Furious bidding war erupts at west London auction house as Chinese collectors bid more than £50,000 for bowls worth just £200
- The two 20th century Sanduo bowls were listed for sale by Olympia Auctions
- Desperate collectors showed they were willing to pay 250 times the guide price
- It comes days after a racing pigeon sold for £1.4m to a mystery Chinese buyer
A pair of Chinese ceramic bowls, valued at just £200 at auction, sparked offers of more than £50,000 after a bidding war broke out between collectors today.
The items, listed as a pair of 20th century Chinese copper-red and blue-ground Sanduo bowls, were sold by Olympia Auctions in west London.
The listing describes them as being part of a private European collection, acquired in Hong Kong, 1989, just over six inches (15.5cm) in diameter, with an estimated price of between £200 and £300.
A pair of Chinese ceramic bowls, valued at just £200 at auction, sparked offers of more than £50,000 after a bidding war broke out between collectors
The items, listed as a pair of 20th century Chinese copper-red and blue-ground Sanduo bowls, were sold by Olympia Auctions in west London
It adds that they each have ‘deep rounded sides rising from a short foot to an everted rim, brightly decorated around the exterior with the three red fruit reserved against a blue ground, the interior white, the base with apocryphal Kangxi reign marks’.
A spokesperson for the Works of Art department at Olympia Auctions said: ‘These were bowls were from a good private collection, and the result also reflects the buoyancy of the competitive Chinese market.’
Meanwhile, a pair of 20th century Chinese Doucai bowls, painted around the exterior with floral strap work, also sold today for some £29,000.
It comes just days after a racing pigeon was sold at auction for more than £1.4 million to a mystery Chinese buyer.
The three-year-old hen called New Kim was sold by Belgian auctioneers Pigeon Paradise (PIPA) in an online auction for 1.6 million euros on Sunday.
The sale beat the 1.25 million euros paid last year for male pigeon Armando, dubbed the Lewis Hamilton of the sport which has become highly lucrative in China.
In a frantic final half hour of bidding, two Chinese buyers using the pseudonyms Super Duper and Hitman sent the price for New Kim sky-rocketing.
The champion bird from Antwerp is likely to be used by the unnamed buyer for breeding.
‘I believe it’s a world record, there has never been an officially documented sale at such a price,’ PIPA chairman Nikolaas Gyselbrecht said. ‘I didn’t think we could reach that amount.’
New Kim won the 2018 crown as ‘Ace Pigeon Grand National Middle Distance’ in competitions held at Châteauroux and Argenton-sur-Creuse in France.
The listing describes the bowls, pictured left and right, as being part of a private European collection, acquired in Hong Kong, 1989, just over six inches (15.5cm) in diameter, with an estimated price of between £200 and £300
Meanwhile, a pair of 20th century Chinese Doucai bowls, painted around the exterior with floral strap work, also sold today for some £29,000
Top European birds have won global fame in recent years and particularly in China where pigeon racing can generate huge winnings.
Wealthy buyers from the Gulf and Asia have forced up prices for champion birds for their instinctive ability to fly hundreds of miles and find their way back home.
New Kim was trained by father and son Gaston and Kurt Van De Wouwer at their world-class loft in Berlaar, near Antwerp.
They sold their entire ‘collection’ of pigeons on Sunday.