1899
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : France Groups Children Gauguin Series by Monet
See also : France Groups Children Gauguin Series by Monet
masterpiece
1899-1900 The Dance of Life by Munch
Nasjonalgalleriet Oslo
The meaning of Love was a great obsession to Edvard Munch. He began in 1893 an autobiographical series of paintings which will soon be titled Frieze of Life - a Poem about Life, Love and Death. The series includes the most poignant works by Munch : The Scream, Vampire, Madonna, The Kiss, Angst, Melancholy.
The Dance of Life, painted in 1899-1900, is a summary of the theme. In the foreground the dancing couple is a self portrait with his first love Millie. Youth and old age are respectively on their left and right side, looking at the viewer. They both are the same woman, his new partner Tulla, in bridal gown and mourning garb.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
That mystic quest comes in the same period as Gauguin's D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous? painted about two years earlier.
The Dance of Life, painted in 1899-1900, is a summary of the theme. In the foreground the dancing couple is a self portrait with his first love Millie. Youth and old age are respectively on their left and right side, looking at the viewer. They both are the same woman, his new partner Tulla, in bridal gown and mourning garb.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
That mystic quest comes in the same period as Gauguin's D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous? painted about two years earlier.
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1899 Maternité by Gauguin
2022 SOLD for $ 106M by Christie's
Far from his European family, Paul Gauguin manages to rebuild a family in Punaauia, a village near Papeete, with a vahine named Pahura, far too young by European standards. The birth of a boy in April 1899 is a moment of great joy.
Gauguin paints maternity scenes, with warm colors. Femmes sur le bord de la mer, later known as Maternité (I), shows a seated young mother breastfeeding her newborn. She is surrounded by two standing women who bring fruit and flowers, symbols of abundance and beauty. Fishermen and a dog complete the atmosphere. This oil on canvas 94 x 72 cm is kept at the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg.
Maternité (II), limited to the group of women, is therefore a more direct interpretation of the theme of fertility. This oil on burlap 95 x 61 cm was sold for $ 39M by Sotheby's on November 4, 2004, lot 15, and for $ 106M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 11. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
With Gauguin the mystical interpretation, both religious and anticlerical, is always underlying. For example, a Nativité painted in 1902 stages a larger Polynesian group simulating the Crèche. The head of the baby is adorned with a radiant halo. This oil on canvas 44 x 62 cm was sold for $ 5.9M by Sotheby's on May 5, 2015.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2022
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection ‘Maternité II’ by Paul Gauguin set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $105.73 million, a little over 3x the artist’s previous auction record
Gauguin paints maternity scenes, with warm colors. Femmes sur le bord de la mer, later known as Maternité (I), shows a seated young mother breastfeeding her newborn. She is surrounded by two standing women who bring fruit and flowers, symbols of abundance and beauty. Fishermen and a dog complete the atmosphere. This oil on canvas 94 x 72 cm is kept at the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg.
Maternité (II), limited to the group of women, is therefore a more direct interpretation of the theme of fertility. This oil on burlap 95 x 61 cm was sold for $ 39M by Sotheby's on November 4, 2004, lot 15, and for $ 106M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 11. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
With Gauguin the mystical interpretation, both religious and anticlerical, is always underlying. For example, a Nativité painted in 1902 stages a larger Polynesian group simulating the Crèche. The head of the baby is adorned with a radiant halo. This oil on canvas 44 x 62 cm was sold for $ 5.9M by Sotheby's on May 5, 2015.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2022
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection ‘Maternité II’ by Paul Gauguin set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $105.73 million, a little over 3x the artist’s previous auction record
- The painting "Maternité II" by Paul Gauguin, sold for $105.73 million in 2022, reflects his 1899 Tahitian period where he blended Western art traditions with Polynesian influences, a fusion later validated by studies like those in the 1988 National Gallery of Art catalog showing his use of Borobudur frieze motifs.
- This auction record, part of the Paul G. Allen Collection, highlights a shift in art valuation, with Christie’s 2022 sales exceeding $1 billion, a trend supported by economic data from the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report showing a 20% annual increase in high-value art transactions since 2018.
- Gauguin’s depiction of Tahitian motherhood challenges colonial art narratives by reimagining Christian iconography, a perspective backed by art historian Nancy Mowll Mathews’ research on his intentional subversion of European norms during his Polynesian exile.
1897-1899 Nymphéas by Monet
2024 SOLD for HK$ 233M by Christie's
Monet is an amateur but careful and skilled gardener. He visits the booth of the horticulturist Latour-Marliac at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889.
A specialist in bamboos and other aquatic plants, Latour-Marliac is a skilled hybridizer. He was the first in Western Europe to create colored nenuphars by crossbreeding the usual white blossomed plants with wild species.
In 1893, when Monet obtains the administrative authorization to create a water garden in his estate at Giverny, he already knows that it will be a laboratory for his artistic creation. He was then interested in the reflections of the tall trees in water and in his Japanese bridge.
In 1894 he purchases from Latour-Marliac plants from 32 different species including a yellow Nymphaea created in 1888 and a pink Nymphaea created in 1892. His interest in these hybrids is not immediate but his curiosity increases.
As for painting, the small series of four Massif de chrysanthèmes is a breakthrough, in 1897. The top down view in close up eliminates the horizon for a full vertical filling of the flower bed in brilliant colors without peripheral details or perspective effect. An oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm was sold for £ 8.3M by Sotheby's on March 2, 2022, lot 118.
A visitor observed that Monet wants as many flowers in his garden as a space can hold. He also wants to look at them all year round, always present but ever changing.
Monet paints his first Nymphéas in 1897 also, displaying the plants on the water in close-up with a botanical accuracy, also as a top down view without a horizon. That first Nymphéas series is made of eight paintings executed between 1897 and 1899.
An oil on canvas 73 x 100 cm features two waterlily blossoms in brilliant white on the surface of the pond rendered in a mingling of blues, violets, indigos for the water and deep greens and turquoises for the plants. It was sold for HK $ 233M from a lower estimate of HK $ 200M by Christie's on September 26, 2024, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Grok thought :
Quote
ArtMajeur @artmajeur Aug 22, 2024
Christie’s Bets Big on Asia: Monet's "Nymphéas" to Lead $35M Auction in Hong Kong Read the full article here: https://tinyurl.com/yc7cxkbn #Monet #Nymphéas #Auction #HongKong #Christies #ArtMarket #WesternArt #Asia #HighValueArt #Giverny
A specialist in bamboos and other aquatic plants, Latour-Marliac is a skilled hybridizer. He was the first in Western Europe to create colored nenuphars by crossbreeding the usual white blossomed plants with wild species.
In 1893, when Monet obtains the administrative authorization to create a water garden in his estate at Giverny, he already knows that it will be a laboratory for his artistic creation. He was then interested in the reflections of the tall trees in water and in his Japanese bridge.
In 1894 he purchases from Latour-Marliac plants from 32 different species including a yellow Nymphaea created in 1888 and a pink Nymphaea created in 1892. His interest in these hybrids is not immediate but his curiosity increases.
As for painting, the small series of four Massif de chrysanthèmes is a breakthrough, in 1897. The top down view in close up eliminates the horizon for a full vertical filling of the flower bed in brilliant colors without peripheral details or perspective effect. An oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm was sold for £ 8.3M by Sotheby's on March 2, 2022, lot 118.
A visitor observed that Monet wants as many flowers in his garden as a space can hold. He also wants to look at them all year round, always present but ever changing.
Monet paints his first Nymphéas in 1897 also, displaying the plants on the water in close-up with a botanical accuracy, also as a top down view without a horizon. That first Nymphéas series is made of eight paintings executed between 1897 and 1899.
An oil on canvas 73 x 100 cm features two waterlily blossoms in brilliant white on the surface of the pond rendered in a mingling of blues, violets, indigos for the water and deep greens and turquoises for the plants. It was sold for HK $ 233M from a lower estimate of HK $ 200M by Christie's on September 26, 2024, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Grok thought :
Quote
ArtMajeur @artmajeur Aug 22, 2024
Christie’s Bets Big on Asia: Monet's "Nymphéas" to Lead $35M Auction in Hong Kong Read the full article here: https://tinyurl.com/yc7cxkbn #Monet #Nymphéas #Auction #HongKong #Christies #ArtMarket #WesternArt #Asia #HighValueArt #Giverny
- ArtMajeur's post highlights Christie's strategic push into Asia by auctioning Claude Monet's 1897–99 "Nymphéas," a water lily painting estimated at HK$200–280 million ($25–35 million), as the centerpiece of their September 2024 Hong Kong sale at a new headquarters.
- The embedded video animates key details—skyline shots, gavel imagery, and serene lily pond visuals—to emphasize the work's rarity as one of eight from Monet's series, while promoting ArtMajeur's AI-powered art marketplace.
- The lot sold for HK$233 million ($30 million), contributing to a $134 million total and affirming Asia's rising demand for Western masterpieces, with data showing Hong Kong auctions surpassing 2023 figures by 50%.
1899 Misia et Vallotton by Vuillard
2017 SOLD for $ 17.8M by Christie's
The three Natanson brothers created in Liège in 1889 La Revue Blanche, a literary and artistic magazine which they moved to Paris soon afterward. An intense social activity will be established around the pianist Misia Godebska who marries Thadée Natanson in 1893.
Misia is indeed an endearing muse in this atmosphere of free life close to the anarchists. Musicians, dancers, poets and artists revolve around her charismatic personality, which is altogether seductive, authoritarian, burlesque, hyper-active, nymphomaniac and mythomaniac. The husband is complacent. During the summers the Natansons host their friends in their country house at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne.
Edouard Vuillard is crazy about Misia of whom he will make about 90 portraits. A member of the Nabi group since 1889, he mainly paints scenes of cozy interiors which are excuses for colored textures that anticipate Matisse.
One of these scenes was sold for $ 17.8M from a lower estimate of $ 7M for sale by Christie's on November 13, 2017, lot 49 A. As decentered and complex as a composition by Degas, this oil on canvas 70 x 51 cm painted in 1899 stages three characters in Villeneuve.
Misia in the foreground handles a porcelain bowl. The dog begs for sugar. Behind her, Vallotton talks with Thadée recognizable by his beard but indeed almost entirely cut away by the edge of the picture. The two groups are ignoring each other, leaving the shy Edouard with his illusion of intimacy with the muse. The background is a double still life, with a plant on a table plus the wall image of a decorative painting made previously by Edouard for Thadée.
Misia is indeed an endearing muse in this atmosphere of free life close to the anarchists. Musicians, dancers, poets and artists revolve around her charismatic personality, which is altogether seductive, authoritarian, burlesque, hyper-active, nymphomaniac and mythomaniac. The husband is complacent. During the summers the Natansons host their friends in their country house at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne.
Edouard Vuillard is crazy about Misia of whom he will make about 90 portraits. A member of the Nabi group since 1889, he mainly paints scenes of cozy interiors which are excuses for colored textures that anticipate Matisse.
One of these scenes was sold for $ 17.8M from a lower estimate of $ 7M for sale by Christie's on November 13, 2017, lot 49 A. As decentered and complex as a composition by Degas, this oil on canvas 70 x 51 cm painted in 1899 stages three characters in Villeneuve.
Misia in the foreground handles a porcelain bowl. The dog begs for sugar. Behind her, Vallotton talks with Thadée recognizable by his beard but indeed almost entirely cut away by the edge of the picture. The two groups are ignoring each other, leaving the shy Edouard with his illusion of intimacy with the muse. The background is a double still life, with a plant on a table plus the wall image of a decorative painting made previously by Edouard for Thadée.
David’s Is Not the Only Rockefeller Estate Christie’s Has to Sell https://t.co/QRfo3SPET7 pic.twitter.com/vpSmQiKaxm
— Art Market Monitor (@artmarket) October 2, 2017
1899 Eragny by PISSARRO
1
Les Peupliers, après-midi
2007 SOLD for $ 5.4M by Christie's
Pommiers et faneuses à Eragny, painted by Pissarro in 1895, features his beloved apple orchard in front of his home. Two women viewed from back are raking hay in a perfectly synchronized movement. The early apple fruit are positioning this view in late summer. This oil on canvas 59 x 74 cm was sold for $ 4.2M by Christie's on November 7, 2012, lot 43. Work in the field is a recurring political symbol for this utopian follower of Kropotkin.
In June 1899 the artist is back in Eragny-sur-Epte after another several months busy with cityscape series in Paris. He confesses that no other view can match in his mind the immediate surrounding of his beloved studio house.
Peasant workers are increasingly blurred and tiny. Les peupliers, après-midi à Eragny, displays in the distance two peasants, man and woman, at work in an open field surrounded by poplars.
This oil on canvas 72 x 92 cm was sold for $ 5.4M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 28.
In September Pissarro leaves home again, this time for a stay in Varengeville.
In June 1899 the artist is back in Eragny-sur-Epte after another several months busy with cityscape series in Paris. He confesses that no other view can match in his mind the immediate surrounding of his beloved studio house.
Peasant workers are increasingly blurred and tiny. Les peupliers, après-midi à Eragny, displays in the distance two peasants, man and woman, at work in an open field surrounded by poplars.
This oil on canvas 72 x 92 cm was sold for $ 5.4M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 28.
In September Pissarro leaves home again, this time for a stay in Varengeville.
2
Paysage avec Peupliers, temps gris
2018 SOLD for $ 4.8M by Christie's
Paysage avec peupliers, temps gris, Eragny, was painted in the same season and technique as the example above.
In the foreground, a receding path is limited by a typical rural fence. Two peasant women are working with large wicker baskets.
This oil on canvas 81 x 65 cm was sold for $ 4.8M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Christie's on May 8, 2018, lot 13.
In the foreground, a receding path is limited by a typical rural fence. Two peasant women are working with large wicker baskets.
This oil on canvas 81 x 65 cm was sold for $ 4.8M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Christie's on May 8, 2018, lot 13.
1899 The Hold Up by Russell
2008 SOLD for $ 5.2M by The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction
After a boyhood in Missouri, Charles M. Russell was definitely attracted by Rocky Mountains and pioneer life. He made his first visit to Montana in 1880 at sixteen years old. He returned two years later to spend there the rest of his life.
Charley was a cowboy before being an artist. Unlike Remington, he was not working as an illustrator and did not want to compromise with eastern American lifestyle. His wife Nancy seconded him to disclose his art.
On July 26, 2008, The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction sold a Wild West painting by Charles M. Russell for $ 5.2M from a lower estimate of $ 4M, lot 134.
This oil on canvas 75 x 120 cm dated 1899 stages a hold up. It features bandits pointing their guns towards travelers as they just leaved their diligence. They have their hands up, which is a fairly classical and even recommended attitude in such a situation.
Charley was a cowboy before being an artist. Unlike Remington, he was not working as an illustrator and did not want to compromise with eastern American lifestyle. His wife Nancy seconded him to disclose his art.
On July 26, 2008, The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction sold a Wild West painting by Charles M. Russell for $ 5.2M from a lower estimate of $ 4M, lot 134.
This oil on canvas 75 x 120 cm dated 1899 stages a hold up. It features bandits pointing their guns towards travelers as they just leaved their diligence. They have their hands up, which is a fairly classical and even recommended attitude in such a situation.
1899 Au Cirque by Lautrec
2023 SOLD for $ 2.7M by Christie's
Toulouse-Lautrec would not miss any form of entertainment in Montmartre. He frequented the Cirque Fernando specializing in acrobatic tricks on horseback.
Suffering from alcohol addiction, syphilis and depression, the artist is confined in an asylum in 1899 in Neuilly on commission from his mother.
For proving that his mental health is not damaged, he draws by memory a series of more than fifty sketches narrating the relationship of human and animal on a circus ring. 39 of them are posthumously edited as a book in 1905. The sympathy of the artist goes to the beast which makes a commendable effort to play its role while the human performer is flamboyant dressed and often cruel. Lautrec is released from the asylum after two months.
Au Cirque : Eléphant en Liberté stages an elephant standing on its hind legs on a small platform. Its tongue is hanging in the desperate effort. The performer brandishing the taming whip is dressed as a matador de toros.
This drawing in black and colored chalk on paper 35 x 25 cm was sold for $ 2.7M from a lower estimate of $ 400K by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 33A. It is signed and stamped with the monogram.
Suffering from alcohol addiction, syphilis and depression, the artist is confined in an asylum in 1899 in Neuilly on commission from his mother.
For proving that his mental health is not damaged, he draws by memory a series of more than fifty sketches narrating the relationship of human and animal on a circus ring. 39 of them are posthumously edited as a book in 1905. The sympathy of the artist goes to the beast which makes a commendable effort to play its role while the human performer is flamboyant dressed and often cruel. Lautrec is released from the asylum after two months.
Au Cirque : Eléphant en Liberté stages an elephant standing on its hind legs on a small platform. Its tongue is hanging in the desperate effort. The performer brandishing the taming whip is dressed as a matador de toros.
This drawing in black and colored chalk on paper 35 x 25 cm was sold for $ 2.7M from a lower estimate of $ 400K by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 33A. It is signed and stamped with the monogram.
1899 Amour et Psyché by Bouguereau
2010 SOLD for $ 2.2M by Sotheby's
Covered with honors in France during his lifetime, William Bouguereau is unknown today in the art market of his country. There are two reasons for this. First, he had early got many American customers, who valued his family and peasant scenes. Then he was totally outside the modern art trends of his time.
A couple of young adults as winged angels, naked, are sucked up into the clouds, having already lost contact with the ground. The boy is seen in front, his improprieties being masked by the traditional fig leaf. The girl is viewed from back, hair flying, hanging on the shoulder of her companion.
The bodies, real subject of this piece, a little larger than life, are treated with the quality that made the reputation of the artist in the official salons. There were two ways to interpret this heavenly flight. As a ceiling in a palace of the eighteenth century, an incongruous theme in 1899. Or like a dream world which anticipates surrealism. The admiration expressed by Salvador Dali for that sort of work excited the public's curiosity in the 1960s.
This Amour et Psyché, oil on canvas 220 x 130 cm, was sold for $ 2.2M from a lower estimate of $ 1.8M by Sotheby's on April 23, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
A couple of young adults as winged angels, naked, are sucked up into the clouds, having already lost contact with the ground. The boy is seen in front, his improprieties being masked by the traditional fig leaf. The girl is viewed from back, hair flying, hanging on the shoulder of her companion.
The bodies, real subject of this piece, a little larger than life, are treated with the quality that made the reputation of the artist in the official salons. There were two ways to interpret this heavenly flight. As a ceiling in a palace of the eighteenth century, an incongruous theme in 1899. Or like a dream world which anticipates surrealism. The admiration expressed by Salvador Dali for that sort of work excited the public's curiosity in the 1960s.
This Amour et Psyché, oil on canvas 220 x 130 cm, was sold for $ 2.2M from a lower estimate of $ 1.8M by Sotheby's on April 23, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
_-_L%27Amour_et_Psych_(1899).jpg)
1899 The Human Beings by Munch
2019 SOLD for $ 1.46M by Sotheby's
Edvard Munch expresses in his art his own mystical and psychological or even psychiatric torments. In Paris and Berlin he painted the difficulty of communication. The Scream is his strongest message because the call does not reach any listener despite the small group away.
Melancholy and silence are among his favorite themes. The Young Woman on the Beach and Two Human Beings (the Lonely Ones) must be considered together and were probably designed simultaneously by the artist. The tall blonde woman in white dress is the same in both scenes. Watching the ocean, she turns her back to the artist, to the viewer and to life.
In the latter version a man has come from behind, dressed in dark. He bends his head without looking at the woman. These two people are in a close vicinity one another and psychologically indifferent.
A copy in the original woodcut version Woll 157/I/1 of the Zwei Menschen - Die Einsamen, has been printed in 1899 in black and grey-blue on japan paper by Lassally in Berlin. The image 40 x 55 cm on 45 x 58 cm laid japan paper was sold for $ 1.46M by Sotheby's on October 24, 2019, lot 9. Another example on 47 x 63 cm japan paper was sold for CHF 480K before fees by Kornfeld on September 13, 2024, lot 14.
The original oil painting is lost.
Melancholy and silence are among his favorite themes. The Young Woman on the Beach and Two Human Beings (the Lonely Ones) must be considered together and were probably designed simultaneously by the artist. The tall blonde woman in white dress is the same in both scenes. Watching the ocean, she turns her back to the artist, to the viewer and to life.
In the latter version a man has come from behind, dressed in dark. He bends his head without looking at the woman. These two people are in a close vicinity one another and psychologically indifferent.
A copy in the original woodcut version Woll 157/I/1 of the Zwei Menschen - Die Einsamen, has been printed in 1899 in black and grey-blue on japan paper by Lassally in Berlin. The image 40 x 55 cm on 45 x 58 cm laid japan paper was sold for $ 1.46M by Sotheby's on October 24, 2019, lot 9. Another example on 47 x 63 cm japan paper was sold for CHF 480K before fees by Kornfeld on September 13, 2024, lot 14.
The original oil painting is lost.
1899 Kiang Nan coin
2022 SOLD for $ 1.2M by Stack's Bowers
The Sino-Japanese war for the control of Korea ends in April 1895 in a military and economic disaster for the Qing dynasty, more threatened than ever by foreign intrusions. The young Guangxu Emperor was a mere puppet to Empress Dowager Cixi. However he tries to modernize China on the Meiji model.
The firm of Otto Beh in Esslingen, Germany carved some dies for the use of Chinese provinces between 1897 and 1899. These provinces were Sinkiang, Anhwei, Chekiang, and Fengtien.
The Sinkiang coins were milled in the province. The obverse is in Chinese and Manchu, with ideograms and texts identifying the source of the strike. The reverse is centered by the full front dragon with pearl, plus a circular text in Latin script on the border. Sinkiang is referred as Sungarei.
From that first Sungarei series, the denominations of 1 and 2 Mace were released to circulation while the 4 Mace and 1 Yuan were only made as patterns. The 1 yuan is inscribed with its weight of 7 Mace 2 Candareens.
The Sungarei yuan is not dated but tentatively attributed to 1897. 5 examples are known in silver. One of them is graded Specimen 40 by PCGS. It was sold for $ 360K by Stack's Bowers on October 15, 2024, lot 41211.
In the same sale a Sungarei 4 Mace pattern coin in copper from the same period was sold for $ 36K, lot 41212. Four other patterns are known of that series of 4 Mace, respectively in silver, silvered bronze and two in brass.
In 1897 the American company Ferracute is awarded a contract to supply and install coin presses in the Chinese provinces at the request of the imperial government. The material is sent without delay and the transfer of technology is successfully carried out in 1898 in Szechuen to produce silver coins and the small brass coin, the tsen colloquially named cash.
For silver the biggest denomination is the yuan, translated as dollar in English. The word dollar does not appear, replaced by the weight in the units of the Chinese decimal system, mace and candareen, subdivisions of the tael.
That Chinese dollar is marked in English letters 7 mace and 2 candareens while the half dollar is 3 mace and 6 candareens. The emitting province is indicated on the same side which is centered on the effigy of a dragon. The other side is inscribed in Chinese characters.
Some other provinces immediately follow Szechuen with the same conception. Also in 1898 the Guangxu emperor attempted to start an ambitious reform program which was halted by a military coup organized by Cixi. These events culminated in 1899 in the Boxer wars. Curiously the provincial coinage of American origin was to survive this xenophobic phase.
An undated Shen-Si Province silver pattern coin of 1898 of 3 mace and 6 candareens was sold for $ 600K by Stack's Bowers on October 7-8, 2021, lot 23062. It is graded SP-63 by PCGS.
A 'dragon dollar' 1898-1899 'Cheh-Kiang Province' graded MS-66 by NGC was sold for $ 440K by Heritage on June 28, 2018, lot 30074. In the same sale, the half dollar of same period and same province graded MS-67 was sold for $ 106K, lot 30073 and the 1899 half dollar 'Kiang Nan Province' graded MS-62-Prooflike for $ 310K, lot 30088.
An undated Kiang Nan pattern silver coin dollar of 7 mace and 2 candareens minted in 1897, graded SP66 by PCGS, was sold for $ 1.5M by Heritage on December 7, 2025, lot 35049.
A Kiang Nan coin of 3 mace and 6 candareens inscribed as a so-called 'prowing' coin was sold for $ 1.2M by Stack's Bowers on May 4, 2022, lot 51040. This undated coin comes from a 1899 issue made in the Nanking mint. That local operation was stopped for financial problems in 1900 and that factory reopened in 1901 after the Boxer wars.
That circulating variety is highly rare. Graded MS-62+ Prooflike by PCGS, the above example fully formed rims of no surface markings. With its multiple times striking, it certainly had been a specimen. Only 3 other coins are known, all of them graded Almost uncirculated.
The firm of Otto Beh in Esslingen, Germany carved some dies for the use of Chinese provinces between 1897 and 1899. These provinces were Sinkiang, Anhwei, Chekiang, and Fengtien.
The Sinkiang coins were milled in the province. The obverse is in Chinese and Manchu, with ideograms and texts identifying the source of the strike. The reverse is centered by the full front dragon with pearl, plus a circular text in Latin script on the border. Sinkiang is referred as Sungarei.
From that first Sungarei series, the denominations of 1 and 2 Mace were released to circulation while the 4 Mace and 1 Yuan were only made as patterns. The 1 yuan is inscribed with its weight of 7 Mace 2 Candareens.
The Sungarei yuan is not dated but tentatively attributed to 1897. 5 examples are known in silver. One of them is graded Specimen 40 by PCGS. It was sold for $ 360K by Stack's Bowers on October 15, 2024, lot 41211.
In the same sale a Sungarei 4 Mace pattern coin in copper from the same period was sold for $ 36K, lot 41212. Four other patterns are known of that series of 4 Mace, respectively in silver, silvered bronze and two in brass.
In 1897 the American company Ferracute is awarded a contract to supply and install coin presses in the Chinese provinces at the request of the imperial government. The material is sent without delay and the transfer of technology is successfully carried out in 1898 in Szechuen to produce silver coins and the small brass coin, the tsen colloquially named cash.
For silver the biggest denomination is the yuan, translated as dollar in English. The word dollar does not appear, replaced by the weight in the units of the Chinese decimal system, mace and candareen, subdivisions of the tael.
That Chinese dollar is marked in English letters 7 mace and 2 candareens while the half dollar is 3 mace and 6 candareens. The emitting province is indicated on the same side which is centered on the effigy of a dragon. The other side is inscribed in Chinese characters.
Some other provinces immediately follow Szechuen with the same conception. Also in 1898 the Guangxu emperor attempted to start an ambitious reform program which was halted by a military coup organized by Cixi. These events culminated in 1899 in the Boxer wars. Curiously the provincial coinage of American origin was to survive this xenophobic phase.
An undated Shen-Si Province silver pattern coin of 1898 of 3 mace and 6 candareens was sold for $ 600K by Stack's Bowers on October 7-8, 2021, lot 23062. It is graded SP-63 by PCGS.
A 'dragon dollar' 1898-1899 'Cheh-Kiang Province' graded MS-66 by NGC was sold for $ 440K by Heritage on June 28, 2018, lot 30074. In the same sale, the half dollar of same period and same province graded MS-67 was sold for $ 106K, lot 30073 and the 1899 half dollar 'Kiang Nan Province' graded MS-62-Prooflike for $ 310K, lot 30088.
An undated Kiang Nan pattern silver coin dollar of 7 mace and 2 candareens minted in 1897, graded SP66 by PCGS, was sold for $ 1.5M by Heritage on December 7, 2025, lot 35049.
A Kiang Nan coin of 3 mace and 6 candareens inscribed as a so-called 'prowing' coin was sold for $ 1.2M by Stack's Bowers on May 4, 2022, lot 51040. This undated coin comes from a 1899 issue made in the Nanking mint. That local operation was stopped for financial problems in 1900 and that factory reopened in 1901 after the Boxer wars.
That circulating variety is highly rare. Graded MS-62+ Prooflike by PCGS, the above example fully formed rims of no surface markings. With its multiple times striking, it certainly had been a specimen. Only 3 other coins are known, all of them graded Almost uncirculated.
