Rare Chinese blue and white porcelain ‘windswept’ jar, ‘Guan’. Ming Dynasty - second half of 15th Century. Photo courtesy Canterbury Auction Galleries

(hairline crack to rim and warped). 13ins (330mm) high - Estimate: £6,000 - £8,000

Provenance: Collection of W.Gedney Beatty (1869-1941)
Collection of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968)
Collection of Alfred Chester Beatty jnr.

Note: A gift from Alfred Chester Beatty jnr. to T.H. Bradford (vendor’s father) managing director of the Selection Trust mining company on his retirement in the late 1950’s. 
Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, the son of a banker with an Irish lineage, a graduate from Columbia University, became a successful mining magnate and millionaire philanthropist. The youngest of three brothers located the Selection Trust mining company in London in the early 20th Century. Knighted for supplying the Allies with strategic raw materials during WWII , he retired in 1950, handing over the running of the company to his son Alfred Chester Beatty, who retired in 1968 the same year as his father’s death. Sir Alfred, a collector of minerals, Chinese snuff bottles and stamps since childhood, will be remembered for amassing an important group of oriental books, manuscripts and works of art.
On his retirement in 1950 he decided to move to Dublin and built a library for his art collection on Shrewsbury Road which opened in 1954. On his death the collection was left in trust for the benefit of the public, and in the year 2000 was moved to Dublin Castle

The Canterbury Auction Galleries. Wednesday 17th April at 10am. Email: auctions@thecanterburyauctiongalleries.com