$ 69 million Vase (plus additional fees & taxes)!

Exquisite Vase belonging to Manchu Emperor.

$ 69 million plus another 20% fees and taxes becomes $ 83 to 86 millions.

Chinese vase fetches record $69 million in UK auction | Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AA5M620101112

(Reuters) – A Chinese vase discovered during a routine house clearance in a London suburb sold for 43 million pounds ($69 million) Thursday, 40 times its estimate and an auction record for any work of art from Asia, the auctioneer that sold it said.

“It’s a world record for a piece of Asian art,” Helen Porter of West London auction house Bainbridges told Reuters.

“It’s part of the end of Asian Art week, so there were a lot (of buyers) over for that and the room was absolutely full of Chinese people bidding against each other,” she added.

The hammer price did not include 20 percent in fees and taxes.

“It (the bidding) went on for half an hour. We don’t know exactly who the buyer is. I believe they’re buying on behalf of someone, but I believe they’re Chinese,” she added.

The sale highlights the intense and growing competition among wealthy Chinese buyers for rare pieces of their heritage, and anything associated with imperial China appears to be particularly attractive.

According to the auctioneer, the vase dates from the 1740s from the Qianlong period, would have resided “no doubt” in the Chinese Royal Palace and was fired in the imperial kilns.

The auctioneer said it was a mystery how the 16-inch high piece ended up in London. Its provenance was described simply as belonging to an English family collection, probably acquired during the 1930s.

“It is a masterpiece,” the auction house wrote in its blog before the sale. “If only it could talk!!”

Earlier Thursday, a white jade dragon seal which belonged to the Chinese Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799), sold for 2.7 million pounds at auction house Bonhams.

The four centimeter-square seal, which was expected to fetch 1.5-2.0 million pounds, was bought by an unidentified Chinese buyer from Beijing.

In October, auction house Sotheby’s sold a Chinese Qing dynasty vase for $32.4 million and their Asian auction series of art, jewelry, wine and watches in Hong Kong raised $400 million.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Mike Collett-White; Editing by Peter Graff)

Chinese vase fetches record 69 million dollars in Britain – Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101112/wl_uk_afp/britainchinalifestyleartauction

LONDON (AFP) – An 18th-century Chinese vase discovered in the clearance of a modest London house fetched a staggering 43 million pounds, an auction record for Chinese art.

The 40-centimetre Qianlong porcelain vase is understood to have been bought by a private buyer from China in the sale Thursday at a small London auction house.

The item has made the brother and sister who inherited the vase following its discovery in their parents’ north London suburban home instant multi-millionaires.

Helen Porter, of Bainbridges auctioneers, said: “They had no idea what they had. They were hopeful but they didn’t dare believe until the hammer went down.

“When it did, the sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air.”

On top of the initial price, the purchaser will also have to pay 20 percent fees, bringing the grand total to an eye-watering 51.6 million pounds.

The price is thought to be the highest ever paid for a Chinese artwork at auction, beating an 11th-century Song dynasty scroll which sold for 40.9 million pounds at a Beijing Poly International Auction in June.

It is not known how the vase — which dates from around 1740 — made it to Britain, but it is thought to have been fired in the imperial kilns of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty and kept in the Chinese Royal Palace.

The vase is decorated with a “humorous fish” motif and has an elaborate construction which allows one to look through perforations in the outer vase to see a smaller vase inside.

It was initially expected to fetch between 800,000 pounds and 1.2 million pounds but far exceeded the valuations as a new breed of Chinese investors snap up artefacts from their imperial past.

Video – Chinese vase fetches $86 million – Brisbane Times

http://media.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/world-news/chinese-vase-fetches-86-million-2045082.html

18th-century Chinese vase fetches record $69 million in Britain

http://www.vancouversun.com/18th+century+Chinese+vase+fetches+record+million+Britain/3818548/story.html

YouTube – Dusty Old Vase Fetches World Record Price At Auction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9oJOqwOybY&feature=channel

A Chinese vase which had been gathering dust on top of a bookcase in a London bungalow has been sold for a world record 43-million pounds.

The mother and son who found it while clearing out the home in Pinner had no idea of its value.

(Don’t throw away your “junks” hiding in the attic! You can become a multi millionaire too. Even the auctioneers/brokers became millionaires!).