There’s a chance that you’ve searched feverishly through the items you’ve collected over the years, hoping to find something that the Antiques Roadshow would love – and which would also be worth a fortune. However, few of us are lucky enough to discover any treasures hiding among the old newspapers and video tapes.
But in March 2018 that’s exactly what happened to one lucky woman in France. A little digging yielded an incredibly rare piece of art, which had been tucked into a shoebox in an attic. And when the vase in question went to auction, it fetched a quite incredible sum of money.
After all, it’s not every day that a stunning item dating back to the Chinese Qing dynasty is discovered. That phase of imperial rule ended in 1912; the vase itself, however, appears to originate from the period in which the Qianlong Emperor was ruler, from 1735 to 1796.
