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This Chinese vase with an estimate of €1,500-€2,000 sold for €7.7 million at an auction in Fontainebleau near Paris on October 1. A bidding war by almost 30 Chinese bidders brought it to a hammer price of almost 4,000 times the estimated value. With fees the cost amounts to €9.12 million. Auctioneers Osenat said the vase had been consigned by a woman living in a French overseas territory who was left it by her mother. The seller had not seen the vase, which is 54 centimetres tall, and had arranged for it to be taken from her mother’s home in Brittany by the auctioneers. The vase had originally belonged to her grandmother, a Parisian collector. Tianqiuping means heavenly sphere. The auctioneers said that from the moment the catalogue was published it generated enormous interest, but that their expert considered the vase to be not old.