1,000-year-old bowl from China`s Song Dynasty sold for $37.7 million: Auction house Sotheby`s

Sotheby's Nicholas Chow poses with an extremely rare Ru Guanyao brush washer in Hong Kong (Reuters photo)

Hong Kong: A 1,000-year-old bowl from China`s Song Dynasty sold at auction for $37.7 million on Tuesday, breaking the record for Chinese porcelain, auction house Sotheby`s said.

The small piece -- which dates from 960-1127 -- broke the previous record of $36.05 million set in 2014 for a Ming Dynasty wine cup which was sold to a Shanghai tycoon.

Bidding started at around $10.2 million and the auction lasted for 20 minutes before the winning offer came from a phone bidder.

The bowl -- originally designed to wash brushes -- is an example of extremely rare Chinese porcelain from the imperial court of the Northern Song Dynasty and one of only four pieces in private hands, according to Sotheby`s.

Measuring 13cm in diameter, the dish features a luminous blue glaze.

The sale broke the "world auction record for any Chinese ceramics", the auction house announced after the bidding.

It exceeded an earlier record made by a tiny white porcelain cup, decorated with a colour painting of a rooster and a hen tending to their chicks, created during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor between 1465 and 1487.

The cup sold in 2014 to taxi-driver-turned-financier Liu Yiqian, one of China`s wealthiest people and among a new class of Chinese super-rich scouring the globe for artwork.