Fine arts: Eastern promise
With antique treasures from China, Japan and Tibet, Adam’s Asian sale should have plenty for fans of the Orient
In China, for centuries, the Imperial Seal was the ultimate rubber stamp, used to establish legitimacy and to authenticate documents. One carved in 1787 from a block of jade incised with the inscription ‘The Master of Heaven Qianlong, made by the House of Internal Affairs’ is a headline lot at Adam’s Asian sale next week.
Its maker saw no reason why such an authoritarian ...