Chinese businesswoman Alice Cheng paid a record high price of
HK$41.50 million (US$5.32 million) to buy a peach-patterned vase
made in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735), thus setting a new
auction record for porcelain from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The vase, sold at
auction, is decorated with peach and bat pattern in famille-rose
palette.
It
had been consigned for sale by the Ogden R. Reid, chairman of the
Council of American
Ambassadors and third generation publisher and editor of the Herald Tribune. His
mother, Helen Rodgers Reid, was also prominent in ambassadorial
circles and the vase came from her house in New York.
"The extraordinary interest that we saw prior to the sale during
viewing in America and Asia was born out by the stunning price
fetched for this unique piece," commented Henry Howard-Sneyd,
managing director of Sotheby's China and Southeast Asia.
"Prices rose at such a speed that many potential bidders never had
a chance to raise their paddles. Chinese art is clearly a force to
be reckoned with in the international art market," he added.
(Xinhua News
Agency May 8, 2002)