Page 76 - Bonhams UK Marsh Collection Art for the Literati November 2, 2022
P. 76
“A few years ago, the late Sir Michael Butler came to our house for a visit.
Sir Michael was always keen to get the dating of piece as precise as possible,
and so I said to him, ‘We know precisely when this was made! It was made for
Christmas 1645!’ Sir Michael looked closely at the pot for a little while before he
smiled; he had got the joke. If you have not got the joke, we think that the swags
in the upper border, green and red, look very like Victorian Christmas decorations,
although obviously the decorator in 17th-century China would not have known
about Victorian Christmas trees.”
(Sam Marsh, Brushpots: A Collector’s View, p.216)
76 | BONHAMS
