In the 1960's Mr. Morrill started collecting early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, concentrating on the 14th and 15th centuries.

Her favorite hobbies included collecting fine porcelain and her research on the history of clothes, something at which she was an expert.

Mr. and Mrs. Clinton also collect porcelain, fine examples of which they were shown during several trade-promoting trips to the Far East.

In the late 1980's, Mr. Gill also began collecting Chinese porcelain.

Squiers was a noted collector of fine porcelain, and had previously collected porcelain during his time in Japan.

"English 18th-century ceramics were quite out of my price league, so I started to collect French soft-paste porcelain," he said about his adolescence.

She started collecting porcelain with the pattern known as roosters and roses because, she said, both her grandmother and mother had a piece.

Ravel also collected figurines and porcelain ranging, his friends said, from the discreet to the "quite bad."

"We collect porcelain and I love getting it out," she said.

He started by collecting Chinese blue and white porcelain.