Nicholas Chow of Sotheby’s basks in the glow of his record HK$208m ($26.7m) Ru sale:

“This is the most fabled Chinese ceramic ever to come at auction,” he said at a news conference. “This is the fantasy of all collectors.”

Four telephone bidders and two buyers in the room battled for several minutes before the hammer went down to a room full of applause. The winner, an unidentified telephone bidder paid more than twice the presale high estimate of HK$80 million.

The previous highest price for a Song ceramic was set by Sotheby’s in 2008 when a “Guan” Mallet Vase sold for HK$67.5 million.