AN ELDERLY woman had a shock when she discovered a vase she owned is a rare Chinese Ming-style porcelain ‘moonflask’ which is expected to fetch half a million pounds at auction.

The woman, aged in her 80s, lives in West Dorset and took the vase to get valued at a village antiques day.

An expert recognised its rarity and suggested she contact John Axford, Asian art specialist at Salisbury auction house Woolley and Wallis.

He confirmed that the vase was a rare moonflask of the highest quality, created for the Imperial Qing Dynasty in the eighteenth century.

The vase is painted with delicate cobalt blue designs of birds perched on a prunus branch, a popular and auspicious theme for porcelain painters.

The moonflask was acquired by the woman’s father, naval hero Captain Edward Watkins Whittington-Ince, who was a Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies from 1925-27.

While the moonflask shape is originally derived from Syrian glass, this particular vase is copied directly from a Yongle original, now in the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum.

It is recognised as such a fine example it will be included on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow programme as part of its feature ‘Basic, Better, Best’. The programme will be screened next spring when the roadshow visits the Weald and Downland Musuem near Chichester. The moonflask goes under the hammer in a sale at Woolley and Wallis on Wednesday, November 16.