PARIS (AFP) - An 18th-century Chinese vase discovered in a shoe box in a French attic sold for 16.2 million euros (S$25.5 million) at Sotheby's in Paris on Tuesday (June 12) - more than 30 times the estimate.

Experts at the auction house said the exquisite porcelain vessel was made for the Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong and had expected it to go for a much more modest 500,000 euros.

"This is a major work of art, it is as if we had just discovered a Caravaggio," Olivier Valmier, the Asian arts expert at the auction house, told reporters before the sale.

The vase, which was in perfect condition, "is the only known example in the world bearing such detail," he added.

Rare porcelain from the Qianlong period has been going for astronomical prices recently, with a bowl sold last April by Sotheby's in Hong Kong for US$30.4 million.

The vase - which is decorated with images of deer and cranes - was found by chance among dozens of other pieces of Chinoiserie in the attic of a house in France earlier this year.

The family had acquired it at the end of the 19th century but it has lain unloved in a shoe box in the attic for decades.

"We didn't like the vase too much, and my grandparents didn't like it either," said the owner of the piece, who only got in touch with Sotheby's in March.

It was still in the shoe box when it was presented to Sotheby's experts for authentification.

The staggering price paid by a young Chinese collector, who was at the auction himself, is the highest ever recorded by the auction house in Paris.

"Such elaborate and challenging designs are exceedingly rare on Qing imperial porcelain," Sotheby's said on its website.