That he should lend 100 of his top pieces to the academy until December 20 is, according to head of Sotheby's Julian Thompson, 'tremendously exciting'.

Mr Au - a self-taught businessman who started work at eight - is quite a colourful character who made much of his wealth through publishing educational textbooks.

School textbooks are a particularly lucrative area of publishing in Hong Kong because the text changes so often, and students coming into new classes often have to buy new books, rather than relying on second-hand ones.

Since the mid-1970s, Mr Au has been putting together a collection of Chinese porcelain, now said to be the best of its kind in private hands.

Mr Thompson explained how Mr Au's collecting methods are quite different from other Hong Kong collectors like T T Tsui - who has his own museum, although his collection is much reduced after a series of 'anonymous' auctions at Christie's.

'T T Tsui's idea was a complete collection of Chinese art from the Neolithic period to now; Au Bak-ling wanted only objects from great periods.' This leads to a collection that is possibly less scholarly but more glittering.

The porcelain on show is mainly from the early Ming (particularly the 15th-century Xuande and Yongle periods) and the Qing Dynasty's peachy famille rose ware.

However, a highlight is the celadon Ru-ware of the Northern Song Dynasty, created for the early 12th-century emperor Huizhong.