Page 10 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Reginald and Lena Palmer, Their Collection,

and the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1921-1970

Dominic Jellinek

To Chinese-ceramics admirers of a certain generation, a Winkworth. This broader context of collecting Chinese art
small circular label distinctively inscribed with the initials in the UK, from the 1920s onwards, is brilliantly illuminated
‘R.H.R.P’, the label found on pieces originally in the Palmer by Sarah Wong and Stacey Pierson, eds., Collectors,
family collection of Chinese art, is both a sign of quality Curators, Connoisseurs: A Century of the Oriental Ceramic
and an indication that the object is likely to be of more Society 1921-2021, London, 2021, which accompanies
than usual interest. the Centenary Exhibition currently open to the public in the
Brunei Gallery, University of London.
Reginald Palmer MC, DL (1898-1970) was a distinguished
English businessman with an unusually varied background Reggie Palmer and his wife Lena were still in their mid-20s
for a notable collector of classical Chinese art. ‘Reggie’ (to when they began collecting Chinese ceramics and works of
close friends) was educated at Eton, and quickly joined the art in 1924. They quickly began to buy from sone of the best
prestigious Grenadier Guards to fight in France; he was London dealers, which were principally Spink and Son, Bluett
awarded the Military Cross, as a 20 year old Lieutenant, for and Sons, Sydney L. Moss, John Sparks Ltd and Yamanaka.
‘his great ability, personal gallantry and coolness when the Doubtless they also visited the Tonying Company’s London
battalion’s advance was held up opposite Boistrancourt by office in Clarges St, Piccadilly which closed in 1929,
enemy machine guns’ in October 1918. Leaving the army coincidentally a year after they had bought a ‘Song’ Cizhou-
after the War, he had a successful and varied civilian career: type vase (now thought to be Ming); and between 1936-1955
Chairman of the family firm Huntley and Palmers (1948- they would buy 33 items from H.R.N. Norton at his modest
1963), High Sheriff of Berkshire (1935), Joint Master of the shop, tucked away in unfashionable, bookselling-oriented
Garth Hunt (1931-36), cricketer at County level and captain/ Museum Street, Bloomsbury - some distance from the
wicketkeeper for the ‘Berkshire Gentlemen’. Chinese expert smarter Chinese-art dealer circuit in Mayfair, but conveniently
Jim Kiddell recorded in his 1970 obituary for the Transactions situated across the road from the British Museum and its
of the Oriental Ceramic Society that ‘Reggie was that rare growing collection of (and expertise in) classical Chinese art.
combination of a great sportsman, able administrator and
celebrated collector…a big man in every way, and many of us In October 1926, Reggie and Lena made their first purchases
in the Society have lost a great friend’. from the dealership that would become their main supplier of
top-quality objects, the gallery Bluett and Sons, run by two
Reginald Palmer grew up surrounded at home by the brothers Edgar and Leonard Bluett (hereafter I call the gallery
fashionable but Export-taste Chinese porcelains his parents ‘Bluett’). The items comprised: 5 jade carvings, presumably
had collected since the 1890s. Newly married to Lena, the considered to be pre-Ming, all of which had probably been
couple were fortunate in the mid-1920s to have sufficient sourced in China by the vendor who sold them to Bluett; a
funds to acquire what was not, in those halcyon days, pair of blue and white plates, probably 18th century; and
an especially expensive commodity, as they set out to a porcelain snuff bottle - all for the princely total of £34.10
consciously move the centre of gravity of the family’s Chinese shillings. By the mid-1920s, the Bluett brothers were gaining
Collection away from ‘Export-taste’ 18th century ceramics a reputation as serious dealers, Edgar and Leonard seeking
and into classic ‘Chinese-taste’ ceramics, works of art and to develop their knowledge of these previously rarely seen
jades – objects created entirely for the Chinese Imperial and Ming and earlier ceramics, early jades, and archaic and early
domestic market. bronzes which were for the first time being sent to London by
their agents in China. Reginald Palmer took the opportunity of
A clear distinction between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ studying aspects of Chinese art that would have been quite
Chinese tastes in the works of art manufactured in China unknown to his parents.
was becoming established for the first time in the West.
Much of the driving force behind this new interest in the In the autumn of 1923, ‘Bluett and Sons’ had moved from a
largely unknown domestic wares of dynastic China became small shop on Oxford Street, into a large gallery and basement
focused around the London-based Oriental Ceramic Society in a newly constructed building just around the corner in
(hereafter ‘OCS’), founded on 31 December 1921 in London’s Davies Street, Mayfair, thereby becoming part of the leading
Bayswater, during an agreeable dinner for twelve like- West End Asian-art dealer network centred around Mount
minded collectors at the home of founder-member Stephen Street and Davies Street. Bluett quickly began a series of

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