JINGDEZHEN IN JIANGXI province is well-known for its porcelain. The town has produced brush pots, inkstick stands, brush rests, paperweights, vermilion boxes, snuff bottles and vases of various shapes and sizes for China's royal families as far back as the Song dynasty.
However, neither the variety nor its royal connections make these porcelain wares famous. Described as being 'as white as fine jade, as thin as paper and as bright as a mirror' - and, when struck, they 'ring like a chime' - it's the quality that makes them a favourite of collectors.
Tony Miller is a Jingdezhen porcelain expert. Fascinated by the unglazed carved porcelain, the Hong Kong representative to the World Trade Organisation (and former permanent secretary for financial services and the treasury) has invested much of his free time researching and collecting this ceramic art.
The passion that inspired his private collection is the basis for Elegance in Relief: Carved Porcelain from Jingdezhen of the 19th to Early 20th Centuries, at the Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
There are 170 pieces, half of which come from Miller's collection. Thirty are from fellow collector Humphrey Hui Kin-fun, with the rest on loan from museums around the world, including the Shanghai Museum and the Baur Collections in Geneva, and private collectors from Hong Kong and Singapore.
Miller first came across a panel of four unglazed and carved porcelain tiles 12 years ago at the back of an antiques shop on Hollywood Road and was hooked.