FINE ART SPECIALISTS

Wattis Fine Art opened on Hollywood Road, Hong Kong in 1988 and has built up a reputation as the foremost gallery in Asia specializing in historical pictures, antique maps and travel books of East Asia. Jonathan Wattis, who joined Christie’s in London in 1977, has drawn on his wide experience of the international art market, as well as painstaking research, to collect these antiques and hold regular exhibitions focusing on the historical development of cities and countries of the Far East.

Works of art in a range of artistic media paint a vivid historical picture of the Pearl River Delta, Canton, Macau, Hong Kong and the Philippines from the late 16th century to the 20th century. These include antique maps of the Orient; rare China Trade paintings in oil on canvas, watercolour or gouache; pencil or pen and ink drawings; prints spanning a history of printing from woodblock, copper engraving and etching to mezzotint, aquatint and lithograph; and early albumen photographs. Together they describe more graphically than any history book the landscapes, architecture, costumes and social mores through the centuries.

Wattis Fine Art has become a magnet in Asia for all those who are fascinated by the rarest recorded images and maps of the region. As a result of the gallery’s special focus and thanks to the publication of illustrated books and exhibition catalogues which provide a lasting record of such fine and rare finds, Wattis Fine Art counts amongst its clients major museums, libraries, foundations and universities in Asia, Australia and the USA.