HAD I been the lucky browser (a self-described ‘passionate ceramic collector’) who found a near pair of 4½in-high porcelain jars prettily decorated with chrysanthemum blooms and lotus leaves (Fig 1) ticketed at £20 in a charity shop, and had to have them, I hope that it would have been the quality that first caught my eye, as it did his.
There were impressive under-glaze blue six-character marks on the bases, and the finder has said that they gave him a strong buzz. However, my antennae would first have twitched because of the little hand-written labels, one saying ‘Ching Chen Lung 1736-95’, the other illegible, on adhesive strips of serrated stamp paper. This was how my great-grandfather used to identify, sometimes optimistically, items in his late-19th-century collections. Beside me as I write is a little patch box proclaimed by his label to
