The saleroom has produced many big sleepers over the last couple of years but they have mostly tended to be Chinese.
Estimated to make $5000 to $7000 the richly decorated and written in gold scroll consisted of a chapter of the Lotus Sutra and belongs to the Shogun Tokugawa part of the Edo Period.
According the Vickers' catalogue, the present owner, a Sydney collector, purchased it and another scroll in Italy in 1972.
Mr A R Davis, Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Sydney, examined the scroll in 1974 and found it had identical mounts and art work to a scroll held in the British Museum. Another is held in Harvard University.
The Lotus Sutra presents itself as a discourse delivered by the Buddha toward the end of His life. The tradition in Mahayana states that the sutra was written down at the time of the Buddha and stored for five hundred years in a realm of snake gods (n?gas). According to Wikipedia text S?tra has also been highly regarded in a number of Asian countries where Mah?y?na Buddhism has been traditionally practiced.
Auctioneer Mr Colin Vickers kicked off the two night 600 lot sale in which the with the three metre long scroll was offered at 6pm on Tuesday noting that it was 7am where some of phone bidders were based.
It provided a robust start for the first ever evening sale Vickers and Hoad had conducted, other than as continuation of day sales running late.
The underbidder, who prefers to be known as Bill and is a regular at such sales, said he was a wine exporter with a particular focus on the Chinese market.
He said that even compared to estimates of $5000 to $7000 the scroll was not expensive. Although the auctioneer appealed to bidders in the room to keep the scroll in Australia and that it not be lost to Tokyo, Bill thought it unlikely that the Japanese would be buying, rather it could have gone to Western Europe fitting in with the time zone occupied by some of Mr Vickers' bidders.
The second night did not begin so propitiously although this had been expected. An oil painting catalogued as Robert Wilson, the leading Welsh artist of the 18th century, attracted an online of $15,000 but that was all.
Mr Vickers said he had expected the work, estimated at up to $60,000, to have a difficult passage as landscapes of this type (women milking cows on riverbanks) were not in high fashion in London these days, even with a view of Carnarvon Castle in the background.
The painting came to Australia in 1984 from the family of Sir Charles Michael Duff of Bangor.
The second lot did surprise. A Portrait of Sir Charles in 1947 was expected to make $400 to $600 but was keenly contested between one of the local punters and another suited man in the room, who gave $3500 plus premium.
Duff was a British statesman and socialite who clearly meant something to the competing buyers.
Mr Robert Bleakley, a former and founding CEO of Sotheby's Australia, decades before its change of ownership, is taking advantage of the rise in the Chinese market in Buddhas to consign a few to Mossgreen of its Spring Season of sales next week.
The combined value of Mr Bleakley's consignment, which is included in the Mossgreen Spring Season of sales on November 19, is $155,000 to $212,000.
It is the second consignment from Mr Bleakley to Mossgreen which he admires very much. Two years ago he made a similar value consignment of tribal art to the boutique auction house which recently merged with Charles Leski Auctions
Mr Bleakley said he had chosen Mossgreen, as opposed to Sotheby's Australia which he originated, but now operates under different ownership, because Mossgreen had developed a very impressive niche in the market for the sale of small single owner collections.
The consignments include a 21 cm tall Chinese stone head of a Lohan, probably Song Dynasty, 12th-13th century which is estimated to make $12,000 to $15,000 and was purchased for $9560 from the sale of the Alex Biancardi collection three years ago, also held by Mossgreen.
From the Julian Sterling collection, which has also been dispersed in recent times, comes a Chinese gilt-bronze seated figure of Mahakala, (Nag.po.chen.po), Defender of the Faith, Early Ming Dynasty, 15th century at an estimated $50,000 to $60,000.
Mr Bleakley sees his transformative art as being related to the notion of the Wunderkammer, a German 19th century collecting tradition. The catalogue of the exhibition helps further explain it with quotes from pop star Blondie and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It includes hundreds of works drawn from ancient religious and spiritual cultures across the globe.
Some of the objects consigned were bought relatively recently although the origins of the of the collection go back to the 1970s when he was working for Sotheby's in London.
Parts of Mr Bleakley's Transformative collection have been on view at the Lismore Regional Art Gallery curated by Mr Djon Mundine.
