They were offered at The Auction Hub (22.5% buyer’s premium) on February 4.
The vendor – Lady Peel, widow of the queen’s former surgeon-gynaecologist Sir John Peel – had been ready to throw them out before auctioneer James Harvey recognised them as products of the Imperial kilns.
A similar pair had tripled hopes at Sotheby’s dispersal of the Meiyintang collection in Hong Kong in April 2013 when it sold at HK$4.5m (then about £507,000).
That pair, of course, were in near-perfect condition.
The 2in (48cm) tall cups that featured at The Auction Hub were each broken on three or four pieces and rather poorly reglued. One had hairline cracks and a patch of fairly crude repainting, the other had a section missing from the rim.
Nevertheless, the delicate painting and underglaze blue six-figure mark to the underside were testament to the original quality of the cups – probably ceremonial wine vessels – and the pair more than doubled top hopes, selling to a UK private buyer at £9500.
Harvey set up The Auction Hub, an online operation in Westbury, Wiltshire, 14 months ago.
