Chinese jade trinkets sell for £12.5m - more than double the value of the stately home they were found in

Last updated at 12:08 PM on 9th June 2011

A collection of Chinese jade ornaments have sold for a massive £12.5m, a sum more than double the British stately home they were found in.

The 16 objects had been kept in display cabinets in a country mansion in Dorset for the last 60 years before coming onto the market.

Their sale sparked a bidding war between super-rich Chinese collectors whose new-found wealth has transformed the Asian art market in the last few years.

Multi-millionaires from the Far East are rapidly buying back their cultural heritage, sending prices soaring and leaving Western bidders struggling to compete.

Some of the pieces date back to the 18th century, when they were made for a Chinese emperor.
A white jade deer ornament sold for £3.9million, a bowl for £2.4million and a bell for £2.4million.

High value: A green jade disc was among the collection which sold for a massive £12.5million

Bidding war: This pair of green jade elephants sold for £1.2million

A pair of pale green jade elephants that sat either side of Emperor Qianlong's throne at an Imperial palace went for £1.2million.

The other dozen items sold for six figure sums and the overall price set a record for a regional auction house.

John Axford, of auctioneers Woolly and Wallis of Salisbury, said prices had risen tenfold over the last four years due to the Chinese buying power.

He said: 'The market for Chinese art has changed beyond all recognition over the last three or four years.

'Something you would have quoted £20,000 for a couple of years ago would now be £200,000, such is the level of demand, especially for 18th century art.

'Chinese collectors are falling over themselves to buy these sort of pieces. China is opening up, the amount of building work going on over there is phenomenal and people are getting very rich.

'It is similar to the Americans at the start of the 20th century. They got rich and bought fantastic art. Western dealers and collectors are finding it very difficult to compete, they are being priced out of the market.'

Surge of interest: A mythical white jade deer which sold for £3.9million

A green jade brush pot made £346,000 and white jade bell (right) went for £2.4million

The jade pieces belonged to the late Mary Anna Marten OBE, a goddaughter of the Queen Mother, and would have been brought to Britain in the 19th century.

She bought most of the items from eminent antique dealers in London in the 1940s and 1950s and paid top prices for them at the time.

They were kept at her residence, 18th century Crichel House, near Wimborne, Dorset. The house itself is worth about £5million but the sprawling 400 acre estate it is on is valued at much more.

Mr Axford said: 'We had a huge number of bidders in the room as well as on the phone from Hong Kong and mainland China. We brought in three Mandarin speakers to assist with the bidding.

'Most of the pieces went to private collectors but a number of them, like the elephants and bell, are already being displayed in museums in Beijing.'

Mrs Marten, who died last year, was a trustee of the British Museum from 1985-98 and a great patron of the arts.

She was born Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt in 1929 and was the only child of Captain Napier George Henry Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington and Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper.

She inherited the Crichel Estate in 1940 and later married Lieutenant-Commander George Gosselin Marten.