Vase Bought for World Record - and Given Away

Once the slight, grey-haired American was recognised in the Hong Kong auction room, it was no great surprise that Steve Wynn went on to pay the world record price for a small, beautiful, copper red and white porcelain vase - 78,520,000 Hong Kong dollars (£5.5m).

What happened next was extraordinary: the Las Vegas casino owner, regarded as one of the most spectacular art collectors since the Medicis, gave the Ming vase away.

For decades, Mr Wynn, the son of a small-time gambler who ran an east coast bingo hall, has been collecting on a heroic scale and being sneered at by the art establishment for his pains.

When he bulk-bought Picassos and Cezannes a few years ago, he spent more than $25m (£13.3m) in 24 hours in New York and put the pictures on the walls of his casino hotels. But he was accused of buying "by the yard" and of paying too much for second-rate pictures.

Some purchases, however, have been outstanding by any standards: he spent £7m in 2003 on a Rembrandt any museum would have craved to own, a genuine, romantically lost self-portrait that had been hidden for centuries beneath overpainting on the canvas.

The piece he bought at the Christie's Imperial Sale in Hong Kong yesterday was lovely, an exceptionally rare Hongwu period - that is, 14th century - Ming vase, decorated in copper red scrolling flowers and in pristine condition.

It was assumed he was buying for his ultimate hotel, the Wynn Las Vegas, which is said to have cost $2.7bn to build. It has the Cirque du Soleil as in-house cabaret, shops including a Ferrari Maserati dealership, an enormous casino and 2,716 rooms - a lot of wall and shelf space to fill.

Instead, he announced he was sending it back to China, giving it to a Macau museum where it can be enjoyed by all. He may finally have left his critics speechless.