A Chinese Qing period white jade seal made 630,000 at Sheppards in Durrow today. The top lot came at the culmination of a highly successful three day Dublin and Provincial auction. From the Marie Louise Beauvoir collection the jade seal, just three centimeters high, was a classic sleeper lot. It had been estimated at a mere 4,000-6,000. The highest price ever paid for an antique lot at auction in Ireland came after a 20 minute bidding battle between a buyer on the telephone from Beijing and another on the internet from the Chinese city of Jingdezhen.
The second most expensive lot in the sale, a Chinese Ming blue and white yuhuchunping vase estimated at 150,000-200,000 sold for 180,000.