A Chinese vase estimated to be worth approximately a few thousand dollars was sold for roughly 4,000 times that amount during an auction in France on Saturday when nearly 30 buyers believed it was a rare 18th-century artifact.
Experts at the Osenat auction house claimed the item, which sold for nearly 8 million pounds ($9 million), only dated back to the 20th century, valued it at 2,000 pounds ($2,264.29), and described it as “quite ordinary.” If the item had been made 200 years earlier, as the bidders believed, it would have been much more valuable, according to the Guardian. However, experts stood by their assessment, which meant the item was sold for nearly 4,000 times its value.
HONG KONG’S CATHOLIC CARDINAL ZEN PROSECUTED BY CHINA
⭐️ Adjugé 7.7 Millions d’Euros sous le marteau de Maître Osenat cet après-midi à Fontainebleau, un grand vase TIANQIUPING en porcelaine et émaux polychromes#chine #auction #enchères pic.twitter.com/fN9U8wmPrQ
— Osenat (@OsenatSVV) October 1, 2022
“From the moment the catalogue was published we saw there was enormous interest with more and more Chinese people coming to see the vase,” Cedric Laborde, a director at Osenat, told the outlet. “The Chinese are passionate about their history and proud to take possession of their history.”
The item will likely be displayed in a museum now instead of in a private collection, Laborde said.
The tianqiuping-style porcelain vase was placed in the Fontainebleau auction by an unnamed woman who lived in a French territory but who had not seen the vase since it was passed to her after her mother’s death. The vase is described as blue and white porcelain, decorated with dragons and clouds.
“The seller lives far away and didn’t even see the vase,” auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat said. “She inherited it from her mother who in turn inherited it from her mother who was a big Paris collector in the last century.”
The woman who donated the item did not attend the auction, opting to have the item shipped from Brittany to Paris instead.
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A different Chinese vase that dated back to the 18th century was sold for approximately $1.5 million earlier this year. The vase, considered rare, was initially purchased by a London surgeon in the 1980s for a few hundred pounds, according to the Guardian.
