Farmhouse vase found sitting on drawers sells for £4,000

The estimated sale price for the vase was between £2,000 and £4,000

A rare vase that spent years sitting on a chest of drawers has sold for £4,000 at auction.

The 17th Century Chinese piece was identified by antiques expert Paul Fox during a visit to a Northamptonshire farmhouse.

After some competitive bidding it was snapped up by a private buyer for £5,248, including fees, at Oxfordshire-based auctioneers Hanson Holloway.

Mr Fox said it dated from 1640 and had passed through several generations.

"We traced the provenance and and it appears to have come out of China well before the 20th century", Paul Fox said

A guide price of £2,000-£4,000 had been set for the 38-inch (97cm)-tall vase, which went under the hammer in Banbury.

It has a crack on its neck and is painted with scholars in a fenced garden, below two bands of flowers.

It was most likely brought back to the United Kingdom in the early to mid-18th Century, Mr Fox added, and would have been passed down in the same family for eight or nine generations.

The auction house would not reveal the buyer but confirmed that "competitive" bidding started at £2,000.

It was sold for £5,248, or £4,000 after fees, it confirmed.

Previously Mr Fox said: "Beautiful historical objects like this are in huge demand with wealthy Chinese collectors.

"They are keen to repatriate important antiques to their homeland to honour and celebrate their country's exceptional ceramics heritage."

It is thought the rare Chinese vase was brought to the United Kingdom in the 18th Century

Mr Fox said: "It was tucked away among more modern Chinese ceramics on top of a chest of drawers. It took my eye and immediately struck me as important."

When he examined it he "became excited", he added.

"Our client tells us an ancestor went to seek his fortune in India and rose to become governor of Fort St George, a fortress at the coastal city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1639, it was the first English fortress in India. He later worked for the East India Company."

It had been on display at the family seat in Wales from the mid-19th Century until it was sold in the early 1970s.

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