Online Bidder Spends $3.3 Million at Christie's Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Sep 17th 2010 at 9:01PM

Would you spend over $3 million in a few clicks? One eager collector did. Christie's announced that the top lot in Thursday's sale of The Sze Yuan Tang Archaic Bronzes from the Anthony Hardy Collection went to an online bidder who paid $3,330,500 for a bronze wine vessel and cover, Fangyi late Shang dynasty, Anyang. The winning bidder was an American collector who competed against bidders in the saleroom and on the phone. The object is believed to have been a prized ritual vessel at the time of its creation in 12th-11th century BC and is marked with the names of the clan of the artisans who created it and the ancestors to whom it is dedicated.

The sale set a new house record, blowing away the previous Christie's online sales record of $1.27 million, set in April 2008 for a Stradavari violin. There have been several lots that have sold for over $1 million throughout the Christie's LIVE™ application and the number of online bidders has continued to rise.

Tags: art, chinese antiquities, chinese art, christies