The combs, some 52 lots including a few multiples, date from up to 1500BC in the Christian era. We’re used to combs as throwaway utilitarian objects produced for a few cents each. But in earlier times they were painstakingly formed, often carved tooth-by-tooth from solid wood. And in China, for the emperor and his entourage, and for influential mandarins, great care and expense was lavished on this intimate item for personal use – though many were probably sumptuous gifts for display rather than for actual use.
The combs offered here include examples made from prized materials including gold, silver, jade, ivory and tortoiseshell, as well as the more mundane bronze, bone or wood, some richly decorated or gem studded. Presale estimates range from $1000 up to more than $20,000. This remarkable assemblage – perhaps unique outside a museum - was put together by a Melbourne owner who collected all over the world.
Mossgreen director Paul Sumner has never seen a collection quite like it, saying “you’d have to go a long way in the world to find another”. Doubtless this presented problems cataloguing and estimating the collection, since few such items appear to have turned up at auction.
Sumner expects around 90 per cent of the Chinese offerings in the auction, ranging from Neolithic pots to Qing porcelains, jades, bronzes, furniture, textiles and curios, will sell to mainland Chinese buyers – in line with recent trends at his sales.
Highlights of the comb collection include:
*Lot 284, a comb with jade teeth set in a pierced gilt bronze handle fashioned as a dragon and tiger cavorting amid foliage. It is 12cm wide and catalogued as Western Han dynasty (206BC to 8AD), estimate $8000 to $12,000.
*Lot 288, a large ivory comb, enhanced by polychrome pigment, the handle carved with two opposing birds’ heads separated by a stylised snake. Described as late Western Zhou (1000BC to 771BC), it has a provenance to a New York dealer, estimate $10,000 to $15,000.
* Lot 291, among several specimens incorporating precious metals, is formed from gold filigree and ivory, set with malachite and coral, 9cm wide and ascribed to the Tang dynasty (618 to 907AD), estimate $20,000 to $25,000.
* Lot 322 is a Song/Ming dynasty (12th to 16th century) comb with a curved gold back supporting intricate large and small celadon jade dragons confronting a pearl, estimate $12,000 to $15,000.
* Lot 330 has teeth of mottled brown jade and a bronze handle formed as a rider and two hounds, set with malachite. It is ascribed to the Dian culture of Yunnan, Western Han dynasty (206BC to 8AD), estimate $10,000 to $15,000.
Elsewhere among the Chinese offerings is Lot 433, a Chinese fencai enamel vase 33cm high painted with court ladies, Daoguang (1820 to 1850) mark, estimate $15,000 to $18,000, from a Sydney private collection; and Lot 636, an unusual Tang brown/black glazed pottery horse 33cm high, with green saddle blanket and unglazed saddle, from a Melbourne collection, estimate $12,000 to $18,000.
Works from the collection of the German-born American connoisseur Walter Hochstadter, who retired to Adelaide, include Lot 215, an impressive Sui/early Tang amphora 42cm high with winged dragon handles, estimate $5000 to $8000. Part of Hochstadter’s collection was consigned to Christie’s in New York, where his rare Yongle period (circa 1400) Ming blue and white basin sold for $US2.32m in March 2009.
The western art on offer is rather less impressive, probably because works that would have found their way into this sale have been diverted via Mossgreen’s recent and very successful series of single-owner sales. Highlights include a large watercolour by English artist William Russell Flint, “Apollo finds Aphrodite...” an almost Norman Lindsay-style confection of cavorting ladies from a Sydney collection, estimate $90,000 to $120,000; an extraordinary large and rare white rhino horn 125cm long bought in Nairobi in 1858, estimate $60,000 to $80,000; and an exhibition quality ivory inlaid purpleheart and gilt bronze side cabinet attributed to Holland & Sons, London, $18,000 to $25,000.