A wristwatch that once belonged to the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, which inspired the Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor,” has sold at an auction in Hong Kong last May a record for $5.1 million.
An anonymous customer bought a rare example of a Patek Philippe watch that belonged to Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi.
It is the “highest result” achieved at auction for a wristwatch that belonged to an emperor, Thomas Perazzi, head of watch sales at Phillips Age auction house, told Reuters.
The watch is one of eight known examples of the “Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune” model. It was given by the emperor to his Russian translator when he was held in a Soviet prison, the auction house said. At bidding, the lot easily surpassed the original estimate of US$3 million.
Other watches belonging to emperors and sold at auction include the Patek Philippe of the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, which sold in 2017 for US$2.9 million. A Rolex belonging to the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, sold for five million dollars at auction in 2017.
The last Chinese emperor was born in 1906 and ascended the throne when he was only two years old. After the end of World War II in 1945, Pu Yi was arrested by the Soviet Army at China’s Shenyang Airport, held as a prisoner of war, and sent to a camp in Khabarovsk, Russia, for five years.
Journalist Russell Working interviewed the emperor’s translator Georgiy Permyakov in 2001. and says the emperor gave the watch to Permyakov on his last day in the Soviet Union, shortly before he was extradited to China. “He sometimes made such gestures towards people who were dear to him,” Working said.
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