Curse of the Qianlong vase: The £500,000 antique which sparked a family feud and court battle…
...and left the seller facing financial ruin
Q: What could possibly go wrong when your bric-a-brac pot goes under the hammer for an eye-watering sum?
A: Your former mother-in-law decides it's hers ...
At just 5in tall, the gilt-copper Chinese vase is one of the less imposing exhibits at the New York gallery. With its brightly coloured enamelling and exotic design featuring a bear with a bird of prey perching on its head, it is certainly eye-catching. But its price-tag of £500,000 might seem somewhat steep to those lacking in-depth knowledge of Chinese objets d’art.
For the experts, though, the little ornament’s fascinating history makes it worth every penny of its asking price. Commissioned by the Chinese Qianlong Emperor, who ruled from 1735 to 1796, it was later looted from the Summer Palace in Beijing during the Second Opium War in 1860.
All that makes it of great interest to collectors keen to capitalise on the current boom in Chinese antiques. Yet there is one extraordinary period of the vase’s past in Britain that is nowhere to be found in its description in the gallery’s catalogue
For the past two years, it has been at the centre of a family rift so acrimonious it resulted in a lengthy and bitter court battle over its ownership, which was finally decided last month.
The case first made headlines when Andrea Calland, a mother of three from Ruthin, North Wales, sold the ornament at an auction in Chester in 2009. To her surprise, it was bought for £228,000 by a leading Oriental art dealer, who whisked it off to be displayed in New York.
But what happened next should serve as a warning to anyone wondering if there could be gold among the rubbish in the attic – be absolutely sure of its provenance.
Her only asset is her beloved home, a pink stone cottage in Ruthin, a picturesque market town, and she fears she will have to sell up.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Andrea says: ‘I wish I’d never laid eyes on that vase. It’s caused such unbelievable pain, not just for me but also my girls, Sophie and Phoebe, who have been caught in the middle of a horrible situation.
‘The court case was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was so hurtful to be attacked by people I used to love. At one point, I was sobbing so much I had to get up and leave the court.
‘Now I’m terrified. I’ve been told to increase the mortgage on the house to raise the funds but I don’t think I can because I’m self-employed. My house isn’t just my home, it’s the girls’ home, too.
‘Who would have thought that a person could lose their home as a result of selling a bit of bric-a-brac they’ve had lying around for years?’
The origins of this sorry saga can be traced back years before Andrea’s decision to sell the vase – to the unhappy ending of her relationship with Mrs Galloway’s son, Steven.
Andrea was 23 when the pair met in 1990 and a single mother to a son, Oliver, by her childhood sweetheart Rick, with whom she has remained close friends. Steven, six years older and working for his father’s insurance brokerage, seemed to offer the stability she craved.
As their relationship progressed, Andrea became pregnant with their first child, Sophie, and moved into Steven’s apartment with Oliver. It was during this period that Mrs Galloway claims she lent her son the vase, which she says she regarded as a family heirloom. Andrea says she has no recollection of it ever being there.
She first remembers seeing it when the family moved to a spacious farmhouse, rented from a local couple. ‘I know the vase was in that house because I remember it being on a shelf by a door, where the kids could have knocked it over at any time,’ she says.
‘In court, Steven said it was explained to me from the beginning that it was only on loan from his mother and that it was valuable.
‘But I used to burn incense in it and nobody ever asked me to treat it in any special way. When we moved again, to another farmhouse, it was in the children’s playroom. I didn’t even think about where it came from because I’d accumulated so much since I left home at 16.
'Look at my house – I’m a clutterbug and I couldn’t tell you where half these things have come from.’
Indeed, the walls of Andrea’s cottage are covered in shelves groaning under the weight of matching cup and saucer sets, little coloured glasses, lamps and, yes, vases. It is not hard to imagine how she could have assumed the Chinese vase was just another trinket she had picked up.
In 1997, she and Steven had another daughter, Phoebe, but their relationship was starting to deteriorate. Gradually, Andrea claims, she noticed that bills were not always being paid on time. In 2001, Steven admitted the brokerage was in trouble.
‘I’d encouraged all my friends and family to use the brokerage and I had no idea it was in so much debt,’ Andrea says. ‘The company was officially declared bankrupt in 2002 and it was an horrendous time.
‘We moved into my cottage, which I’d owned since before we met and previously rented out, and I was working around the clock in four jobs, trying to make ends meet. I wanted us to work through the problems as a family but I didn’t feel he was trying. It was clear the relationship was over.’
Steven moved in with his parents, Evelyn and Jack, while Andrea tried to rebuild her life with her children in the cottage, where the Chinese vase lay forgotten in a box under the stairs. For the next few years, Steven and the Galloways maintained contact with Sophie and Phoebe but Andrea’s own relationship with the family was strained.
In 2008, Andrea decided to sell some of her old junk. ‘I had been through a difficult time and I decided to redecorate and declutter to make a fresh start,’ she says. ‘Phoebe’s birthday was approaching and I wanted to buy her a laptop to help her with her work.
‘I grabbed a few bits and pieces from under the stairs, including the vase and some old coins I’d had since my childhood, and took them to an antique shop to get them valued.
‘The owner told me he’d give me £375 for the vase but he wanted me to leave the coins overnight to be valued, which I didn’t want to do.
‘In the end, I decided to take them to an auction house, Byrne’s in Chester. They told me they would put a reserve of £80 on the vase, but when I told them about the antique dealer’s offer, they upped it to £500. I thought,
“Wow, hopefully I’ll have enough for Phoebe’s laptop.” Now I wish to God I’d sold it to the antique dealer.’
A couple of days later, Byrne’s called Andrea to inform her that the vase had fetched almost £230,000.
Then she received a call from the police. Having seen the story, Mrs Galloway had not only informed Byrne’s that the vase was hers, she had also reported it to the police as a theft.
‘I didn’t even have a chance to think about the money,’ says Andrea. ‘The next thing I knew, I was defending myself to the police, who didn’t take any further action.
‘When I heard what Evelyn was saying – that I knew full well the vase was a loan and that she’d tried to get it back on numerous occasions – I felt very sad. I couldn’t believe it.’
On the advice of the auction house, Andrea found a solicitor. From the outset, she and her lawyer attempted to settle the matter without going to court. ‘I wanted all the money to be put into trust for the girls, or for us to split it 50/50, but we couldn’t reach an agreement,’ she says.
While Andrea had to pay her own legal costs, pensioner Evelyn received legal aid, which Andrea feels is unfair. In court, Mrs Galloway was able to produce the original catalogue from when her father bought the vase at a sale in Birkenhead, Merseyside, in 1956. In her witness statement, she described Andrea as being emotionally unstable and highly obstructive about the vase.
The law states that if six years pass without an attempt to reclaim an item from somebody, that item becomes theirs. Mrs Galloway said she had repeatedly asked for the vase to be returned since Andrea’s split with her son, but that Andrea had responded by hanging up the phone or slamming the door in her face.
‘I felt utterly betrayed,’ says Andrea. ‘I used to get on well with Evelyn. In fact, I loved her, and hearing her mud-slinging was devastating. If she’d had her way, I would be in prison now – the mother of her grandchildren.
'There was no written proof that she had tried to reclaim the vase. She had never written to me or got a solicitor involved. She hadn’t even insured it.’
Judge Llewellyn ruled that the vase had not been abandoned by Mrs Galloway and that she still retained ownership. He stated that while it had been at Andrea’s home for almost two decades, she had not given enough thought to its origins.
He added that he appreciated the ruling was a ‘disaster’ for Andrea, ‘who thought that the sun had shined on her life for once’.
Following the ruling, Mrs Galloway said: ‘The whole thing has been appalling. It has taken us two years to get to this stage. We could not stand by and let Andrea walk away with all that money. It is an awful lot and we had no idea the vase was worth that amount.’
Meanwhile, Andrea is trying to focus on minimising the impact on Sophie, now 19, and Phoebe, 14. Oliver, 25, is now a doctor. ‘They’ve been trying to stay out of it but obviously that’s been very difficult,’ she says.
‘I just feel so sad for them. It doesn’t seem right that while their grandmother has all this money, their mother is facing ruin. All selling that vase did was make their lives harder – that’s what I regret.’
Last night, Steven Galloway told The Mail on Sunday: ‘My primary concern is for preserving the dignity of my two children as much as possible, so all I will say is that my mother and I are relieved the case is over, but we take no pleasure in any of this.’
Six-thousand-year-old earth mother statuette found on banks of the Somme…
Six-thousand-year-old earth mother statuette found on banks of the Somme is named 'Lady of Villers-Carbonnel'
With a curvaceous figure and short stubby arms, the discovery of a 6,000-year-old earth mother in France shows how far the essence of beauty has changed over the centuries.
The unearthing of the extremely rare statue in Northern France has been given the rather grand title of ‘Lady of Villers-Carbonnel’ and is thought to be connected to a cult who worshipped a specific fertility goddess.
Immaculately preserved the 8 inch statue was made from local earth or clay and closely resembles figurines found across the Mediterranean.
It is unusual for a find to found so far north, experts told The Independent.
And it is because the figure was discovered broken in five or six parts while she was being fired, sometime between 4300 and 3600 BC, which has kept her so well preserved.
She was found in the ruins of a neolithic kiln on a dig near Villers-Carbonnell on the banks of the River Somme.
Archaeologist in charge of the dig, Francoise Bostyn, told The Independent the find could be one of many.
She said: ‘The statuette is very beautiful and remarkably preserved.
‘We sometimes find fragments of such statuettes but rarely the whole figure.’
She added the figure of the statue was very similar to figures found as far away as the Middle East from the same period.
The dig became possible after the French government ‘preventative archaeology agency, Inrap, gave permission and money to explore 77 sites along the 60-mile course of the new 50m wide Seine-Nord Europe canal.
Not such hidden treasure: Owner dies in poverty while Renaissance ‘bric-a-brac’ worth £147,000 sits on his shelf for 30 years
A bronze statue of the Greek god Zeus dismissed as interesting 'bric-a-brac' on a shelf for 30 years turned out to be a Renaissance classic worth AUS$225,150 (£147,000).
Australian Denis Warrington-Fry bought the 25in high figure in the 1970s for less than AUS$200.
Unbeknown to him the statue was in fact a genuine piece of work by a Renaissance artist.
The figure's true value only came to light after Mr Warrington-Fry died aged 80 and his estate sold at auction.
An anonymous buyer from London splashed out the staggering sum for the statue on Sunday.
It has not been confirmed who created the work but it is rumoured to be a famous European artist.
Mr Warrington-Fry picked up the statue from an antique shop in Sydney, Australia.
Tragically, his house fell into disrepair and he struggled to pay the bills unaware he had a valuable statue on the mantelpiece.
Friend Geoff Northausen said: 'It's hard to imagine what he might have done with the money had he known the figurine was worth this much.'
The statue was sold by auctioneers Vickers and Hoad in Sydney.
Director Colin Vickers said: 'When we finished bidding there was a bit of applause and everyone was in shock - I needed to take a drink of water and compose myself.'
Now that’s cash in the attic: Shocked family discover neglected statue is worth £12.2million
A statue left languishing as ‘just part of the furniture’ by its owners has been sold at auction for £12.2million.
The 4ft 5in marble depiction of Leda and the Swan had been in the family of the Marquess of Zetland for more than 200 years – and may even have spent some time as a garden ornament.
But no one thought to have it valued until it was spotted by an antiquities specialist at the family seat of Aske Hall, North Yorkshire.
He found it dated to second century Imperial Rome, and estimated its value at £1.2million. But when it was finally sold in New York it prompted a bidding war and went for ten times that.
A source at the hall said: 'The family knew it was old and that it was Roman but they had no idea of its true value.'
So unaware of the statue's pedigree was the Marquess and his family that it spent decades outside masquerading as a garden ornament before it was finally taken inside for good around 40 years ago.
The sculpture was one of four antiquities bought in Rome by the 1st Earl on behalf of his father.
It does not appear in any of the major surveys of ancient marble sculpture in English country houses, but is mentioned in Robinson’s Guide to Richmond of 1833.
Aske Hall has an impressive collection of historic furniture, paintings and porcelain.
The most prized of the ancient antiquities bought in Rome by the 1st Earl - a statue of the Lysippean Eros - was stolen. It was taken from the grounds of Aske Hall in the 1970s and has never been recovered.
The sculpture was offered for auction by the will trust of the 3rd Marquess of Zetland, Lawrence Dundas, who was chairman of Catterick and Redcar racecourses and died in 1989.
Grand: Aske Hall is owned by the Marquess Of Zetland, who only found out that the sculpture dated back to the 2nd Century after an antiquities expert made a routine visit to the estate
Thomas Watson Auctioneers successful Winter Antique Sale
Thomas Watson Auctioneers based in Northumberland Street, Darlington held a highly successful Winter Antique Sale on Tuesday, 29th November with some very good prices achieved.
The highlight of the sale was a Victorian Silver Gilt 'Warwick Vase' by Walter and John Barnard, London 1891 which sold after furious bidding over the telephone and internet to a collector in South Africa for £11,000.
‘Warwick Vase’ Sold for £11,000
With the prices of precious metals still at high, jewellery was also a big seller with an 18ct Gold Bracelet selling for £1,500 and another 9ct Bracelet that sold for £1,150.
A rather unusual item, a Millefiori Glass Newel Post Finial, made quite a stir in the saleroom, with a modest estimate of £60-£100, two bidders fought over it and eventually settled at a selling price of £1,600.
All results can be viewed on the website www.thomaswatson.com. & UKAuctioneers.com
1,000 X-Ray images and hi-tech tools to ‘rebuild’ a Stradivarius for the first time
Very few ancient crafts are beyond the power of modern science - almost every single one has been bettered by industrial processes.
The painstaking process of creating a samurai sword - reforged hundreds of times by hand - is one. Another - until now - has been the Stradivarius violin.
Scientists puzzle over why the 650 Stradivarius violins still in existence sound so good - but after two years of CT scanning, and computer-aided carving, scientists have 'recreated' one for the first time.
'Blind' tests have shown that Stradivarii are not always the best violins in existence - but their consistently high sound quality still baffles experts.
Some believe it's due to unique woods used by Antonio Stradivari, or to shaping or wood thickness in particular parts of the instruments - others believe that its due to chemical processes used to treat them.
The original violin - normally stored in the US Library of Congress - next to the replica, carved using computer-controlled equipment from CT scans of the original
A new study by the Radiological Society of North America might help unravel the mystery of the violins - without destroying the precious instruments in the process.
Most Stradivarii are stored in museums, and are never played.
This summer, one of the instruments sold at auction for $15.9 million.
The team from the RSNA used advanced computer X-Ray tomography imaging to create a 3D 'scan' of the violin - both inside and out.
The 1704 violin was then reconstructed using computer-aided machine tools.
'CT scanning offers a unique method of imaging a historical object - in a non-invasive way' said Steven Sirr, M.D., a radiologist at FirstLight Medical Systems.
'Combined with computer-aided machinery, it also offers us the opportunity to create a reproduction with a high degree of accuracy.'
'We have two goals: to understand how the violin works and to make reproductions of the world's most prized violins available for young musicians who can't afford an original,' Dr. Sirr said.
The original violin was scanned with a 64-detector CT, and more than 1,000 CT images were converted into 3D image files, which can be read by a computer-controlled tool called a CNC machine - a carving device controlled by computer code.
The CNC machine, custom-made for the project by Rossow, then carved the back and front plates and scroll of the violin from various woods.
Finally, Waddle and Rossow finished, assembled and varnished the replica by hand.
'We believe this process of recreating old and valuable stringed instruments may have a profound influence upon modern string musicians,' Dr. Sirr said.
One of the X-Ray scans used to recreate 'Bettsy'. In total, 1,000 images were used
One of the X-Ray scans used to recreate 'Bettsy'. In total, 1,000 images were used
One of the X-Ray scans used to recreate 'Bettsy'. In total, 1,000 images were used
The Betts Stradivarius is held in the U.S. Library of Congress.
Dr. Sirr, an amateur violinist, first scanned a violin with CT out of curiosity.
'I assumed the instrument was merely a wooden shell surrounding air,' he said.
'I was totally wrong. There was a lot of anatomy inside the violin.'
This revelation may help not only to build cheap reconstructions of the violins - but help design new generations of instruments.
After he shared those first CT images with Waddle in 1989, the two spent years scanning more than 100 violins—including 29 valuable instruments pre-dating 1827—and other stringed instruments to better understand their composition.
'Just like human beings, there is a wide range of normal variation among violins,' Dr. Sirr said.
'When you are looking at an instrument that is hundreds of years old, you will see worm holes and cracks that have been repaired.'
There is also damage from being exposed to all kinds of conditions, from floods to wars.'
For owners of authentic Stradivarius or other prized violins, CT imaging not only provides a definitive form of identification, it helps establish a pedigree that may increase the value of their investment.
Most are collectors items, sold at auction for huge sums, or stored in museums.
Dr Sirr's process may also help preserve the remaining Stradivarii.
'CT is useful in measuring wood density, size and shapes, thickness graduation and volume measurements,' Dr. Sirr said.
'It also provides detailed analysis of damage and repair.'
Diana’s ‘back-up’ wedding dress and shoes sell for £84,000 at auction
An exact replica wedding dress and slippers made for Princess Diana in case anything went wrong with the original items have sold for £84,000.
The gown was specially commissioned by Diana as an identical match for her lavish bridal gown and was made by the same designer, David Emanuel.
The shoes - that were never paid for by Diana's mother Frances Shand-Kidd after she had a row with the royal cobbler - were an identical match to the ones she wore down the aisle.
Made by Clive Shilton, the 6.5 size shoes were intended to be worn at the 1981 Royal wedding in the event of her original pair breaking or being stained.
They were so exact either the left or right could have been swapped at any time, leaving viewers and well-wishers none the wiser.
They even have the initials C and D joined together with a delicate heart on the soles.
Her late mother never paid for the spare pair because she was unhappy with the final bill.
The shoes were retained by designer Mr Shilton until he sold them at auction yesterday for £36,000 pounds to a private buyer.
The dress went on show on Diana's glamorous waxwork at Madame Tussauds at the time of the Royal wedding.
The ivory taffeta dress was bought from Madam Tussauds several years ago by a private American collector, who also sold it yesterday for £48,000 pounds.
It was bought by a fashion museum in Chile.
Auctioneer Kerry Taylor said: 'Historically these items are very important and they have been hidden away in private collections for years.
'The dress and the shoes are beautiful, really exquisite.
'The dress was made for Madame Tussauds as a replica of Princess Diana's gown, and was on show there for tourists to see.
'It was sold to a private collector some years ago, who has now decided to sell it.
'The shoes are being sold by Clive Shilton, who made them.
'They are identical to the ones Diana wore for her wedding - absolutely the same.
'She could have changed the left or the right and you wouldn't notice the difference.
'They were made in case her first pair got stained or damaged, or something happened to them on the day - these were kept just in case.
'This sale demonstrates that even in these difficult economic times that the appetite for fine haute couture is undiminished and we are already looking forward to our next auction in February.'
Action Comics Superman debut copy sells for $2.16m
A copy of the first issue of Action Comics, featuring Superman's debut, has become the world's most expensive comic, fetching $2.16m (£1.4m).
It was auctioned online for a starting bid of just $1, with a reserve price of $900,000.
The buyer or seller's name was not disclosed, but there is speculation it was owned by actor Nicolas Cage.
It is the first time a comic book has broken the $2m barrier. The issue was published in 1938 and cost 10 cents.
About 100 copies of Action Comics No 1 are thought to be in existence, and only a handful of those are in good condition.
Another copy of the same issue sold for a then record-breaking $1.5m in March last year.
But that one was not in as good condition as the copy that sold on Wednesday through New York-based ComicConnect.
It is said to have been stolen in 2000 and was thought lost until recovered in a California storage shed in April this year - just like an issue owned by Nicolas Cage.
The Hollywood star - who has a son called Kal-El, the Man of Steel's birth name - bought his copy of Action Comics No 1 for $150,000 in 1997.
Connoisseurs of the comic world say this type of investment has become popular during troubled economic times because rare collectibles hold their value more reliably than property or shares.
Source:BBC News