Asia Week New York got off to a roaring start, when 48 galleries, 6 auction houses–Bonhams, Christie’s, Doyle, Heritage, iGavel, and Sotheby’s and 16 museums opened their doors to collectors, curators and connoisseurs who converged in New York to get their annual eyeful of what’s on offer at the galleries and auction houses now through March 23rd.

This year is extra special because Asia Week New York celebrates its 10th anniversary. To mark this milestone, a champagne reception was held in the Patron’s Lounge at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to congratulate the 10 honorees, all of whom have made significant contributions to advancing Asian art in North America. This distinguished group of honorees represents a cross section of prominent collectors, museum professionals who include Diane and Arthur Abbey, Maxwell “Mike” Hearn, Elizabeth B “Lillie” and Edward “Ned” Johnson 3d, James Lally, Soyoung Lee, Stephen Little, Joan B. Mirviss, Amy G. Poster, and Shelley and Donald Rubin.

After the speeches and champagne toasts, the celebration continued when everyone headed downstairs for the gala reception co-hosted by The Asian Art Department of Metropolitan Museum of Art and Asia Week New York. Max Hollein, The Met’s new director, Christina Prescott-Walker, chairman of Asia Week New York as well as Senior Vice President, Division Director, Asian Art and Decorative Arts, and Mike D. Hearn, the Douglas Dillon Chairman of the Department of Asian Art addressed the crowd of nearly 700 attendees comprised of international collectors, curators, gallery owners, and scholars who are in town for the non-stop round of gallery exhibitions, auctions, and museum shows.

Galleries from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, and the U.S. -- have set up shop all over town offering an eye-alluring array of the rarest and finest Asian treasures of porcelain, jewelry, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, bronzes, prints, photographs, and jades from China, Japan, Korea, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia. 

Guests were also treated to curatorial tours of the major exhibitions now on view including The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated; Seeing the Divine: Pahari Paintings of North India; Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China; Essential Korea;, Children to Immortals: Figural Representations in Chinese Art; Contemporary Chinese Ceramics in Historical Context; and Celebrating the Year of the Pig.

Among those seen in the crowd were: Max Hollein, Maxwell K. Hearn, Christina Prescott-Walker, Margaret and Jeffrey Tao, Joan Mirviss and Robert Levine, Arthur and Diane Abbey, Dr. Julia and John Curtis, Lillie Johnson, Shelley Rubin, Soyoung Lee, Basha Rubin, Robert Baylis, Scott Grinsell, Carol Conover, Mary Ann Rogers, Alice and Halsey North, Mary Wallach, Helen and James Lally, I-Hsuan Chen, Erin Byun, Sanjay Kapoor, John Carpenter, John Abbey, Christine Peterson, Beatrice Chang, Midori Oka, Bruce MacLaren, Martha Sutherland, Carlo Cristi, Christophe Hioco, Katherine Martin, Michael and Dana Cohen, Peter Kang, Erik and Cornelia Thomsen, Matthew Shamnoski, Christine Ramphal, Henry Howard-Sneyd, Peter and Erica Aron, Mee-Seen Loong, Jeff Olson, Edward Wilkinson, Wendy Moonan,  Jeanne Lawrence, Michael C. Hughes, Helen Dennis, Alan Kennedy, Michael Cohen, Eric Zetterquist, Nana Onishi, Oliver Forge, Brendan Lynch, Tina Zonars,  Elizabeth Hammer, Freda Murck, Sue Ollemans, Travis Kerr, Shawn Ghassemi, Walter Arader, Nicholas Grindley, Karsten Tietz,  David and Marina Orentreich, Nick Hamatake, Jennifer McCormick, Betsy and Robert Feinberg, Giuseppe Piva, Dessa Goddard, Margaret and Chip Ziering, Kurt Behrendt, Jeff Watt, Miwako Tezuka, Dr. Alvin Friedman Kien, Andrew Kahane, Richard Littleton, Mark Slaats, James Hennessy, Christophe Hioco, Hiroshi Yanagi, John Weber, Takako Sato, Lark and Erica Mason, Doug Frazer, Richard Waldman, Andrew Chait, Jeremy Hartman Chait, Navin Kumar, Tarun Kumar, Alexander Gorlizki, Xiaojin Wu, Janay Wong, Jane Debevoise, Miani Johnson, Abigail Johnson, Christopher McKown, Laura Bishop Matson, Eliza McKown, Annie Bailis, David Frank, Christina Yang, Runjeet Singh, Ed Nagel, Thomas Bachmann, Gabriel Eckenstein, Boon Hui Tan, John Guy, Noelle Xie, Joe Earle, Mansheng Wang, David Yee, Shao Wang, Prahlad Bubbar, and Catherine and Lewis Burger.

Asia Week New York continues through Saturday, March 23tf www.asiaweekny.com