Following the success of last week’s Asia Week sales series at Sotheby’s New York, a rare Chinese ‘Famille-Rose’ ‘Millefleurs’ altar garniture bearing six character Qianlong marks and of the period, sold for $2.098 million (twice its estimate). The garniture has provenance going back to England at the end of the
19th century, and was further distinguished by the fact that all five pieces have survived together. The sale was part of Property of a Palm Beach Private Collector, which achieved $8.4 million and contained a strong group of over 80 pieces of Chinese porcelain and works of art. Other highlights from the Chinese works included a group of six rare Chinese ‘Famille-Rose’ ‘Soldier’ Vases offered over two lots–one as a pair and one as a group of four–which achieved $1.56 million in total. Today represented possibly the first time that six vases of this rare, large and highly-decorative form have appeared together in one sale.