The phoenix rises

London is the centre of all things Eastern and Oriental this week

- Huon Mallalieu

I WONDER whether there will be a fenghuang to be found in the Chinese exhibitions at Asian Art in London (AAL), although I am not sure whether to hope so or not. This highly coloured creature—the ho-ho bird of the Japanese—is sometimes misleadingly called a Chinese phoenix, although, unlike the European version, more than one can exist at a time. Fenghuang are deemed the most honourable of birds because they eat no living thing, but, and this is what could make them inappropriate at the moment, they only appear in times of peace and prosperity.

I wrote about them in my 1998 report of the first Asian Art Week, illustrated by a Ming silk embroidery. Then, another textile dealer Jacqueline Simcox was exhibiting in Dover Street; this year, she has taken space around the corner at Shapero Rare Books, 106, New Bond Street, W1, again showing Ming silk textiles from the early 15th to the early 17th cen- tury, together with a small group of 19th-century court costumes.

Twelve years ago, Eskenazi of Clifford Street, W1, celebrated the firm’s 50th anniversary with an exhibition of 12 Chinese masterworks; it is now 50 years since its first exhibition, to be marked this time by a display of just five masterpieces on loan from a private family collection, all of which were acquired through the gallery over the past decades.

They include a unique Yuan (1271– 1368) blue-and-white porcelain guan jar (Fig 1), acquired by Eskenazi in 2005 at a then record auction price for any Asian work of art. There is also an imperial steatite seal (Fig 6