Rare vase sells for almost £1m at Yorkshire auction

The egg-shaped blue and white Chinese porcelain bottle vase, which bears the Qianlong reign mark and has distinctive scrolling lotus blossom within formal lappet panels, was sold to an undisclosed Chinese buyer on behalf of a seller based in the South of England.

The starting price for the decorative 20cm tall vase was £100,000 but following an intense, competitive but slow-paced auction lasting approximately 10 minutes, it was sold for £950,000.

As many as 20 potential Chinese buyers were attracted to family-run Tennants Auctioneers in North Yorkshire today for the first day of its spring fine art sale, but the winning bid was accepted by way of a telephone bid.

Nigel Smith, associate director at Tennants, said: “It was brought up from the South via our office in Oakham, Rutland.

“The client flagged it up when we sold a Yongzheng vase for £2.6m in November which got into the national press. They emailed an image of this one to enquire whether it was worth anything.

“The Chinese market is very buoyant for good things like this for home decoration and this vase will go back to China.”

The Yongzheng vase auctioned last autumn was a record for a single item at Tennants Auctioneers. The 39.2cm high piece was sold in an auction described as a ‘frenzied bidding war’ that increased at the rate of £100,000 a bid.

The Qianlong vase, sold at the auction house this week, is thought to have been made during the rule of the Quinlong Emperor, the fourth Qing emperor to rule China during a reign which lasted until the latter years of the 18th century. It was a period during which the Chinese empire grew to a size unpredented in Chinese history.

Mr Smith said he believed vases like this one were given out as special gifts and presented only to high ranking foreign diplomats of some merit in recognition of their service while serving in China.

It was bequeathed by the seller’s grandmother, Lady Ethel Margaret Stronge, to the their mother Mrs Rose Ethel Richardson of Tynan Abbey, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and then subsequently to her son, who presented the item to Tennants for auction.

Lady Ethel Margaret married Sir Frances Stronge who joined the diplomatic service in London in 1879 and records show him as serving in the diplomatic service in Peking; now known as Beijing, in the same year. Sir Frances went on to serve in the Supreme Court in Shanghai in 1885 before serving in Central America between 1897 and 1907.

According to a letter dated March 29, 1925, the Qianlong and a second vase, was purchased as many as 40 years earlier.

Tennants’ fine art sale, involving 1,484 items, concludes today[SAT].