A 10½in (27cm) wide celadon glazed bowl offered at Bishop & Miller (20% buyer's premium) was carefully catalogued as bearing the six-character Qianlong mark and given a £300-500 estimate, leaving it to the market to judge.
Decorated to the exterior with flowers and branches and to the interior with a geometric edge, the bowl was in immaculate condition but auctioneer Oliver Miller was pretty confident that it was dated to c.1745.
Eight phone bidders and international online rivals at the July 31 sale at Stowmarket plainly agreed that the bowl was mark and period and it sold to a UK collector at £18,500.
The provenance showed the bowl had been bought by the vendor’s father at Liberty in 1956 for £58 – about £1350 in today’s money.
Chick hit
This Doucai chicken cup was cautiously catalogued as ‘Ming style... with apocryphal six character Chenghua mark to underside’ and given a £100-150 estimate by Dawson’s. It sold to a Chinese bidder at £6000.
Another cautiously catalogued piece of porcelain was a Doucai chicken cup described as ‘Ming style... with apocryphal six-character Chenghua mark to underside’ and given a £100-150 estimate by Dawson’s (23% buyer’s premium).
Again, bidders were confident that the 1½in (4cm) tall cup decorated with an enamel chicken, chicks and foliage was of age and value and it sold to a Chinese bidder at £6000.
