Arts of Pacific Asia is the crowd pleaser of Asia Week in New York, with a yin-yang appeal that is at the heart of its success. The ten-year-old show, which opened for four days on March 31 at the Lexington Avenue Armory on 26th Street, does it all. It is elegant but relaxed, exotic but accessible, scholarly and commercial.

New York Arts of Pacific Asia was packed with shoppers on Thursday afternoon when it opened.

Not since the spring of 2001 has there been a better crowd for the Caskey-Lees of California and Shador of Maryland joint venture. The fair logged nearly 11,000 visitors before closing on April 3.

“The show had both solid business in most specialties and a level of enthusiasm that makes us think the ‘good old days’ may be back. The auctions left no doubt that some Chinese specialties would be strong, but by late Friday it was clear that sales were solid for fine Indian subcontinent and Asian tribal material, as well,” said promoter Elizabeth Lees.

“We also saw more robust action this time in the middle to lower prices points for objects, jewelry and furniture,” added her husband, Bill Caskey.

“Interest in Asian art has exploded in the last few years,” offered David Fan-detta, a New York dealer who did the show for the first time with his partner, John Peter Hayden. Hayden & Fandetta beefed up on Chinese and Japanese titles but brought samples of their extensive inventory of books on antiques, interior design, gardens and flowers, as well.

“It really is Chinese who are buying, and they are buying directly from American dealers and indirectly through European dealers,” said Barbara Hilbert of Jade Dragon. The Ann Arbor, Mich., specialist and her husband, Stuart, have been dealing in Chinese and Japanese art since 1968, having lived in both Japan and China as teachers.

“To arrive in China is to be a connoisseur,” explained Mrs Hilbert, predicting that the market will grow in China as fortunes are made.

“It is time for us to bring conscious appreciation to the wonder of the fragment,” Thomas Murray, a California dealer in ethnographic art, wrote in “In Celebration of the Fragment,” an essay published in the New York Arts of Pacific Asia catalog. His advice brought to mind not only the graceful remnants of sculpture, pottery and textiles on the floor but also the collage effect of the show itself.

Robyn and Judy Buntin concurred with Mr Murray, giving place of pride in their booth to a fragment: an Eighteenth or early Nineteenth Century teak and lacquer standing Thai Buddha, $28,000.

“Its face is wonderfully preserved. It’s such good luck that it survived,” said Robyn Buntin, a Honolulu dealer whose seven major specialties include netsuke, jade, Buddhist works of art, and Japanese screens and scrolls. About 3,000 pieces are for sale on his well-browsed website, robynbuntin.com.

Akanezumiya, St Ignatius, Mt.

Many of Arts of Pacific Asia’s 81 exhibitors mount displaysof such refinement that they would be perfectly at home in eitherof New York’s Asian art fairs. One such exhibitor, BachmannEckenstein Art & Antiques of Basel, Switzerland, featuredrestrained, cerebral examples of Japanese art in different media.On an outside wall of Backmann Eckenstein’s booth was a two-foldink on paper painted screen decorated by Shokusa III, abasketmaker. Inside the booth were minimalist calligraphic scrollsmade by a Japanese nun and small, delicately painted doors, signedand painted by the artist who ornamented them for a tansu or someother piece of furniture.

Other Japanese painting of note included a Kano Tsunenobu screen, painted by the artist when he was 76 in 1713. The screen was $17,500, at Axel Michaels. The Kyoto dealer displayed it with a biwa, or Japanese lute, of handsome sculptural form. On his back wall, Galen Lowe, a dealer in Japanese art from Seattle, mounted large sliding doors, or fusuma, painted with landscape scenes.

Another impressive exhibit belonged to Dalton-Somare Arte Primitiva, sculpture dealers from Milan, Italy. A pair of large, carved figures of celestial dancers was from Rajasthan, India, and dated from the Eleventh Century.

At Jeremy Knowles, a Fifteenth Century Gandhara terracotta bust, 15 inches high, was $20,000. The London dealer sold one of his best pieces, a Fifth Century Gupta Period relief carving from northern India.

Chosen to illustrate the back cover of the show catalog was a pair of Chinese famille verte seated celestial generals. The Kangxi period (1662-1723) glazed ceramic figures, 27 inches tall, were $125,000 at Vallin Galleries of Wilton, Conn.

For its catalog piece, TK Asian Antiquities of Williamsburg, Va., and New York City chose a Chinese bronze Warring States period dragon that fit neatly into the palm of one’s hand.

A highlight at Akanezumiya, a Montana dealer in Japanese antiques, was Zocho-ten, a fearsome Buddhist guardian king. Dating to the late Seventeenth Century, the standing figure of carved wood, $30,000, was shown against the backdrop of a six-panel calligraphy screen, $8,000, by Itsuzan (1751-1764).

Sales of sculpture and ceramics included Han and Tang dynasty terracotta figures at Alberto Manuel Cheung. Visitors to the booth of the New York dealer in Chinese ceramics also expressed interest in Song dynasty glazed porcelain. Jazmin Asian Arts of Singapore sold a seated carved marble Jina, Fifteenth to Sixteenth Century, from Gujarat in India.

The rally in Chinese snuff bottles that began at Christie’s on March 30, when a Qianlong period imperial famille rose bottle from the J&J Collection sold for a record $665,600, continued at Arts of Pacific Asia. Asian Art Studio of Los Angeles, dealers in Chinese works of art, scholars’ items and snuff bottles, reported its best show ever. Specialists Clare and Michael Chu bought 17 bottles at Christie’s but by the end of the fair made back most of their investment.

Activity in the snuff bottle market spilled over to jades, another specialty with classic appeal.

“It was jade, no question, and it was on its way to mainland China,” said Honolulu dealer Robyn Buntin, describing the momentum of sales in the early hours of the show. Robyn Turner, a jade specialist from New York, noted the return of international clients who had been absent at the fair in recent years.

Textiles have long been an Arts of Pacific Asia strength. Asiatic Fine Art of Singapore displayed a colorful Balinese nobleman’s ceremonial silk skirthcloth, similar to one in the National Art Gallery of Australia, and an Eighteenth Century painted cotton palampore canopy.

Vichai Chinalai brandished a copy of the latest issue ofHalimagazine, containing his article on buying Oriental rugs in Bahrain 25 years ago when he and his wife, Lee, began their careers as specialists in tribal art and antiques. The Shoreham, N.Y., dealers’ booth was devoted to Li woven and embroidered costumes from Hainan, China. Meifu Li women, members of one Li subtribe, produced ceremonial head cloths reflecting both their traditionalism and independence from tribal custom.

Sales of textiles included a Chinese palace piece, priced about $200,000, at London dealer Robert Brandt, and a late Eighteenth Century Qing dynasty kesi dragon rondel at Jon Eric Riis of Atlanta.

Axel Michels, Kyoto, Japan.

“It once belonged to Doris Duke,” said Tim Mertel of L’AsieExotique, pulling out a drawer of a large display cabinet lavishlydecorated with lacquer and mother-of-pearl. Ms Duke used the RyukyuIsland, Japan, case piece for storing jewelry. Mr Mertel, a NewYork dealer, stocked it with blue and white ceramics from Japan,Korea and Vietnam.

New to the show was Robert Winter, a Japanese arms and armor specialist who has lived in Kyoto for 17 years, having moved to Japan when he was 17. London dealer Susan Ollemans was also a welcome addition with Indian miniature paintings on ivory and heavy, gem encrusted gold jewelry. Her catalog piece was a charming miniature of Zinat Mahal, last wife of the last Mughal emperor. Brussels dealer Sara Kuehn featured ancient and Islamic works of art.

Caskey-Lees’ next stop is the Los Angeles Antiques Show, April 28-May 1. On October 27, the promoters debut “Treasures from The Silk Road to The Santa Fe Trail” at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.