Report by Roland Arkell
“It was one of those eureka moments,” said Rosemary Scott, Chinese ceramics specialist at Christie’s. “My colleague Jeremy Morgan was on a perfectly normal valuation visit when he walked into the drawing room and there, on the mantelpiece, he saw these vases. He couldn’t believe his eyes.”
Crowning the recent Asian art sales – and bringing more than a third of the total take across the £33m series – was a splendid pair of Qianlong (1736-95) mark and period famille rose ‘butterfly’ double-gourd vases.