Charity shop given cracked and damaged pot celebrates £360,000 windfall

[Serpo]

Thanks my old China: Charity shop given cracked and damaged pot celebrates £360,000 windfall at auction after discovering it was made by famous artist


By Craig Mackenzie (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Craig+Mackenzie)
PUBLISHED: 12:01 GMT, 27 May 2012 | UPDATED: 13:12 GMT, 27 May 2012


(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150636/Charity-shop-given-cracked-damaged-pot-celebrates--360-000-windfall-discovering-famous-artist.html#comments)


A small damaged pot donated to a charity shop has stunned the art world after it sold for an astonishing £360,000.

The Chinese bamboo brush pot was taken to the store in a carrier bag along with some other junk, but keen-eyed staff spotted that it might be old.

It turned out to have been made between 1662 and 1722 by one of the most famous artists of the day, Gu Jue.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/27/article-0-135173A3000005DC-786_634x591.jpg Pot luck: The damaged Chinese bamboo brush pot which was donated to the charity shop

The shop raises money for the St Peter's Hospice in Bristol and average turnover of each of the charity's 47 outlets is 138,000 pounds.

It means that the one donation has achieved the same amount as nearly three years of trading in one shop - and it is all profit.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/27/article-0-13517601000005DC-451_306x423.jpg Chinese puzzle: The writing found on the brush pot made by a famous artist

Despite the bamboo being extensively cracked and the base and rim having been crudely repaired with glue, the item excited the Chinese market.

There was furious bidding at Woolley and Wallis saleroom in Salisbury, Wilts, which oversaw the sale.

There are only two or three people in the world who have the skill to restore it and one of them will no doubt be contacted by the new owner, who is from Hong Kong.

The pot - 16.2cm high by 14.5cm - was carved with magnificent skill to depict a scene including the philosopher Laozi on his ox.

He sits amidst 12 figures in various pursuits in a mountainous landscape beneath pine trees and beside a flowing river.

It probably depicts 'The Agreeable Life in a Land of Transcendents', a famous poem. After the pot was handed in the shop staff in Bristol took it to the local Clevedon Salerooms, where Marc Burridge realised its potential.

He took it to John Axford, a world-renowned expert in Chinese objects, from Woolley and Wallis.

Mr Axford said: 'The pot was extensively damaged and the wood had dried and cracked and there was nasty glue stuck to it.

'Luckily its potential was spotted and it is an incredibly rare thing made by one of the most sought after bamboo artists of the 17th century. Scholars in China at the time had a range of accoutrements and the creation of those became an art in itself.

'This would have been used to hold calligraphy brushes and was carved using specialist knives. It is signed with the mark of Gu Jue, followed by the seal Zong Yu, which is probably a studio mark.

'The scene depicts a poem and it is very often hard to identify exactly which one it is. There was real international interest in the pot and all our phone lines were booked.

'I'm sure it will be restored, but there are only two or three people in the world who have the skills to do it.'

Janet Loud, St Peter's Hospice Head of Shops, said: 'We are shocked but delighted that this brush pot far exceeded the amount even experts believed it would raise at auction.

'It is a fantastic boost for St Peter's Hospice in these difficult economic times when fund-raising is tough.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150636/Charity-shop-given-cracked-damaged-pot-celebrates--360-000-windfall-discovering-famous-artist.html#ixzz1w7RRuFdn

[Jersey Thursday]

Reminds me of this story from a couple of years ago.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/ap_zachary_bodish_jef_120511_wg.jpg

Zachary Bodish, 46, of Columbus, Ohio, bought what he thought was a poster reproduction advertising an exhibit of Pablo Picasso for $14.14 in a thrift store and sold it for $7,000 to a private buyer.
Bodish, 46, said he went to a Volunteers of America store in Clintonville, Ohio on March 1. He was looking for mid-century furniture housewards or "kitschy art" to re-sell. Bodish, who lost his job as a house manager at the Wexner Center for the Arts about two years ago, uses the hobby to supplement his income. He has a part-time job as he looks for more permanent work in the arts.
"I would have liked to have kept it but I'm somewhat underemployed at the moment," Bodish said. "I really needed the money. If it hadn't been worth very much, only $2,000, I probably would have kept it."
Bodish said a few buyers had made an offer and he had even met with a representative at Christie's auction house in New York City. That representative estimated verbally that Christie's could list the piece in its catalog for $2,500 to $3,000 and it could sell for $4,000, Bodish said.
No one he spoke to gave him an offer as high as the final bidder, who contacted Bodish through the phone book.
"This particular buyer. We just got along well," Bodish said.
Because the piece was never officially appraised on paper, the buyer took a leap of faith that it was authentic.
"He felt fairly confident," Bodish said of the buyer, who has given Bodish "visitation rights."
"I think all parties were pretty darn happy about it," Bodish said of the transaction.

The owner who donated the piece to the thrift store said a friend gave the print to him as a gift in the 1960s. Ed Zettler, a retired teacher from Columbus, acknowledges he gave up his rights to the print when he donated it.
"I'm glad that the guy that got it recognized something about it," Zettler told the Columbus Dispatch after the newspaper first reported about the thrifty discovery. "I am pleased for him."
Though Bodish never had the print appraised, Picasso experts said the work is most likely a linocut for which Picasso carved a design into linoleum that was then pressed onto paper with ink by a printer.
Todd Weyman, vice president of Swann Auction Galleries in New York City, had estimated that, if authentic, the print's fair market value at auction could be $4,000 to $6,000, based on sales of comparable works during the past 10 to 15 years.
On April 25, Swann Auction Galleries sold a Picasso linocut with three colors for $7,500 which was estimated to bring in about $10,000 to $15,000.
Weyman said an auction for a similar linocut through Christie's in London sold for $4,700 in March 2007. Another was sold in March 2006 through Sotheby's of London for $4,600.
Picasso created the "poster" from the thrift store for an annual pottery show for the city of Vallauris, France in 1958, according to Lisa Florman, an art professor at The Ohio State University. Picasso may have made prints for the annual exhibition every year from 1954 for several years.
In addition to the 100 numbered "original" linocuts, which were signed by the artist, it is possible some photolithographic reproductions were made, Florman said.