AP Photo
Posted on 11/19/2004 2:05:58 PM PST by JusticeTalion
SAN FRANCISCO - A hand-me-down dish used for crab dinners fetched a record $5.7 million in an auction this week, after art experts determined it was extremely rare Ming dynasty porcelain.
The flowery, copper-red plate — which set a record for Ming art sold in a U.S. auction — once belonged to Elinor Majors Carlisle, a Berkeley businesswoman who became a public education crusader and suffragette in the 1890s.
Carlisle's father, Alexander Majors, co-founded a transcontinental freight transport company that later became the Pony Express.
Carlisle picked up the plate in the early 1900s, during one of three voyages to China. She used the plate to serve family style crab dinners.
"I could not believe my eyes when I saw it," said Dessa Goddard, director of Asian Art at auction house Bonhams & Butterfields. "It had remained in such wonderful condition despite centuries of use, and the color was so brilliant. ... I felt confident that we had found something very special."
Although the 18-inch-diameter under-glaze dish was in the family home for about a century, Carlisle's great-grandchildren didn't know its origin until art experts examined the piece. It dates from the Hongwu period (1368-98), during the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor.
The auction house, which sent the dish to New York, Hong Kong and London for showings with collectors, estimated in September it was worth up to $2 million. San Francisco-based Bonhams & Butterfields, the world's third largest auction house, often features Asian works and specializes in West Coast relics such as rare wines, antique guns and "Disneyana".
The Ming plate features a central medallion of chrysanthemums, surrounded by a band of peony blossoms and a rim of lingzhi fungus. It depicts pomegranate and camellia blossoms and has a salmon-colored base wiped with translucent glaze.
On Wednesday, three international aficionados ratcheted up bids until Italian-born art dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi dished out $5.7 million. Eskenazi, who has been working out of offices in London since the 1950s, has distributed art to more than 70 institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.
God bless our troops wherever they may be.
How many copies could you make for a hundred bucks?
Yes, but is it microwave safe?
WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Bill Clinton would buy $5,000,000 plates, just to keep Hillary from throwing them at him....
Good thing that dish wasn't in my house. I would have broken it with my plastic Thor hammer.
"Carlisle's great-grandchildren didn't know its origin until art experts examined the piece. "
Can you say 'Antiques Road Show'?
LOL!
Funny thing is, 30 minutes after you eat off it you're hungry again.
Too bad they sold it so soon. Crab season just opened...
My recall of that show was a desk or some furniture sold at auction after appearing on the show for nearly half a million. I think those twin furniture experts had pegged it at some hundreds of thousands on the show. I also recall an Indian chief blanket that was appraised at around 200k. The expert called the blanket a national treasure at the time.
Or used it to play "discus thrower" out in the back yard :)
The owners did have the sense to get it looked at instead of selling it in a garage sale.
How many times have you heard of somebody finding a painting or artifact at a yard sale for pennies on the dollar? It seems these people had at least a clue of it's value. However, I'm sure they were shocked to find out what that value really was.
Now I know what one looks like, I'm off to a garage sale to find my fortune. Even better if it's microwaveable!
See how easy it is? Imagine that - a microwavable dishwasher safe fortune just waiting at somebody's yard sale for me.
However, the greater problem of E-bay is fraud..side from the crooks who never send the merchandise..the provenance/authenticity of much of the stuff on E-bay is questionable..I read an article recently that said that as much as 60-75% of so-called "sports memorabilia and collectibles" are outright forgeries...
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