A Chinese porcelain pot, about 11 centimeters in diameter, was sold for more than $25 million at an auction organized by Sotheby's in Hong Kong.
The auction house described the vessel as "extremely important," noting that most of the other remaining specimens are now preserved in the Palace Museum in Taiwan.
This masterpiece is among a rare collection of porcelain pieces made in Beijing during the 18th century during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, who ruled China from 1722 to 1735.
The bowl, valued at $25.3 million at auction, depicts two swallows, a flowering apricot tree and a willow tree, and contains extracts from a poem believed to have been commissioned by Emperor Wanli, of the Ming dynasty that ruled China before the Qing dynasty.
Ceramics expert Regina Krahl said that motifs showing birds and flowers were common in the Yongcheng period, noting that this bowl was among the items representing "the pinnacle of ceramic painting."
The bowl was one of two bowls collected by a dealer in Shanghai in the late nineteenth century, and then sold each in 1929 for 150 pounds sterling (about $ 9,400).
The auction house said the other pot is now being held at the British Museum in London.
The second pot has been sold several times over the past decades, and was sold for $19.3 million in 2006 for businesswoman, Alice Cheng. Source: CNN
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