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Sometimes, even the very rich are left with no other choice but to sell their art. That’s what happened to Kazuo Okada, known in Japan as the “Pachinko king.” He built his fortune as chairman of Universal Entertainment Corporation by making and selling gambling machines. But after partnering with Steve Wynn in the early 2000s to build casino resorts, the relationship fell apart. In 2018, Wynn Resorts agreed to pay a $2.6 billion settlement to Okada’s Universal Entertainment—and lawyers for Okada, who was ousted as chairman of Universal in 2017 after being accused of misappropriating funds, invoiced Okada $50 million for their agreed-upon contingent fee. (The fraud charges, which he denied, were later dropped.) He refused to pay. Now, following years of arbitration and appeals, the contents of Okada’s private museum are being sold to at least partly pay off that debt, which has climbed to $54.6 million.

The Okada collection of Asian art, which is coming up for sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong later this month, offers global collectors a unique opportunity to acquire treasures spanning 3,000 years of East Asian artistry. “The Okada collection is one of the greatest collections, if not the greatest collection of Asian art, to come to market in decades,” Nicolas Chow, Sotheby’s chairman in Asia, told me. While there have been some exceptional collections of only Chinese works of art from the region, such as the most recent Hikonobu Ise collection of ceramics, Okada’s holdings are notable for their breadth. In addition to more than 70 Chinese works of art, there are more than 50 Japanese screens, paintings, and Korean ceramics. “[It] stands apart as an extraordinary overview of Japanese painting and East Asian ceramic art, and includes many masterpieces of a quality rarely seen on the market,” said Chow.

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The aggregate estimate of Sotheby’s sale is a conservative HK$248 million, or $31.9 million—a possible indication that while the quality of works is exceptional, there could be lurking provenance issues on some that the market will have to assess. (If these works underperform, perhaps an additional tranche will come to auction.)

The collection, which Okada built for more than three decades with the help of Tokyo’s Kochukyo Ltd., one of Japan’s two greatest dealers, is coming up for sale at an interesting time for Asian art. The market for Chinese works of art, in particular, has cooled in recent years as domestic financial constraints and political crackdowns on flashy displays of wealth have tempered buying in both the category and the region. But the Okada opportunity exists outside of regular market trends. Extremely rare objects that are fresh to the market can drive demand, especially if the provenance is air-tight.

But that’s where Okada’s treasures became tricky. When it came to selecting works from the museum’s vast holdings, Sotheby’s and the appraisal and advisory firm Gurr Johns, which had been appointed to manage the sale, considered both cultural patrimony and sale expectations while preserving the museum’s vision. “We focused on identifying a small selection of the most salable pieces while ensuring the collection’s integrity and narrative remained intact,” said Gurr Johns president Charlie Horne, emphasizing that the works for sale represent only a small fraction of the museum’s total holdings. “It was always our intention to remove as little as possible while still satisfying our court-appointed role as agent for the sale.” Many works in Japan’s museums, like Okada’s, were not bought at international auctions; rather, they were acquired discreetly from Japanese dealers. If not for Okada’s debt obligations, these works would never have been seen at international auction—they would have stayed in his museum, or been sold privately in that domestic network. Indeed, the provenance of many works in Japanese museums “is often opaque,” dealer Lark Mason told me. “This doesn’t mean that the prior ownership is unknown—rather it means that the prior owner likely did not want to be known.” Okada’s large Ru guanyao bowl, from the Northern Song dynasty, provides an interesting case study. Ru ceramics, considered the greatest among the five Song kilns, are known for their crackled blue-green glazes like “first ice forming over a still pond,” according to Sotheby’s catalogue. They are highly prized and extremely rare—fewer than 10 have come to auction since 1940, three of which are in museums. In 2018, Christie’s offered a smaller Ru tea bowl, also from a Japanese collection, with detailed 20th century provenance, at an unpublished estimate; it sold for HK$56.5 million, or $7.2 million. Okada’s bowl, which is double the size but comes with no provenance information, carries an estimate of only HK$20 million, or $2.6 million. That doesn’t mean the market won’t respond to the work. It just means buyers will have to make their own judgments.

Another Chinese highlight is a 20-inch tianqiuping from the Qianlong period, decorated in doucai and famille-rose enamels with bajixiang, or the eight Buddhist emblems. With documented provenance that includes being exhibited twice at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts before passing through Kochukyo to Okada, it carries a conservative estimate of HK$30 million, or $3.9 million. The only other Qianlong tianqiuping of this size and decoration to appear at auction, at Christie’s in 2018, made HK$130.6 million, or $16.6 million, against an estimate of HK$70 million.

An important and exceedingly rare blue-and-white palace bowl, Masterpieces of Asian Art from the Okada Museum of Art, estimated at HK$15 million. Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby’s

A rare blue-and-white palace bowl, from the highly sought-after Chenghua period, is one of only five surviving examples of its design. Known to have passed through the collection of Osaka businessman Yamamoto Hatsujiro in the early 20th century, it is likewise conservatively estimated at HK$15 million, or $2 million. Of the other four known examples, one is in the British Museum and another is in the Palace Museum, Taipei. Examples of a closely related design have come to auction, but not since 1999.

Japanese highlights include a pair of six-panel folding screens from the Muromachi period, or early 16th century, by Japanese painter and calligrapher Kano Motonobu, known for his synthesis of Chinese and Japanese styles. Estimated at HK$4 million, or $520,000, it last appeared at auction in 1912 at the Tokyo Art Club. A hanging scroll from the Edo period, or early 19th century—Fukagawa in Snow, by ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro—is considered to be one of his most important paintings, and estimated at HK$6 million, or $780,000. Among the Korean works, most notable is a celadon-glazed kundika, or water vessel, from the Goryeo dynasty in the 13th century, estimated at HK$1.5 million, or $195,000. Given the quality and rarity of the pieces, and the “gold seal” of having passed through Kochukyo gallery, the auction is a historic market opportunity for collectors. Whether the buying base is there to take advantage of it remains to be seen. Either way, though, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Okada in the salesroom watching his much-loved and hard-earned treasures dispersed.

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