A set of 3,000-year-old bronze artifacts from ancient China, held for decades by a Canadian family that was drawn to Chinese culture after a Holocaust-era escape to Shanghai, has sold at an auction in Britain for more than $3 million.Photograph by:The Bonham Family, Photo Handout

A set of 3,000-year-old bronze artifacts from ancient China, held for decades by a Canadian family that was drawn to Chinese culture after a Holocaust-era escape to Shanghai, has sold at an auction in Britain for more than $3 million.

The elaborately decorated objects, including an "extremely rare" ritual wine vessel that alone fetched nearly $1.9 million, emerged from the "little known Canadian collection" to attract huge interest from buyers at a Bonhams sale last week in London.

The story behind the so-called Sinclair Collection of archaic Chinese treasures involves a Jewish family's emigration to Canada from Poland in the 1920s, and the later arrival of another family member after he took refuge from persecution in China before reaching Toronto as a refugee following the war.

Bonhams art specialist Asaph Hyman said members of the immigrant family — identified only as the Goldsteins — embraced the study of Chinese history and began collecting artifacts because of their exposure to the country's culture in the Second World War.

Among the items collected were four bronze vessels representing some of the finest examples of the exquisite craftsmanship practised in China from about 2,000 B.C.

The vessels, he said, could only have been commissioned by a very wealthy household in ancient China and would have been "extremely expensive at the time to produce."

The objects, all of which are believed to have been unearthed by archeologists in the early part of the 19th century, were probably purchased by the Toronto family in the 1960s, Bonhams said.

The items "were not very well known" and "have not been published," said Hyman, noting that their appearance at last week's auction offered a "fantastic" opportunity for scholars to learn more about the artisans and elite culture of ancient China and also sparked "significant interest" from collectors and art institutions around the world, including China.

An inscription on the main wine vessel matched the wording on a similar object held by a museum in California: "Prince Shu is at Zhi to make a sacrificial vessel for the cultured ancestor Father Yi."

In the end, said Hyman, the artifacts are "heading back home to China," though he couldn't disclose whether they are bound for a public museum or private collection.

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