Ordinary Vase Worth $1,900 Sold For $9 Million After Being Mistaken For Rare Artefact
At the Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau, near Paris on Saturday, circumstances seemed to be straight out of a thriller movie. A movie in which a competitive bidding war drives up the price of a common item at a public auction.
A blue and white Tianqiuping vase went up for bid and sold for a total price of $9 million including fees.?The Chinese Tianqiuping-style porcelain vase was sold for nearly 4,000 times its estimated value after buyers were convinced it was a rare artefact.
At the sale, auctioneers were astonished as the offers from about 30 mainly Chinese bidders kept on coming. When the hammer fell the vase had been sold.?
What happened
The tianqiuping-style porcelain was put in the auction by a woman living in a French overseas territory who was left it by her late mother. The unnamed seller had not seen the 54cm-tall vase, but arranged for it to be taken from her mother¡¯s home in Brittany to Paris to be sold by auctioneers Osenat.??
She told the auction house expert the vase had originally belonged to her grandmother, a Parisian collector.??
Jean-Pierre Osenat of the auctioneers said it was a ¡°crazy story¡±.?¡°The seller lives far away and didn¡¯t even see the vase. She inherited it from her mother who in turn inherited it from her mother who was a big Paris collector in the last century,¡± Osenat said.
Significance of the vase
Tianqiuping means ¡°heavenly sphere¡± and denotes the shape of the vase, which was blue and white porcelain covered in enamel and decorated with dragons and clouds. The auction house said it dated from the 20th century and described it as ¡°quite ordinary¡±. Had it been 200 years older it would have been extremely rare, their expert said.
CNN reported, "A total of 30 bidders, each of whom was required to make a deposit in order to participate, emerged from the 300¨C400 individuals who first expressed interest in placing a bid. Both in person and over the phone, there were 15 bidders total."
"Expert thinks it¡¯s not old"??
The total cost of the deal after seller fees was 91,21,000 euros ($90,77,356). According to The Guardian, the bidders, who were primarily Chinese, were certain that the vase was a priceless piece of 18th-century art.?
C¨¦dric Laborde, a director at Osenat, said: ¡°From the moment the catalogue was published we saw there was enormous interest with more and more Chinese people coming to see the vase. Our expert still thinks it¡¯s not old."
¡°The Chinese are passionate about their history and proud to take possession of their history.¡± He said the buyer was Chinese and he believed the vase would be put on display.
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