Applause swept the salesroom at Grogan and Company when a handsome Chinese screen sold for $65,130 after a heated telephone bidding contest.

Carved in relief with a watercolor of a crane, the mid-Eighteenth Century screen came from an area collector who bought it in the mid-1970s in Canada, where it had once been in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The collectors had installed the watercolor above the fireplace in their home and relegated the carved and inlaid frame to the attic. When auctioneer Michael B. Grogan first viewed the watercolor, the collectors said they thought they remembered a frame. Upon investigation it was located and the piece was made whole again.

The screen, which was estimated at $5/7,000, went to a Hong Kong dealer on the phone.

After the sale, Grogan admitted he was surprised. “I thought it would bring around $15/20,000,” he said.

A complete review of the auction will appear in a future issue.