-form flower head, while the base carries an underglaze-blue Daoguang mark.

Other notable offerings include a Pair of Pale Celadon-Glazed Cong-Form Vases, late Qing dynasty, molded in high relief with trigrams and bearing underglaze-blue six-character honorary Qianlong marks; an Iron-Red and Gilt ‘Dragons’ Charger with a six-character Guangxu mark; a Transitional-period Blue and White Bottle Vase from the early 17th century; and two Qing dynasty Blue and White Octagonal ‘Bird and Flower’ Covered Boxes, animated with pheasants, flowering peony and fruiting peach.

Jades, Prints and Cross-Cultural Exchange

From the Collection of Eric Bernard comes a refined selection of Chinese jade carvings, including reticulated jade plaques and jade and agate snuff bottles from the Qing dynasty and later — intimate objects prized for their tactile beauty and virtuoso carving.

Japanese printmaking is strongly represented, with works by Katsushika Hokusai and Yoshitoshi, as well as more than 20 prints by the highly sought-after shin-hanga master Kawase Hasui, whose atmospheric landscapes remain a cornerstone of the market.

The sale also includes an important and rare Gandharan terracotta work in the Buddhist and Himalayan art category, reflecting the syncretic artistic currents of ancient Central Asia, and a high-quality collection of Chinese export porcelain from a private Pennsylvania collector, underscoring the global exchange that shaped decorative arts production in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The auction will take place in Heritage’s Dallas headquarters on March 25.

“Asia Week creates an unparalleled moment of focus for the field,” Wang says. “We are pleased to share these highlights in New York and to offer collectors a sale that reflects both tradition and discovery.”