One day in early October 2017, a hush fell over the Sotheby\u2019s Hong Kong auction room as lot 5, a Ru guanyao brush washer from the Le Cong Tang Collection, came up for sale. The small, understated bowl, at least 900 years old, glinted softly from screens dotted around the room. Poetically simple in its rounded shallow form and clad with a typical blue-green \u2018ice crackle\u2019 glaze, a colour said to be approaching the \u2018blue of the sky after the rain\u2019 according to the 17th-century Chinese artist Gao Shiqi.<\/p>\n

There was no estimate, just an expectation that this incredibly rare Chinese ceramic, one of only 87 known pieces of Ru ware in the world, and one of four Ru vessels in private hands, would fetch a price befitting its starry status. \u2018The sale of the brush washer took over 20 minutes, there was activity in the salesroom, but eventually it was down to two clients bidding against each other over the phones,\u2019 says Robert Bradlow, who runs Sotheby\u2019s Chinese works of art department in London. In his 25-year career, he has only handled five Ru ware pieces.<\/p>\n

When the hammer finally came down at \u00a328.2m, the Sotheby\u2019s team was ecstatic to have achieved a new world auction record for a Chinese ceramic. The little brush washer, just 13cm in diameter, is an amazing survivor of the Song (pronounced Sung) Dynasty period, comprising both Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, which controlled eastern China from AD960 to 1279.<\/p>\n