A rare Chinese Bowl which was bought for less than £2 pounds has been sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York for nearly £1.5 million pounds. The winning bid came from London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi, one of the world’s most respected dealers of Chinese and Asian art.

The seller (an unnamed New York family) acquired the Northern Song Dynasty rice bowl after visiting a jumble sale. Not knowing its true value, it sat for many years in their living room. They became curious of where the bowl originated from and put it up for auction after consulting an expert. Sotheby’s estimated it would sell for around £70,000 to £150,000 pounds.  

Asia Week 2013 New York 

Sotheby’s celebrates the cultures of Asia, some of the world’s oldest and most diverse, between 14th and 21st March with a week of exhibitions, lectures and events that are coordinated within the city-wide initiative of ‘Asia Week New York.’

This year’s Asia Week includes our auction of the Amaya Collection of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art, the first-ever evening sale in this category, which features work produced over the past fifty years on the Indian subcontinent. Leading the Indian & Southeast Asian Art sale are Indian folk art, including the famed Demon Bronze, and Himalayan works from the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

China’s past and present are both in full force in this year’s exhibitions and auctions. A collection of jades from a Private North American Collection and blue and white porcelain from an Important American Collection are highlights of the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale. Chinese paintings and calligraphy from the early Qing and Ming dynasties lead the Fine Classical Chinese Paintings auction. Contemporary China is represented by the S|2 selling exhibition, “Shuimo / Water Ink: Chinese Contemporary Ink Paintings,” featuring fourteen artists reinterpreting and renewing the art of Chinese ink painting.