Chinese antiques most recent news stories.
A middle-aged woman who had the vase in her home for 20 years thought it had no value, BUT she decided to drive to her local auction house with the vase UNDER HER ARM (15 inch vase). The EXPERTS told her it could make between £400 to £600.
The EXPERTS recognized the Yongzheng mark on the underside of the vase but thought it was a later copy.
An auction house in Laois, Ireland is expecting or should I say hoping Chinese buyers to fly in from Beijing and start a bidding war for what is reported to be a Yongle blue and white large flask.
The flask is estimated at around €40,000 but apparently this is also the reserve???
Here we go again!
16th September 2019. A large gold inlaid Chinese bronze hu vase sells for $72,000 on Ebay USA. The vase had 92 bids with 20 bidders.
A lucky punter bought a famille rose Qianlong wall vase (Sedan Vase) from a charity shop in the Hertfordshire area for only £1. The vase is now with Sworders auction house and will be offered for sale in autumn carrying a £50,000 estimate.
The owner had put the vase on eBay originally, but after lots of offers and bids he decided to withdraw it from eBay and instead took it to his local saleroom for a fuller appraisal.
The vase is pear shaped and 19cm tall, with ruyi handles on a yellow ground and is inscribed with a poem praising incense alongside a yuti mark and two iron-red seal marks reading Qianlong.
The wall vase now forms part of Sworders’ Asian Art auction on November 8 with an estimate of £50,000-80,000.
How many times have we heard the same regurgitated story? Rare Ming vase used as door stop sells for millions or rare Xuande bowl used as cat bed sells for hundreds of thousands. Well, here is another. I am not going to bother commenting on wether fake or real anymore regarding these sensationalized stories, read the story look at the pics and make up your own mind (Look carefully at the two vases, its all in the details).
Either someone got the deal of a lifetime or the mother of all headaches. Due to the auction house failing to correctley attribute the piece as mark and period or not the buyer has no recourse or a legal leg to stand on.
Another plant or genuine? Time will tell…
On a personal note, I hope all turns out to be OK for the buyer…
A rare 18th century Chinese vase uncovered during a house clearance has sold for £230,000 – well over its pre-sale estimate of £100.
The 11in (27cm) high vase on hardwood stand came for sale in Felixstowe on July 31 from a local gentleman. It had previously belonged to an aunt who had spent many years in the Far East.
The auctioneer who flogged it was left ‘shaking’ after the fierce bidding war over the vase. The vase belonged to a local pensioner who was selling items in his house to move into a care home.
I had these two genuine R horn libation cups in my watch list that ended on 19 Aug, 2019. There were only 8 bidders that generated 24 bids. The two cups had a starting bid of US $245.00. There were minor damages and associated wear, the cups looked 100% OK and were from the early Qing dynasty, probably Kangxi period.
17/08/2019: A seller in the UK listed a small famille rose cup on eBay with a 99 pence starting price. I recognized the cup as a Tang Ying piece from the Qianlong period. I had seen similar pieces in the Tang Ying museum in Jingdezhen when I was last there.
I left a good bid on the piece but failed to buy it, it probably went to mainland China. Obviously there were a few bidders that knew it was a Tang Ying piece. There were 60 bidders with 84 bids.
The decoration is know as Faux Bois (Fake Wood) or teasing the eye. I posted a piece on teasing the eye pieces a few years ago by Rosemary Scott which you can read HERE.
Liu Yiqian is a big collector of Chinese art, he recently posted four objects on WeChat that has been confirmed Liu bought for a whopping $36 million dollars.
The four items consist of an imperial nine dragon cinnabar lacquer throne, a celadon glazed chrysanthemum teapot, a yellow jade animal plaque and a large blue and white bottle vase with copper red decoration which set a world record for the most expensive tianqiuping ever sold.
Liu uploaded pics of his purchases to WeChat with a headline reading ‘Miscellaneous sales this spring. I think these pieces are pretty nice, good quality with good prices.’