FEATURES ARCHIVE

King Tsi Lee is the eldest son of Sammy Yu-kuan Lee. By the time KT Lee was born in 1930, his father was already established as an antiques dealer in Beijing. As a young man, KT joined his father in the business. At the time, there was a large number of antiques available for sale in Beijing, resulting in fierce competition between dealers, curators and government agencies to acquire the most precious artefacts. While the Lees dealt in a variety of objects, including porcelain and jade, it was at this time that they began focusing their attention on lacquer, believing it was an important yet overlooked field that was grossly undervalued. In 1949 the family moved to Hong Kong, and moved again to Japan in the late 1950s. It was in Japan, where a number of the most important early Chinese lacquers have been preserved, that their knowledge of the field grew. Sammy Lee’s personal collection of lacquer was eventually sold in its entirety to Arthur Sackler in the mid-1970s. KT Lee then began collecting in earnest – wanting to build a collection that rivalled his father’s – acquiring pieces privately both in Japan and Europe, and at international auctions in London, New York and Hong Kong.

KT Lee used to come into our office regularly to inspect lacquer wares carefully prior to the sales, taking notes and photographs for his extensive personal pictorial archive. It was during these sessions that I began to get to know this important collector. I would ask him questions about the pieces on offer; which were his preferred examples and what he looked for in the pieces he collected. It was a fabulous learning experience for me. When the family contacted me to say that they were considering selling the collection and wanted to give it to Christie’s because of our keen interest and professional and academic presentation of the subject, I was delighted. It has been a great honour to work with such a well documented and important collection, and to handle the most important lacquer sale ever to be offered at auction.

The collection – encompassing lacquer wares in a variety of forms and techniques – ranges in date from the Song to the Late Ming periods. Christie’s Hong Kong offered the first half of the collection in November 2008; the second and final part of the collection will be offered on 1 December this year.