Auction introduction: The flagship Chinese Art sale includes several private collections offered to the market for the first time, encompassing the full range of China’s diverse artistic tradition from the Neolithic to Republican period. The highlights of the sale are an important large archaic bronze ritual ding vessel from the late Shang / early Western Zhou dynasty and a group of superb Yongle period blue and white porcelain including a rare inscribed ‘peach’ meiping and large ‘floral’ dish. The private assemblages in the auction include a Hong Kong collection of Qing porcelain and Imperial works of art acquired from international auctions, a group of archaic jades, metalwork and early ceramics from the collection of Robin Renton, and a fine group of Song ceramics and Ming porcelain from the collection of S. H. Minkenhof (1879-1956). Other English private collections of Chinese ceramics include a group of Song ceramics highlighted by several tea bowls formerly in the collection of Dikran Khan Kélékian (1868-1951), and an old collection of Yongzheng Imperial yellow porcelain. Sotheby’s is honoured to be offering a widely published and exhibited collection of Chinese paintings and Imperial works of art from the collection of Sir James Stewart Lockhart (1858-1937), the scholar, collector and colonial governor of Weihaiwei from 1902-21. The collection is being sold by its custodian George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, with all proceeds raised to support bursary places.