A 1,000-year-old Chinese bowl from the Song dynasty has sold for $37.7 million (£28.5 million) at Sotheby's in New York, setting a new world auction record for Chinese ceramics. The small dish, originally used to wash brushes, dates from the Northern Song period (960-1127) and features a luminous blue glaze.
The bidding started at around $10.2 million and lasted 20 minutes before a phone bidder secured the piece. The sale surpassed the previous record of $36.05 million set in 2014 for a Ming dynasty wine cup sold to a Shanghai tycoon.
According to Sotheby's, the bowl is an extremely rare example of imperial porcelain, with only four such pieces in private hands worldwide. Measuring just 13cm in diameter, it is one of the finest surviving examples of Ru guanyao, a type of ceramic made exclusively for the imperial court.
The auction house confirmed the sale broke the 'world auction record for any Chinese ceramics'. The previous record was held by a tiny white porcelain cup decorated with a rooster and hen, created during the Chenghua emperor's reign (1465-1487), which sold in 2014 to Chinese financier Liu Yiqian.
