Chinese tycoon Liu Yiqian splashed out nearly HK$114 million ($14.71 million) on an ancient vase at auction in Hong Kong Tuesday.
The octagonal piece, an 800-year-old Southern Song Dynasty work tinted a milky blue, broke the guide price of $7.7 million at the Sotheby’s sale.
The vase is from the same collection as a Chinese porcelain bowl which fetched nearly $27 million at a Sotheby’s sale in April 2012 (above). That price was a record for Song Dynasty ceramics.
Taxi-driver-turned-financier Liu — chairman of investment company Sunline Group — is one of China’s wealthiest men and among the country’s new class of super-rich scouring the globe for artworks.
The 51 year-old broke the world auction record for Chinese porcelain in April last year when he bought a Ming Dynasty wine cup for $36 million, which he subsequently famously drank tea from.
In November he snapped up a Tibetan silk tapestry for $45 million at Christie’s in Hong Kong, setting another world record for any Chinese work of art sold by an international auction house.
Liu, who also owns his own museum in Shanghai, has said he is on a mission to bring ancient Chinese artefacts back to the country.
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