A grand plan to create the world‘s finest collection of 17-century Chinese porcelain was not in Sir Michael Butler‘s mind when he bought his first piece of porcelain in 1961. However, the apparent lack of research into this period intrigued him and since he found the pieces more beautiful and affordable than those of the 16th and 18th centuries, he started to collect zealously. This lecture will chart the development of Sir Michael’s collection as he became increasingly scholarly and interested in refining the chronology of the 17th-century porcelain while championing it as one of China’s most important periods of ceramic creativity. He organised and co-curated six exhibitions, most importantly in 2005 in the Shanghai Museum. By the turn of the 21st century, he began to be extremely concerned by the quantity of forgeries appearing on the market and yearned for a time when science could prove or disprove a piece’s authenticity. Following his death in 2013, his daughter Katharine has continued collecting and has embarked on projects of scientific analysis and digital categorisation.  In this lecture, she will discuss the progress of these endeavours and consider how collecting porcelain in the future will be affected by a scientific approach.