By Jess Casey and Des O’SullivanA Ming masterpiece, discovered when a Cork family brought it for a routine valuation, has sold under the hammer at €610,000, €490,000 more than it was expected to fetch. Sheppard’s Irish Auction House in Durrow, Co Laois, imposed a special condition of no internet bidding on the piece. The value of the heirloom was revealed in September, when a Cork family visited the evaluation event with the piece, which they thought might be worth a few thousand euro. “Everything about it was consistent with being an authentic Ming blue and white flask, dating from the Yongle period.”The Yongle Emperor, the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigned from 1402 to 1424. Mr Sheppard would not name the owners of the piece, other than to say they are “an old Cork family, with connections going back to a colonial past — India during the Raj”.

Source: Irish Examiner November 08, 2019 05:42 UTC