2016 Chinese Export Porcelain Auction - Christie's Chinese Export Porcelain Auction

If Thursday's auction at Christie's in New York is any indication, Chinese export porcelain is making a comeback. Likely a mainstay in your grandmother's China cabinet, porcelain collectors love its classic appeal - and are willing to pay handsomely for it.

Of note was the sale of a Grisaille and Gilt 'Hongs of Canton' punch bowl depicting a continuous scene of small ships on the waterfront, which sold to the tune of $87,500, more than double the estimate for the piece. Astronomical? Absolutely.

"People appreciate quality things, value things, top of the line things… these pieces were curated with a scholarly eye, and are true collector materials," Becky MacGuire, head of the sale, told Veranda.com in regard to Thursday's "particularly wonderful reception" to the auction.

"In the 1700s, 'Made in China' was the ultimate mark of sophistication for Western porcelain collectors," Christie's notes in its guide to collecting Chinese export porcelain. According to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Chinese porcelains were regarded as objects of great rarity and luxury," when they were introduced to Europe in the fourteenth century. They were a small part of cargoes full of tea, silks, paintings, lacquerware, metalwork, and ivory. "The porcelains were often stored at the lowest level of the ships, both to provide ballast and because they were impervious to water, in contrast to the even more expensive tea stored above."

And while porcelain decorated only in blue pigment dominated the export trade until the very end of the seventeenth century - like the blue-and-white tea sets that fetched more than triple their estimated value at Christie's this week - colorfully-enamelled wares were also at the top of the market and remain so today.

Take a look at what some of the most coveted items fetched, below. 110 more lots of Chinese export art are slated to hit the auction block next week.