Several years ago I looked at the results of a Leslie Hindman auction where a small (something like 3″ wide x 2″ tall) antique yellow-glazed Chinese porcelain bowl was estimated to sell for $600-800. When the dust cleared, it sold for around six figures. The initial view was that the imperial yellow bowl was a copy, but upon inspection by various experts, the opinion was that the bowl was indeed an authentic piece. More recently. a pair of famille rose plates with a $2,000-$4,000 estimate sold at Hindman’s for $435,000. I believe they realized after the estimate that they were earlier pieces than originally thought.
This is an example of the extreme passion and competitiveness in the Chinese antique market. I encountered this kind of phenomenon last year when I listed a small Guanxu period (1875-1908) Chinese bowl on Ebay. I’d bought it for $35 at a local estate sale. Unlike the items above, it was heavily repaired and repainted, but I had the sense that the quality of the piece was quite good, and would probably be worth several thousand dollars if it was not heavily repaired. I started the bidding at $99 and waited. After one day, there were no bids and no one was watching the bowl. But then something strange happened. I was contacted by a buyer who asked me if I’d end the auction early and sell the bowl for $200. A few hours later someone else asked me if I’d sell the piece for $500 – all the while no one had even placed a single bid. When I heard $500 I felt like I should take the offer – and did. Soon it was shipped to China – at which point I got an offer for $1,000!
Guangxu Period Chinese Famille Rose Bowl, Repaired
From this I learned a valuable lesson – no need to hurry when considering offers like these. Also I learned that I needed to look for more such pieces in the future.
With that said, there’s an extreme degree of risk in Chinese porcelain – for each authentic work there are probably 10,000 fakes or reproductions. I think both buyers and sellers get caught up thinking they have authentic pieces when in fact they are fake – and your mistakes can be very expensive. A good place to begin researching a Chinese piece is on gotheborg.com – it includes a great reference of porcelain marks.
I have another one of these types of finds which I plan to sell in the near future – a repaired famille rose porcelain bowl with Daoguang marks (China, 1821-1850) featuring medallion decorations. I have a sense of the date because, well, there’s a label on the bottom of the bowl that places it in that period. Here’s some photos of the bowl – the mark is consistent with the Daoguang era, but it’s the same mark that was used in earlier periods, which is partly why it’s so difficult to authenticate or date these kinds of things.
This type of bowl can be highly sought-after — one example sold for £26,000 in 2014.
Daoguang (China 1821-1850) Blue Ground Famille Rose Medallion Porcelain Bowl, Repaired
I’ll update this entry after the bowl sells – and let you know if my purchase was overly optimistic or wildly underestimated.