So far, we have only looked at the Japanese portion of the auction, which is headed by a Toshusai Sharuku portrait of the actor Otani Oniji III as Edobei in the Kabuki play The Beloved Wife's Particolored Reins.
That is expected to bring up to $800,000, but the Korean art on offer is just as spectacular.
Highlighting this section of the sale is Kim Whanki's (1913-1974) Landscape in Blue ($2m-2.2m). Whanki has become a pillar of Korean modern masters by using his unique blend of Eastern and Western influences.
In the 1950's he began to extract imagery from the Korean landscape - a blue moon, a mountain, a forest - a symbolic naturalism in keeping with post-colonial nationalism and the art name he chose, Suhwa, which means "to speak with the trees."
 Kim Whanki's absorbing work Landscape in Blue |
Landscape in Blue is representative of the abstract style with which the artist is so closely associated. This painting was purchased by a private collector directly from the artist.
A splendid oil and mixed media painting by Park Sookeun is also available. Returning from the Market (painted in 1965) depicts three women, all in traditional Korean clothing (hanbok), and a boy, returning home from the market ($400,000-500,000).
Since Christie's New York began selling the work of Park Sookeun eighteen years ago, he has become the most sought-after modern Korean master.
Returning from the Market has remained in the hands of the same collector, who purchased it directly from Park Sookeun. Twenty-one paintings by Park Sookeun have been sold by Christie's.
Also of note is an 18th century large blue and white porcelain bottle, painted with riverscapes and plants ($400,000-$500,000). The Joseon Dynasty bottle depicts two scenes, both framed by narrow blue lines.
One illustrates a scholar and boy attendant on a rock ledge, observing a fisherman poling his boat in an inlet, bordered by willows and grasses, while the other is painted with a fisherman steering his boat in more wind-whipped water between a rocky, pine-studded shore and hills.
Also of the Joseon Dynasty is a blue and white porcelain faceted bowl with the Ten Signs of Long Life (Shipjangsaeng) ($55,000-70,000).
The exterior of the octagonal bowl is decorated with longevity symbols, including a dragon spewing ether, a peach, a pair of confronted cranes, a pair of leaping deer, and sacred pulloch'o fungus and a pine.
Christie's Japanese and Korean art auction takes place on September 14 in New York.
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