Enter the dragon: A €630k, 3cm jade one, that is

A tiny jade seal with a catalogue price of €4,000-€6,000 sold to a Chinese internet bidder for an unprecedented €630,000 — 157 times its guide price — at a Co Laois auction.

There was applause in Sheppard’s Irish Auction House in Durrow yesterday after the hammer went down on the final bid for a Chinese Qing Dynasty white jade seal. It was the most expensive item ever sold by Sheppard’s.

In the end, two Chinese collectors battled it out — one bidding on the telephone and the other on the internet.

The square seal is 3cm high and belonged to a Parisian collector, Marie Louise Beauvoir.

It’s understood she had hoped to move to Ireland but her plans fell through and she decided to dispose of her collection of antiques.

Philip Sheppard said: “We’ve broken the Irish record for selling a piece of Chinese art. The closest to us is around €310,000. We more than doubled it.”