CHINESE plaques sold for £70,000 in the highlight of a Bourton-on-the-Water auction.

The Tayler and Fletcher auction sale of antiques, fine art and objects d'art took place at the North Cotswold Saleroom last Thursday.

The undoubted star both before, during and after this online auction sale was always ever only ever going to be Lot 46, a pair of large Chinese hardwood framed porcelain plaques.

The plaques were hand decorated in enamels with figures, animals and attendants with pine trees and hilly surroundings to the background within lime green sgraffito borders.

The auctioneers were first alerted to the potential of the plaques when several interested bidders, collectors and London dealers requested private pre-sale viewings of them beforehand.

Momentum began to gather apace and soon eight telephone lines were booked as well as a large contingent of potential buyers both in the room and on the live internet bidding platform.

As a result, extra staff had to be drafted in from the nearby Tayler and Fletcher Bourton-on-the-Water office.

Fine art auctioneer Martin Lambert stated that he had not had so many previous pre-sale enquiries for many years.

Calling initially for what seemed like a very realistic bid of £30,000 given all the interest, it came straight away in the form of a live internet bid from Pasadena, America.

Around ten minutes later, the auctioneer had worked his way through all of the bidders present in the saleroom and the assembled no less than eight telephone bidders and still the original American bid was before the auctioneer but this time, at the much higher level, of £70,000, having seen off all other bidding.