Bonhams capitalised on the strong market for classical Chinese furniture to set the two highest prices of the London Asian art auction series, writes Roland Arkell.
A set of four Ming dynasty huanghuali folding chairs or jiaoyi sold at £4.5m, and a pair of tapering cabinets or yuanjiaogui (£1.4m) helped the firm’s November 9 Chinese art sale to a market-topping £9.9m.
The chairs, documented by the scholar Gustav Ecke in 1944, are the only known examples of their type, with multiple bidders attacking the £150,000-200,000 estimate.