(May 23): A Patek Philippe watch worn by the last emperor of China’s Qing Dynasty was sold for HK$40 million (RM23.3 million) Tuesday (May 23) at a live auction in Hong Kong.

The auction, which lasted about seven minutes, took place at Phillips’ new headquarters at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural and was attended predominantly by mainland and local Hong Kong collectors and representatives.

Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, had given the watch to his interpreter Georgy Permyakov, who was Puyi’s companion when he was imprisoned in the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1950. It isn’t known when or how Puyi obtained the watch, which was completed in 1937.

The process to establish the provenance of the watch included finding a husband-and-wife team of journalists who had interviewed Permyakov and possessed photographs of the watch. (The journalists, Russell and Nonna Working, were at the sale.) An institute specialising in Puyi’s studies found that Puyi had asked his attendant, Li Guoxiong, to remove the surface of the dial to find out if the base was made of platinum — a request that matches damage seen on the watch.

Still, the watch itself is valuable even without its history, Hines says. The watch is one of only eight known of the model 96 Quantieme Lune. It features a moon-phase and triple-date calendar. “It’s as complicated as wristwatches could be at that time,” Hines said. “In its own right, without any provenance, it’s very important.”