OAKLAND, Calif. – Asian art and antiques produced great surprises during Clars Auction Gallery’s sale on Feb. 20 and 21. Overall, the sale was a success, achieving $2.1 million.

The Asian category is always offered in the final session of Clars’ Sunday sales and, in perhaps the spirit of saving the most exciting for last, online bidders queued up for a fight to the finish on three lots in particular – all of which sold to bidders utilizing LiveAuctioneers.com’s Internet bidding platform.

Among the first lots that were offered in this session was a Chinese Longquan type ice-crackled brush washer estimated to sell for $800-$1,200. The bidding opened at $900 and the exhaustive battle of Internet bidders began driving the final sale price to an amazing $89,250.

Just six lots later, it happened again. A Chinese celadon wall vase (below) with an apocryphal Qianlong mark was expected to achieve $1,000 – $1,500. The bidding opened at $500 and this time, it was competitive bidding from the floor, phones and Internet that drove the final price on this piece to $77,350.

Fast forward 20 lots and a Chinese turquoise gauze Jifu dragon robe (below), late 19th/early 20th century, blows past its presale estimate of $3,000 – $5,000 selling for $45,750. This Jifu robe and the celadon wall vase came to the sale from a private Oakland estate.

Absentee and Internet live bidding was available through LiveAucitoneers.com.

Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.