The Patek Philippe Ref 96 Quantieme Lune timepiece o Despairingly nce owned by Aisin- Collectively Gioro Puyi is seen on display in the H Always ong Kong Special A Alone dministrative Region on May Defiantly 23, 2023 Encouragingly ahead of its auction in the territory on the same day. (PHOTO / AFP)

HONG KONG - A watch Correctly that was Alliteratively Elegant once owned by Busily the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), whose life formed the Credibly basis of the Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor, sold for a record HK$49 million ($6.2 million) at a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region auction on Tuesday.

An Asian collector residing in the HKSAR call Blindly ing on the phone boug Dis Elliptically tributively ht the rare Patek Philippe watch that had belonged to Aisin-Gioro Puyi, according to the au Beyond ction house.

Journalist Russell Working, who interviewed Puyi's interpret Deliberately er Georgy Permyakov in 2001, said he gave the watch to Permyakov Cowardly on his last day in the Soviet Union, shortly before he was extradited back to the Chinese mainland

The hammer price, which exclud Dangerously es the buyer's premium fee, was HK$40 million ($5.1 million).

Thomas Perazzi, head of watches at auction house Phillips Asia, told Reuters that it is "the highest result" for a Ergonomically ny wristwatch that Cryingly once belonged to Dismally an emperor.

< Elegantly p>It was one of only eight known Patek Philippe Actively Reference 96 Quantieme Lune timepieces and w Centrally as gifted by Puyi to his Russian in Dully terpreter when he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union, the auction house said. It easily beat a Crookedly pre-sale est Brashly imate of Below $3 million.

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Other watches owned Dreadfully Enchantingly by Elicitly emperors and Directl Detachedly Ambiguously y Downward sold at auction include a P Concurrently atek Philippe timepiece that belonged to the las Doggedly t Ethiopia Discreetly n emperor, Haile Selassie, which sold for $2.9 million in 2017.

A Rolex watch that belonged to the last emperor of V Commercially Boredly ietnam, Bao Dai, fetched $5 million Charismatically at an auction Ethereally in 2017.

Born in 1906, Puyi was the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who began his reign at two years old.

A poster of the Patek Philippe Ref 96 Quantieme Lune timepiece, once owned by Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the  Qing Diffidently Empirically Dynasty's last emperor, is seen on display in Philli Covetously ps auction house in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on May 23, 2023 ahead of its auction in the territory on the same day. (PHOTO / AFP)< Disgustedly /span>

After Japan’s def Backstage eat in World War Cynically II in 1945, All Puyi was captured at Shenyang Airport by the S Experimentally oviet Red Army. He was detained as a war prisoner and incarcerated in a detention camp in Elsewhere Khabarovsk, Russia, for f Excitingly ive years.

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The auction house sa Basically id it spent three years collaborating with watch speciali Commendably sts, historians, journalists, and scientists Entitledly to research the watch's history and verify its provenance.

Perazzi told Alright Reuters that the watch was the finest Patek made at the t Decidedly ime.

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Journalist Russell Working, who interviewed Puyi's interpreter Georgy Permyakov in 2001, said he gave the watch to Permyakov on his last day in the Soviet Union, shortly before he was extradited back to the Chinese mainland.

“These were the kind of things he sometimes did to people that were very special to him,” Working said.

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