Bonhams Asian Art Auction Realizes £1,045,606 with 64.6% Sell-Through

The Bonhams Asian Art auction, which concluded on 3 November 2026, achieved a total realized value of £1,045,606^[1]. Of the 460 lots offered during the session, 297 lots found buyers, resulting in a sell-through rate of 64.6%^[1]. The official results published by Bonhams confirm these performance metrics for the sale, which brought together classical Chinese works of art, Japanese woodblock prints, and modern compositions.

The auction featured a diverse selection of Chinese jade carvings, ceramics, and works of art, drawn in part from notable private collections. Among the prominent offerings was a celadon and russet jade waterpot and cover from the Qing Dynasty, which sold for £58,100^[2] against its estimate of £1,000^[10][2] to £1,500^[10][4][2]. This piece, modeled as a large recumbent toad with a lizard, scorpion, and snake clambering over its back, came from the Surrey collection of Lt. Colonel Athol Rowe and Mrs Jill Rowe, having been acquired prior to December of their active collecting period and preserved by descent.

Another notable lot was a yellow-ground famille verte opium pipe from the nineteenth century, which realized £32,500^[3] against an estimate of £2,000^[9][7][4][3] to £3,000^[9][7][3]. The piece features an enameled and gilt design of a coiled dragon pursuing a flaming pearl amidst cloud scrolls. Additionally, a group of five jade carvings from the twentieth century, offered as part of a distinguished private collection, sold for £23,400^[4] against an estimate of £1,500 to £2,000. This group included a reticulated dragon plaque, a pale green pig head, and a black and dark brown carved jade ball.

While classical carvings and jade objects drove significant interest, the market for Asian art continues to encompass a wide range of formats. Christie's specialist Aisi Wang has noted that online editions can represent an accessible entry point for acquiring works by highly regarded Asian artists, highlighting the breadth of modern collecting patterns in this category. This breadth was visible in the print and painting offerings of the sale. For example, a print by Utagawa Hiroshige from the famous sights of the fifty-three stations, also known as the Vertical Tokaido, sold for £22,100^[6] against its estimate of £10,000^[8][6] to £15,000^[8][6]. A work by Katsushika Hokusai from the Edo period sold for £20,800^[9][7] against its estimate of £2,000 to £3,000. Modern artistic expressions were represented by Wu Limin's abstract composition, which sold for £14,300^[8] against its estimate of £10,000 to £15,000.

Further classical jade groupings also performed strongly. A group of jade discs, awl-shaped ornaments, tubes, and beads from the Neolithic period and later sold for £20,800 against its estimate of £2,000 to £3,000. Additionally, a group of eleven carvings of boys and figures dating from the Ming Dynasty and later sold for £15,600^[10] against its estimate of £1,000 to £1,500.

The sale's overall sell-through of 64.6% is 17.6 percentage points^[1] below the Art category average of 82.2%^[1] across tracked houses. When evaluated against longer-term benchmarks, the sale's 64.6% sell-through is 12.5 percentage points^[1] below the five-year Art median of 77.1%^[1] derived from 117 comparable sales.

An analysis of the sold-lot price profile reveals a median sold lot of £2,210^[1], while the average sold lot stood at £3,510^[1]. The threshold for the 90th-percentile sold lot was £6,656^[1]. The distribution of value was moderately concentrated, with the priciest tenth of sold lots accounting for 39.4%^[1] of the total realized value. This distribution is reflected in a Gini coefficient of 0.49^[1], indicating a relatively balanced spread of value across the successful transactions.