Welcome to Cynthia Shaver Asian Art Appraiser Newsletter December 2019,

Thank you for subscribing.  If you have tried to unsubscribe with no luck, please email me directly.  I apologize for this inconvenience.  If you are receiving this newsletter for the first time, I have corresponded with you the last month.  Please subscribe if you wish.

This month I have much work to do and I’m very happy to be able to do the work.  I’m working on finding the value of a Chinese property inherited by two sisters in 1983 from their mother.  To their surprise, although the estimate was $3,000-$4,000 at the auction house, the item sold for six figures..  So what was the value at time of inheritance?  I found my answers with the help of John Stucky, librarian at The Asian Art Museum, who took me into storage to check Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction catalogues from 1983.  I also had the help of particular people at both auction houses.  This was not an easy job, and took at least 8 hours.

I’m also evaluating a collection of Balinese Batuan art and drawings by Rudolf Bonnet from the 1920’s, 30’s, and late 40’s.  My scope of work includes correspondence with curators from San Francisco Fine Arts Museums (both Achenbach Collection and deYoung Museum) and the Asian Art Museum.  I have listened to lectures about Indonesian art in general and read about Balinese art in particular.  Next week, by photograph and with the observations of another Asian Art expert, I plan to compare the client’s collection with that of local institutions.  Before completing, I need to see the collection at the Asian Art Museum.

Another project involves a charitable donation to a Retirement Center for the hallway art.  Not just any retirement place, nor just any hallway.  This is curated by a Wall Art Manager that has decades of museum experience.  I’m revisiting work I preformed almost ten years ago to document the collection of works on paper, now reduced significantly through gifting to heirs and institutions.

And then there is the textile charitable contribution gift.  I am a ‘threads’ person.  One of the textiles has threads made from goat, camel, and plant material and dates from 400 CE – 600 CE.  Can you imagine the size of my eyes when I inspected this!

Enjoy the rest of this decade.  I can stand again after four months of physical therapy and will welcome the New Year,

Cynthia