The Musée Guimet keeps a tall baluster vase improved by an hexagonal outline from top to bottom. This vase bearing the imperial mark of Yongzheng is described as the prototype of its model. The six front sizes are decorated with branches of flowers and fruits in a decorative arrangement that was influenced by the style à la Bérain.
At that time when potters were experiencing the full range of colors, this piece remains a blue and white. It retrieves the perfection in its class by imitating the so-called heaped and piled Ming process bringing under glaze a variation of the blue hue by a more or less high concentration of cobalt and also by inserting impurities.
This model has so pleased the emperor that several similar examples are known, 66 cm high, all of them with the imperial mark of Qianlong. A pair was sold for £ 700K by Sotheby's on 12 July 2006. Single units have also appeared at auction : HK $ 1M at Christie's on 27 April 1998, HK $ 17.5M at Sotheby's on October 5, 2011. These results include the premium.
Another example is surfacing. An antiques dealer acquired it in the 1930s for her personal use without identifying its value, which is not surprising when we observe the evolution of the prices from the above records that span the last two decades. Her equally ignorant heirs used it as a doorstop within their home in West Midland.
This treasure discovered and identified during an inventory by a manager of Hansons Auctioneers is estimated in excess of £ 300K for sale by that auction house in Etwall, Derbyshire, on July 1, lot 806a here linked from the bidding platform The Saleroom. Here is the link to the release issued by Hansons.
SOLD for £ 650K before fees
Please watch the video shared by the auction house :
#rare #Chinese blue and white vase discovered propping a door open in a West Midland home up for auction next week pic.twitter.com/qDs5stvhRt
— Hansons (@HansonsUK) June 21, 2016