This rare Faberge antique has sold for £480,000 at auction – after it was bought by a British collector for just £75, equivalent to £3,000 now. Gold and jade model of a sedan chair by Faberge with its original holly box – was consigned for sale at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cirencester by a local family.
Estimated at £60,000- 80,000, it drew six bidders on the phone and one in the room on September 10. An overseas buyer on the phone eventually placed the winning bid that with buyer’s premium was over £460,000.
The piece is marked for workmaster Mikhail Perchin (maker of all but three of the imperial Easter eggs) and can be dated to c.1899-1903. It has an excel lent provenance. The piece carried the import marks for George Stockwell (dated 1928) and had been in the same family since it was purchased in 1929 from Wartski in London for £75. It was also the piece pictured in Kenneth Snowman’s 1962 ‘bible’ The Art of Carl Faberge.
A spokesman for the Cotswold Auction Company said: ‘It is a very good result and was more than we expected.
‘The vendor watched the sale unfold online and we spoke to them afterwards. Needless to say they are overjoyed with the result.’