Chichester man’s vase reaches £66,000 at auction

The vase’s reserve price was just £100, meaning the unknown seller is about to collect a further £65,900 than he hoped.

The bronze vase sold at Henry Adams Fine Art Auctioneers, in Baffins Lane, yesterday afternoon (April 18).

Lynn Corbett, the auctioneer’s fine art administrator, said she had been unable to contact the seller to give him the good news, because he was out of the country.

He is from the Chichester area.

“He’s unaware at the moment, so he’s expecting £100 for it,” she said.

It had been brought into the auctioneers, and Lynn described it as an ‘interesting piece’ with the usual character marks on the base, but the seller had put a reserve of just £100 on it.

“I think from the start we were aware it would probably get more than £100 to £200,” she added.

“We took photographs and put them on the net for a worldwide audience.”

She added people from all over had expressed interest in the vase and there were ‘numerous’ people in the salesroom bidding yesterday.

“It went down to one bidder in the room against two on the phone.

“The bidder in the room pulled out at £50,000. It got up to £66,000,” she said.

She said the vase sold to ‘rapturous applause’.

Only an hour previously a porcelain vase, with no reserve, was sold in the same room for £24,000, which had also come as a huge surprise.

It had been considered this would be the highest selling of the two vases.

“The bronze was an afterthought,” Lynn said.

Both vases were bought by buyers from China and the vases will soon be transported to the country of their origin.

The Chinese bronze vase was described as having a slight gilt decoration and a circular body, with motif roundels and bats with a slender neck and side ornament. It had four character marks to the base and was 18cm high.