Sir Michael Butler’s career as a British diplomat focused on the West. He worked for the British Foreign Services, stationed in Paris, Geneva, and New York, and was a Counsellor in Washington, D.C. In his private life, however, Butler focused on the East. Until his death in 2013, he collected 17th-century Chinese porcelain, accumulating more than 600 pieces, from late Ming-era wine pots and vases to works from the Shunzhi, Early Kangxi, and Monochrome periods. In celebration of both the U.S. launch of the book Reconsidering the Sir Michael Butler Collection of 17th-Century Chinese Porcelain and Sotheby’s Asia Week, Sir Michael’s daughter Katharine Butler and the art historian Teresa Canepa discuss Butler’s vast collection with Henry Howard-Sneyd, Sotheby’s chairman of Asian Art, Europe and Americas. —Jensen Davis