Yahoo Finance Rare 17th century China bowl sells for bumper £21.5 million at auction
A delicate bowl dating back to 17th century China has sold at auction for an astonishing £21.5 million.
Known as a Falangcai Bowl, it features four, five-lobed panels which each contain a different flower – cinnamon rose, hibiscus, poppy with tuberose, and gardenia with mallow.
It was fired by potters at the Imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, before being painted in the Imperial Palace workshops in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
MORE: Broken teapot bought for £15 sells for staggering £460,000 at auction
It was made for the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled China from 1662 until 1722.
The bowl, which has a circumference of just 14.7cm, is regarded by experts as the finest example of its type and the only ever recorded with this design.
Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, said: “This is the finest piece of ‘falangcai’, painted at the imperial workshops in the Imperial City in Beijing in close proximity of the living quarters of the Kangxi Emperor, by Jesuits working for him.
“Although there are a few other recorded pieces of this type, in the Palace Museum in Beijing and in Taipei, this is the absolute finest example known to exist.
“The price it achieved is amongst the very highest we’ve ever seen for Chinese porcelain.”
MORE: 1000-year-old imperial China bowl sells for world record £28 million
This bowl, which hasn’t been seen on the market for more than 30 years, has a documented history stretching back to Shanghai, 1930.
Sotheby’s auctioned off the bowl in Hong Kong on Tuesday – and it ended up selling for £21.5 million.
MORE: This rare Leica camera sold for a world record £2.1 million
The bowl, bought by an anonymous bidder, was previously sold in London in 1937. A year later it was bought by the celebrated collector Henry M. Knight.
While the bowl is believed to be unique, there is a closely related example which takes pride of place at the the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
It is painted with different flowers but it is thought the two bowls were painted and fired side by side.
