Chinese ceramic bowl sells for $37.7 million

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A 1,000-year-old Chinese bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127 AD) sold for 37.7 million US dollars in Hong Kong on Tuesday at the auction house Sotheby's Autumn Sales - a new record high for Chinese ceramics.

"It's a totally new benchmark for Chinese ceramics and we've made history with this piece today," said Nicolas Chow, deputy chairman of Sotheby's Asia.

Screenshot from Sotheby's

The bowl, measured 13 cm in diameter, was originally designed to wash Chinese brushes.

Potted with shallow rounded sides rising from a slightly splayed foot, the bowl is glazed in a translucent bluish-green with a dense network of glistening ice crackles. Its underside is embedded with three 'sesame-seed' spur marks. These are three typical features of the Ru Official Ware at that time (currently in Baofeng County in central China’s Henan province).

Screenshot from Sotheby's ‍

The price tag of the bowl exceeds the earlier record of 36.05 million US dollars set in 2014 made by a tiny white article known as the "chicken cup", decorated with a color painting of a rooster and a hen tending to their chicks, and created during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor (r. 1465 – 1487).

The chicken cup in the period of Ming Chenghua. / Palace Museum Photo

The bowl epitomizes extremely rare Chinese ceramics from the Ru Official Ware one of the imperial kilns of the Northern Song Dynasty, and is one of only four such pieces in private hands, according to Sotheby's.

Renowned for the subtlety, simplicity and exquisite glazing, Song ceramics have long been among the most sought after objects for collectors.

1970km