Pilkington Collection

Collection of Chinese antiques bought by British farmer Roger Pilkington is coming up for sale at Sothebys on April 6. 

Nicolas Chow, deputy chairman of Sotheby's Asia, said: 'The Pilkington Collection contains extraordinarily rare items, of a kind seldom seen together on the market.  'This time capsule captures a seminal moment in the history of collecting when connoisseurship in the field reached new heights of sophistication, and when collectors' appetites for the very best were serviced by a handful of brilliant dealers. 

 The interesting question is therefore how come in today's expanded market, there are many more dealers on the scene, all of whom have lots of stuff for offer from "old collections"? These items really need documenting as having belonged in a collection like Mr Pilkington's (the collector died in 1969 - all this material is therefore UNESCO-Convention compliant).

UPDATE 7th April 2016

Tom Whitehead, 'Secret Chinese art collection of British farmer sells for £45.9 million' Telegraph 7th April 2016.