A hand-me-down dish used for crab dinners fetched a record US$5.7 million in an auction in San Francisco last week, after art experts determined it was extremely rare porcelain from China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
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 46-centimeter-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 (1368-1398), 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 US$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 US$5.7 million. Eskenazi, who has been working out of offices in London since the 1950s, has distributed art to more than 70 institutions.
(Shenzhen Daily/Agencies November 22, 2004)
