A 300-year-old Qing dynasty vase made of glass is set to shatter records at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on October 8 with an estimate in excess of £20 million. Created inside the Forbidden City in Beijing it measures 18.2cm. It is a masterpiece in terms of shape, design, execution and size. Its rarity and preciousness is inextricable from the difficulty of its production: to create a vessel which evokes a bottle wrapped in a cloth pouch tied with a ribbon, with a brilliantly enamelled design of phoenixes soaring amid clouds and peonies, would have required the cooperation of different palace workshops, and demanded the highest level of skill from both the imperial artisans in the Glass House and the imperial painters in the Enamelling Workshops.
