Christie's Hong Kong announced on Monday that an auction of 17,000 Ming Dynasty Chinese ceramics is to be held in Australia on March 1-2.

According to Christie's Hong Kong, the ceramics were found from a ship wreckage excavated off the coast of Vietnam in 2001.

From information provided by Christie's Hong Kong, the ceramics were produced at Zhangzhou in southern China, and are generally referred to as Swatow ware. About half of the ceramics were decorated in underglaze bleu-and-white, while the other half were overglaze enamels.

The majority of the ceramics are of medium-sized dishes with decorations of pairs of entwined phoenixes and vegetation, while others are decorated with storks, ducks, pairs of cocks, leaping fish and ribboned lions etc.

According to archaeologists, it is believed that the ship in the wreck belonged to a Chinese businessman. Around 1608, the ship was fully loaded with valuable cargoes of mostly blue and white Swatow ware from Zhangzhou and was probably heading for markets in Malaysia or Indonesia, which were well-established consumers of Chinese ceramics. But unluckily, it wrecked and sank to the bottom of the sea at Vietnam.

According to Christie's Hong Kong, some of the ceramics have been shown in exhibitions held in Hong Kong, Tokyo, London and Paris etc. A share of the proceeds from this sale will go to the construction of a museum that will house information about the shipwreck and the ceramics.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2004)