Fontainebleau: Tianqiuping-style vase auctioned for almost 8 million euros

Enlarge image

Auctioned vase: misjudged the value?

Photo:

Maison Osenat

Made of porcelain and enamel, painted with dragons and clouds, it is 54 centimeters high and has a diameter of 40 centimeters: in France, a Chinese vase estimated at 2000 euros was auctioned for 7.7 million euros, as "Le Parisien" reports.

Including the seller's fees, the final purchase price was 9.12 million euros.

Cédric Labord, director of the auction house, told the newspaper: "From the moment the catalog was published, we saw enormous interest and more and more Chinese people came to see the vase."

The anonymous buyer was one of about 30 Chinese bidders who apparently thought the auction house had misjudged the vase's value.

"Our expert still thinks the vase isn't old," Labord said.

The vase was auctioned off by a woman who lives in a French overseas territory.

She had inherited it from her mother.

The woman is said to have never seen the vase.

She had it taken from her mother's house in Brittany to Paris, where it was auctioned off by the Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau.

Jean-Pierre Osenat, auctioneer since 1976, has never experienced anything like this.

When the woman found out how much money the vase brought in, she didn't want to believe it.

She could have sold the vase to an antique dealer.

Then she might have gotten 1,000 or 2,000 euros for it.

kha