Detail: The Important Chinese Art auction opens with a selection of exceptional jade carvings from the De An Tang collection. The highlight is a unique white jade ruyi sceptre, carved with a dragon and an imperial poem in the 37th year of the Qianlong era (1772), encapsulating the power and authority of the Emperor. In terms of its size, material and quality of carving, it ranks alongside the finest examples from the Qing court collection preserved in Beijing and Taipei. Indeed, the De An Tang is the only private collection of jade ever to have been exhibited in the Forbidden City, at the Yongshou Palace in 2004.

Highlights of the porcelain collection include an exquisite Northern Song dynasty Junyao purple-splashed ‘bubble bowl’, a rare Xuande blue and white ‘lions’ jar from the collection of the late entrepreneur Quincy Chuang and a unique Yongzheng famille-rose ‘peach’ box and cover formerly in the Meiyintang collection. The sale also includes what is arguably the most important piece of Ming lacquer in private hands, an exceptional Hongwu cinnabar lacquer bowl stand incised with the reign marks of the Yongle and Xuande emperors.