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# $3 Chinese Bowl Sells for $2 Million
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/3-chinese-bowl-sells-for-2-million/
- Published: 2013-03-20T16:25:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:35:35.000Z
- Description: From the sheer amount of amazing Chinese pottery discovered at random tag sales, you'd think front yards were just crawling with thousand-year-old vases. Sotheby's just sold a Chinese bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty for $2.2 million. It was originally bought for a meager $3.
- Author: Kyle Chayka
- Tags: News, Chinese Art, Sotheby's, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![Norther Song Dynasty Ding bowl (Image courtesy Sotheby's)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/03/songdynasty_bowl_640.jpg)

Norther Song Dynasty Ding bowl (Image courtesy Sotheby’s)

From the sheer amount of amazing Chinese pottery discovered at random tag sales, you’d think front yards were just crawling with thousand-year-old vases. Sotheby’s just sold a [Chinese bowl](http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/chinese-works-of-art-n08974/lot.94.lotnum.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) from the Northern Song Dynasty for $2.2 million. It was originally bought for a meager $3.

The [Associated Press reports](http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/1-000-year-old-chinese-bowl-found-on-sale-for-3-sold-for-2-22-million-1.1202921?ref=hyperallergic.com) that the seller bought the bowl, a small, monochromatic vessel simply decorated with lightly incised leaves, at a tag sale in 2007\. They had it displayed in their living room for several years until they became curious about its value, and got what I assume was a pleasant shock. Sotheby’s estimated its value at $200–300,000, but given the current vogue for Chinese antiquities and the rise of a Chinese collecting class, the sale price rocketed to around ten times that.

The five-inch-wide bowl dates back to the 10th century and is identified with “Ding” ware. The Ding style, created in Hebei province, consists of “small utilitarian wares such as dishes and bowls, generally left in their natural form undecorated,” according to [the catalog](http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/chinese-works-of-art-n08974/lot.94.lotnum.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). It’s a beautiful piece of dishware, but we’re assuming no grain of rice will ever touch it again.