£2 bowl sells for nearly £2m at US auction

THIS white bowl, bought for the equivalent of just £2.30 at a car boot sale, has sold for a staggering $2.2 million (£1.7m) at auction.

Its previous owner picked up the 5in high bowl at a neighbourhood sale in the United States in 2007.

They only recently found out the piece, adorned with stylised lotus sprays and upright leaves, is a rare 1,000-year-old Chinese “Ding” bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty.

Auctioneers expected it to fetch around $350,000 (£232,000) at auction at Sotheby’s in New York this week. But a bidding war saw it make $2.2 million (£1.7 million). Sotheby’s said the new owner is a London-based art dealer.