London, Nov 30 (ANI): A miniature Chinese snuff bottle measuring just three inches high has smashed the world record for a snuff bottle, which was set 18 months ago, by selling for 2 million pounds.
Collectors eager to snap up the highly prized artifact, battled it out pushing the price five times over the pre-sale estimate of 400,000 pounds.
The 18th century antique, eventually sold for the colossal amount to a private Asian collector over the telephone, is adorned with decorative scenes of Chinese landscapes and portraits of a young woman and topped with a mother of pearl stopper.
The enamelled glass object was created in the Imperial Palace workshops in Peking, now Beijing, during the reign of Emperor Qianlong.
It has been the highlight of a series of sales organised by Bonhams auction house in Hong Kong to disperse one enormous collection acquired by George and Mary Bloch during the 1980s.
"This bottle was part of the world's largest and finest collection of snuff bottles," the Daily Mail quoted Colin Sheaf, from Bonhams as saying.
"The Blochs started buying at a very high level. It's impossible to know how much they would have paid for each of them originally, because there are so many," he said.
The latest sale is the fourth in the series to sell the rare items that date from the 17th and 18th centuries, which were bought by Mary and her late husband over the past 30 years when they lived and worked in the Far East manufacturing watches, computer parts and kitchens. (ANI)
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