THE HAGUE.- Only the best was ever good enough for the court of imperial China. It had its own special factories using the highest quality porcelain, the most virtuoso craftsmen and the finest pigments to produce the crème de la crème of Chinese ceramics. Now, for the very first time, a hundred of these masterpieces from the collection of the Shanghai Museum are exhibited outside Asia. However, the Sovereign Splendour exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag does not present these magnificent examples of imperial porcelain in isolation: through a focus on the symbolism and significance of their decoration, it also introduces the public to the fascinating myths and traditions of pre-revolutionary China.In the early seventeenth century, it became fashionable in the Netherlands to collect Chinese porcelain. Pieces imported by the Dutch East