Right: Exeter saleroom Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) sold this 11in (27cm) Qianlong (1735-95) blue and white vase with Ming-style decoration for £460,000 on January 30.
It came for sale via a general email enquiry together with a dozen unexceptional objects that had been in attic storage since they were inherited from an aunt. Annie Madeline Glover, a teacher who lived and worked in Shanghai from 1910-22, had returned home with her young son on the P&O steamship Egypt. She settled in Bath.
While no other vase of the same form and decoration has been found, other examples are known in doucai colours. It was in perfect condition save a tiny chip to one ruyi handle terminal.