The Moke Mokotoff Collection

This September, Christie’s is honored to offer the collection of the late John ‘Moke’ Mokotoff (1950-2022), a devoted Buddhist practitioner, passionate collector, and esteemed dealer of Asian art. After studying expressive art and photography in school, Moke moved to New York, where he began to deal in the nascent market for Chinese, Indian, and Himalayan art. In 1980, Moke opened his first gallery, Mokotoff Asian Arts, and actively sold important works to some of the most prominent collections in New York and globally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Rubin Museum of Art. Revered for his knowledge of Chinese and Indian textiles, Moke was also a compassionate teacher and lifelong patron of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, including the gift of one of his most important works, a very rare eighteenth-century painting of Sakya Pandita to the monk, Sakya Trizin, the living incarnation of Chogyal Phagpa. The collection of works sold at Christie’s represents only a small fraction of the art Moke collected over the forty years he was active in the field, but includes some of his most treasured Buddhist objects; the very rare eighteenth-century painting of Bhavaviveka belonging to the same set as the Sakya Pandita painting he donated to Sakya Trizin; the superb Ming gilt-bronze figure of Hevajra and Nairatmya; the Tibetan gilt-bronze figure of Avadhutipa and the Khasa Malla gilt-bronze figure of Vajrasattva, which were both on his personal altar. The Moke Mokotoff Collection encapsulates many of his beloved and varied areas of interest within the field, and it is the hope of his family that his passion for these objects will be passed on to their new owners.