A RECORD BREAKER

Asian ceramics in general have been making waves at auction houses across the globe in recent years. But it is the precise shade of yellow used in this extraordinary 18th-century Qianlong porcelain vessel – believed to be Imperial Yellow (see point 4) – that is the key to its exceptional worth.

Both the vase’s owners and auctioneers in the Middlesex salesroom Bainbridges were stunned when, in 2010, after a furious bidding war it reached a staggering nal hammer price of £ 43m. The ceramic had previously been sitting on top of a bookcase in the vendors’ parents’ living room where it had been since the 1930s. Its owners had no idea that its hue implied a royal tie.