Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Sotheby’s Paris Sells Yangcai Vase for €16.18m ($19.11m)

June 12, 2018 by Marion Maneker

After 25 minutes of bidding, the Yangcai vase brought into Sotheby’s in a shoe box was sold for €16.18m or 30-times the low estimate of €500k. The buyer was a young Chinese collector who attended the sale, according to the South China Morning Post. Sotheby’s pre-qualified bidders for this single-lot sale.

Here’s Sotheby’s description of how the object came to be in France:

The wonderful vase offered in this sale was discovered accidentally in the attic of a house in the French countryside where it had been long forgotten. It had been left to the great-grandparents of the present owners by an uncle and appears among the listed contents of his Paris apartment after he passed away in 1947. It is listed along with several other Chinese and Japanese objects including other Chinese porcelains, two dragon robes, a yellow silk textile, and an unusual bronze mirror contained in a carved lacquer box offered in our Arts d’Asie sale PF1807, lot 138.

While the exact provenance of the vase and the other Chinese and Japanese pieces before 1947 cannot be traced, the receipt of a Satsuma censer acquired as a wedding gift in the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris by an ancestor of the family suggests an active interest in Asian art at a very early date. Similarly, this vase may well have been acquired in Paris in the late 19th century when the arrival of Asian works of art initiated a fashion for Japanese and Chinese art. Interestingly, the only other vase of this shape and similar design, now in the collection of the Musée Guimet, Paris, was acquired by Ernest Grandidier about the same time, around 1890 from Philippe Sichel, an Asian art dealer in Paris active in the late 19th century, and an early advocate of Japanese art in France.

More from Art Market Monitor

  • All of the Richters at the FairAll of the Richters at the Fair
  • Antonio Banderas & Gwyneth Paltrow to Play Picasso & Dora Maar in New MovieAntonio Banderas & Gwyneth Paltrow to Play Picasso & Dora Maar in New Movie
  • Don't Stop Til You Get DumasDon't Stop Til You Get Dumas
  • Cool Hunting: The Campana BrothersCool Hunting: The Campana Brothers
  • Art Theft Is NOT the 3rd ‘Biggest Criminal Enterprise in the World’Art Theft Is NOT the 3rd ‘Biggest Criminal Enterprise in the World’
  • Christie’s Paris Imp Mod = €14.4mChristie’s Paris Imp Mod = €14.4m

Filed Under: Auction Results

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • 14th-Century Painting to Sell at Auction Under Restitution Settlement with German-Jewish Art Historian’s Heir
  • Phillips Includes $2.5m Norman Rockwell Painting in November Evening Sale
  • Christie's Announces $70m Picasso Self Portrait
  • David Hockney's $20m Pacific Coast Highway & Santa Monica
  • Paris's Artcurial Reports $180.5 M. in Sales for 2020, Online Sales Volume Up 59 Percent
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor