Tiny Chinese ‘heaven jar’ bought for £9 and left to gather dust sells at auction for £1MILLION
The owners of the four-inch pot had no idea of its worth until an expert to look at some other pieces they were selling to pay for flood damage
A TINY porcelain jar bought for less than a tenner before it was left to gather dust on a shelf in a spare room has sold for £1million.
The owners of the four-inch pot had no idea of its worth until they invited an expert to look at some other pieces when they were trying to raise cash to pay for flood damage to their home.
The blue, white and green vessel was identified as an incredibly rare Chinese “heaven jar" dating back nearly 300 years.
Several were made for the Chinese Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty but few exist today.
London's Victoria and Albert Museum has one with no lid, and three more are in museums in the Far East.
The jar was bought as a present for the owner's parents from a London antique shop in May 1946 for £9 10s - around £350 in today's money.
Although they had no appreciation of Chinese art they kept the piece and passed it down the family.
It was discovered by Asian art specialist John Axford of Woolley and Wallis auctioneers of Salibsury, Wilts, on a shelf in a room being used for storage in a property in northern England.
Yesterday it sold for a hammer price of £820,000. With auction fees the total price paid by the winning Chinese bidder in the room was a cool £1million.
The stunned vendors - who did not want to be named - watch the sale from the back of the auction room and were last seen heading off for a"very good lunch" afterwards.
Mr Axford said of discovering the rare piece: "I found it on a shelf in a room on the ground floor that was being used for storage.
"It had a label on the bottom of Bluett & Sons - a dealer in London that no longer exists but their archive does.
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"The records show the jar was bought as a present on May 1, 1946 for £9 10s.
"That was quite a large sum in those days but relatively cheap compared to what it is worth now.
"It has been passed down one generation. The vendors were very pleased with the result.
"My attention wasn't on them during the bidding but I saw them and spoke to them afterwards and they said they were off for a very good lunch.
"They originally didn't think it was worth anything it at all so to have lots of people from China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan getting excited about it was very surreal for them.
"The only reason the vendors sold it in the first place was because they had a flood in their home which they had to pay to repair. I should think they will have quite a bit of money left over."
The jars were made sometime between 1723 and 1735. It is painted in underglaze blue with two winged dragons in flight amongst scrolling clouds.
The design is actually a replica of a jar dating back to the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century but was brought back 300 years later at the command of the Imperial palace.
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