From the International Herald Tribune: "Disregarded yesterday; pricey Chinese art today"

Excerpt:

A vase covered from top to bottom with polychrome flowers of a nondescript style came next. Inside, a cylindrical shaft painted with birds on prunus branches made it the kind of curio beloved by tourists of the Edwardian era. A Qianlong seal mark had been supplied by its 20th-century maker, in an attempt to give the vase a more respectable look. Until recently, it would have been hard to sell, with a £1,500 to £2,000 estimate plus the 20 percent sale charge. On July 15, a Chinese bidder ran it up to an astonishing £13,200.

Other wares, dismissed as junk two decades ago, are now catalogued with the care devoted to great art.

If an expert writing an entry in the 1980s had mentioned a Hongxian seal mark on the underside of a pair of vases, this would have been understood as an expression of tongue-in-cheek humor. The mark was used from 1915 to 1916, and 20th-century porcelain attempting to recapture the graces of the Qianlong age was considered worthless.

On July 15 at Christie's South Kensington, no trace of such contempt could be detected. A pair of Hongxian-marked vases decorated with birds amid blossoms exceeded their estimate at £4,560, and another, painted with boys frolicking in a garden, brought £6,000. The ghost of old China, if not its most faithful image, did the trick. Later in the sale, a Hongxian vase painted with a landscape in 18th-century style quadrupled its estimate and again made £6,000.