The Xuande blue and white brushwasher that sold for £170,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.
Measuring 8 1/4in (21cm) diameter, similar examples reside in the Percival David collection and the National Palace Museum, Taiwan while another was sold by Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2005 for HK$28m (£2.15m).
However, while the brushwasher sold in Hong Kong was in perfect condition, this example, owned by a Somerset vendor whose ancestors had been involved in tea planting, had two hairline cracks to the front, another to the middle of the base and a chip to the rim on the back.
Lawrences gave it a cautious guide price of £5000-10,000 but bidding reached £170,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer's premium).
