PROPERTY FROM THE WILLIAM S. ARNETT COLLECTION, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
FOUR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES18TH-20TH CENTURY
Price Realised USD 3,500
Estimate
USD 2,000 - USD 3,000
Estimates do not reflect the final hammer price and do not include buyer's premium, any applicable taxes or artist's resale right. Please see the Conditions of Sale for full details.
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FOUR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES
18TH-20TH CENTURY
Price Realised USD 3,500
Price Realised USD 3,500
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Lot Essay
Born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, William Arnett grew up in the American South during its era of racial segregation. In the early 1960s, shortly after graduating from the University of Georgia, he left the US for London, to work as the European representative of an American manufacturer.
During the mid-1960s he was drawn more eastward, to India, to Southeast Asia, and to the art of China. From 1966 to 1970, Arnett made six extended trips to Asia to study and acquire art with repeated visits to Hong Kong and Singapore to purchase Chinese jade and porcelain. His interest in the totality of Chinese civilization, and his inclusive approach to aesthetics, meant he did not restrict his jade acquisitions to a single epoch or style. He was most interested in artistic continuities across time, from the Shang to the later dynasties. Beginning in September 1973, his Chinese jade collection—some 250 pieces—spent several years on loan to Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.
As a devotee not only of art, but also the beliefs and traditions that inform it, Arnett sought to explore and understand the diversity, as well as the commonalities, of the world’s civilizations. He came to believe art occupies a central place in the self-conception of every culture. As he would later write, “Art, with its ability to unify and transform a population, could be as much a cause as an effect of a great civilization.”
(For Arnett’s full biography, please refer to lot 94)
During the mid-1960s he was drawn more eastward, to India, to Southeast Asia, and to the art of China. From 1966 to 1970, Arnett made six extended trips to Asia to study and acquire art with repeated visits to Hong Kong and Singapore to purchase Chinese jade and porcelain. His interest in the totality of Chinese civilization, and his inclusive approach to aesthetics, meant he did not restrict his jade acquisitions to a single epoch or style. He was most interested in artistic continuities across time, from the Shang to the later dynasties. Beginning in September 1973, his Chinese jade collection—some 250 pieces—spent several years on loan to Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.
As a devotee not only of art, but also the beliefs and traditions that inform it, Arnett sought to explore and understand the diversity, as well as the commonalities, of the world’s civilizations. He came to believe art occupies a central place in the self-conception of every culture. As he would later write, “Art, with its ability to unify and transform a population, could be as much a cause as an effect of a great civilization.”
(For Arnett’s full biography, please refer to lot 94)
Lot 28
Sale 16983
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18TH-20TH CENTURY
FOUR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES
Estimate: USD 2,000 - 3,000
Bid amount
Buyer's premium
Estimated total cost exclusive of duties