Granny’s wall dish sells for £280k
IT was known as ‘granny’s dish’ and kept in a cupboard after being passed down the generations of a Scots family.
But yesterday the plate, which was actually an 18th century piece from China, sold for £280,000 at auction.
The blue and white antique was inherited by three siblings two years ago from their grandmother, who had displayed the dish by hanging it on her living room wall.
Unsure what to do with the plate, the trio put it in a cardboard box in a cupboard until they recently invited a local auctioneer to take a look.
Charles Hanson identified the reign mark for the Yongzheng Emperor stamped on the bottom, and said the piece was 300 years old.
The plate attracted a great deal of interest from Chinese collectors, who flocked to Mr Hanson’s Derbyshire auction house for a closer look. Bidding raced past the pre-sale estimate of £30,000 and sold for a hammer price of £230,000. With fees, the Chinese phone buyer will pay £278,000.
The blue plate measures 13 inches in diameter and is decorated on both sides with white flower- ing blossoms on leafy branches. A version of the same item is displayed at the National Museum of China, while a similar dish is on show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The piece once belonged to Alexander Robertson, who was born in Thornhill, Dumfries-shire, in 1861. In 1881, he went to America to seek his fortune and became vice-president of the Continental and Commercial Bank of Chicago.
He bought the plate in 1911 for an unknown fee. After his death in 1922, his possessions were shipped back to Edinburgh and divided between relations. The dish remained in the family for 95 years, until yesterday’s auction.
A member of the family, who asked to remain anonymous, said: ‘We knew the dish was valuable because our auntie took it along to TV’s Antiques Roadshow in the 1990s and they said it was worth £20,000 then. My auntie, who lived with my granny, used to hang it on the wall but I was too scared to have it on show when my family inherited it... I put it away in a box inside a cupboard.’
Mr Hanson said: ‘To own such a rare and important piece is hugely appealing to many collectors.
‘The plate had been kept in a box in a kitchen cupboard at a house in south Derbyshire ever since our client inherited it from her granny two years ago. It’s in good condition, even though granny did put a metal plate mount around it.
‘We are delighted with the price.’
‘I put it away in a box in the cupboard’