Pieces of Chinese jade and ceramics from a collection once recognised as one of the finest in Europe has sold for £174,000 at an auction in Shropshire.
The consignment of 40 items from the famous Brodie Lodge collection attracted massive interest from Chinese collectors.
Top prices reached £43,000 and £14,500 for two jade lion dogs, £31,000 for a pair of Junyao small bubble bowls, £15,000 for a jade elephant, £11,000 for a jade recumbent hound, £10,500 for a pair of brightly coloured yellow famille jaune bottle vases and £9,200 for an 18th century white jade ring pendant.
The collection went under the hammer at Halls’ £484,000 auction of antiques furniture, oriental ceramics and works of art at the Welsh Bridge saleroom in Shrewsbury.
Fine art director Jeremy Lamond said the auction included the finest section of Oriental ceramics ever sold by Halls.
“The Chinese market is absolutely on fire, with wealthy collectors wanting to take antiques back to China,” he added.
“It was a fantastic sale and a reward for all the hard work that went in to assembling the quality pieces and promoting them around the world.
“We had 115 people registered to bid live on the Internet and half of those were from China.”
The collection was assembled by Brodie Lodge, inventor of the Lodge spark plug with a ceramic conductor, and his wife, Enid, in the 1940s.
“The Lodges decided to invest the money they was making from porcelain spark plugs into Oriental porcelain and befriended late Sotheby’s senior director James Kidell with a view to assembling a pre-eminent collection of Chinese ceramics,” explained Mr Lamond.
“Kidell introduced Brodie Lodge to Roger Bleuett and the late Sydney Moss.
Together they formed this wonderful collection, recognised as one of the finest in Europe, up until the 1960s.
“The Lodges were continually inspired by both the colour and form of the Chinese palette and style.”
The collection featured at the 1948 exhibition of Oriental art at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and at the Oriental Ceramic Society.
