A prominent mid-western family was selling their longtime vacation home on Maui. Suddenly they needed to make plans for all of the contents in the house. The most valuable paintings would be sold at auction in New York and London. But there were also two Japanese screens, long displayed in one wing of the house. The family, faced with the prospect of clearing out and selling the house, wondered aloud: “Why don’t we just leave these screens for the new owner?”
We advised the family against this. Despite their condition issues and uncertain value, the screens were decorative and striking. We thus recommended selling them in a specialized auction of Japanese Art during the major Asia week sales that would take place in New York.
There, the Edo Period screen (illustrated above) attracted enormous attention, from private collectors as well as museums. Amidst fierce international bidding—and to everyone’s surprise—it brought multiples of the estimate in making a price of $427,500.