AUCTIONEERS in Ireland and overseas are continuing to experience demand for oriental art and antiques.

Chinese collectors, especially, are increasingly using the internet to search, and bid, for items which recall that country’s imperial past.

Hegarty Fine Art and Antiques Auctioneers of Bandon in west Cork said their last two auctions, which featured Asian items from private collections, benefitted from this trend and attracted bidders from as far afield as Hong Kong.

Why do so many oriental artefacts turn up in Cork? Auctioneer Margaret Hegarty believes the reason is a “much-travelled population settled in the west Cork area and also the strong historical trading link that Cork had with the orient – being on the trading link of the East India Company from the orient to America”.

Hegarty’s auction tomorrow features many Asian items from various estates, including those of a Hungarian professor who had worked in Kyoto and the descendants of a curator of the East India Company.

Among lots to go under the hammer will be early Chinese jade, Qing dynasty bronzes and porcelain, some 19th century Sikh-interest watercolours and Japanese items from a private collection, including a Meiji period (1868-1912) doll.

Viewing is today from 11am to 5pm at Hegarty’s, The Bypass, Bandon, Co Cork and tomorrow from noon until 4pm when the auction commences.