Exhibitions: Hong Kong, 24–29 October 2026, 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM HKT, for the Hong Kong live auctions Possessing the Past (30 October 2026), Bliss and Compassion: Three Buddhist Treasures from a Private Collection (30 October 2026) and Chinese Art (30 October 2026).

Possessing the Past

Niamh Cullinane

Antiquities exist in many different times at once; in the workshop in which they were made by the skilled hands of long forgotten artists, in every life and time through which they have subsequently passed, variously buried beneath palaces and cities, recollected by museums, and acquired by the hands of patrons. They are carried through time and space before finding themselves in the present moment, with every pair of hands adding another layer to their history, marks fleetingly left, before continuing on their journey.

Possessing the Past explores not only the history contained within objects, but the ways in which cultures continually return to, reinterpret and renew their relationship with what has come before. Works of art not only bear evidence of history, but represent a palpable, physical manifestation of the past; their survival collapses the distance between what is and what has been. An object carries within it the circumstances of its making, but also the successive histories of its preservation, movement, ownership and interpretation, never settling, always renewed. The object becomes not simply evidence of another time, but a vessel of experience. A hand shaped, molded and made every piece, and innumerable hands have contemplated them long before ours. Through this encounter, the membrane between past and present becomes permeable, an ineffable, numinous experience that transcends scholarship, provenance or material value. To possess, to take responsibility for, something which existed long before us, and will continue to exist long after we are gone, alters not only our understanding of the past, but allows us to glimpse into the future.

This contradiction, articulated by the artist Anselm Kiefer as “only by going into the past can you go into the future,” resists the notion that tradition and history are synonymous with inertia. The objects gathered in this exhibition ask us not simply what the past can tell us, but what our encounter with the past might make possible. To return to what has preceded the present time is a means through which new possibilities are created. To understand and engage with the deep recesses of time, to feel the unseen revolutions which move and shape the world, is to make visible the potential of the future. To possess the past is not to retreat into it, nor to claim ownership over something that can never truly belong to us. It is to receive, engage with and carry forward the material traces of lives that preceded our own. To become the custodian of memory, to usher in new ways of seeing. This relationship to time allows the present moment to escape the isolation of perception, acting as a reminder that some things are larger than a span of a single life. The future is made from what we remember, preserve and pass on, and the past is not behind us, it travels with us into the future.

The Three Buddhist Treasures presented here emanate from a collection of extraordinary scope and quality, formed by a connoisseur with an eye for the truly unique and beautiful. Each of these treasures was created not only as a work of art, but as a sacred instrument of meditation, ritual practice, and the pursuit of enlightenment, encapsulating the profound transmission of the iconography, esoteric beauty and ritual power of Himalayan Buddhist art from the Kathmandu Valley to the court of the Yongle Emperor.

The sensuous movement and exceptional sculptural quality of the Tara embody the height of quality achieved in thirteenth century Nepal, from where Aniko emerged as the greatest of all Nepal’s artists, and travelled to the court of Kublai Khan in Beijing and became Controller of the Imperial Workshops. The magnificence and intricacy of the gold and silver-inlaid iron ritual sceptre, the khatvanga, encapsulates the complexity of the esoteric iconography introduced to the early Ming emperors. To hold the khatvanga is to signify that the adept has cut through ignorance and gained mastery of the yogic subtle nervous system, transmuting compassion to a state of bliss and awareness of clear reality.

The exquisite gilt figure of Raktayamari and Vajravetali represents the fulfilment of this transmission, and the apex of quality achieved at the Yongle court. Created as a miniature sculpture for private meditation, the ecstatic union of male and female energies articulates the triumph of wisdom over ignorance. These Three Treasures are of truly unparalleled quality, ranking alongside the greatest extant examples preserved in any museum or temple collection. Their presence here is a unique opportunity for collectors and practitioners to be the next custodian of a sacred and profound tradition.