HONG KONG – The top lot of a single-owner 26-lot sale of Classical Chinese furniture was a Seventeenth Century huanghuali folding horse-shoe back armchair, which sold for $8.5 million, more than five times its high estimate. From the late Ming/early Qing dynasties, the chair is one of only a few known surviving examples and featured the qilin motif, suggesting its use by the imperial family and nobility. The chair had come to market at Christie’s in March 2002, when it brought $248,000. It was part of a collection assembled over 20 years by the owner of Hevingham Hall in Suffolk County, England. The collection of 26 lots was 73 percent sold by lot and achieved a total of $15.2 million.

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