Target practice vase loses family £150,000

A GAME of “hit the target” involving an old vase and a football has cost two siblings £150,000 after the item was identified 40 years later to be a valuable antique.

The brother and sister took the tall glass vase from a table on a landing and took turns to balance it on their heads and throw a ball at it. The sister scored a direct hit and the precious piece fell to the floor and broke. It was later repaired but bore a 12-inch crack on one side thereafter.

Earlier this year the pair inherited the vase along with other objects from their parents and called in auctioneers.

The piece was identified as having been made by French artist Emile Galle for the Paris Exhibition in 1900 where the siblings’ great-grandfather bought it. It sold at auction for almost £48,000 but would have gone for £200,000 had it been undamaged.

John Keightley, head of decorative arts at Hansons Auctioneers of Derbys, had cautiously estimated the vase at £800, mainly because of the damage.

But two weeks before the vase was sold he received huge interest from would-be buyers which prompted auctioneer Charles Hanson to start the bidding at £15,000. It eventually sold for a hammer price of £39,000, but with fees added on the total price paid by the private collector was £47,580.

The vase was made using a technique that allows different textures and translucencies of glass to be combined. After being exhibited and bought at the Paris Exhibition, it remained in the same home in Sutton Coldfield, Warks, for more than a century.

Mr Keightley said: “The brother and sister were fairly pleased with the result of the sale. It was way more than they were expecting. They were quite pragmatic about it and about what they had done because it was so long ago.”