Page 11 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Reginald and Lena at Hurst, 1950

exhibitions, sometimes of private collections, sometimes of No doubt the exhibition would have also attracted some
their latest arrivals from China. Palmer attended the opening of the older generation of collectors, many from London
of one of the latter exhibitions on 9 November 1926 and made and the Home Counties; well-known names like George
two purchases. A pair of Zhengde Imperial green and yellow Eumorfopoulos, Charles Rutherston and Professor Sayre, not
‘dragon’ dishes cost him £17.10s ; whereas a Jiajing mark and to mention the wealthy Swedish collector Doctor Hultmark
period ‘Imperial yellow’ bowl, curiously partially covered with a whom the Ledger shows bought 14 objects for £304.10s, a
thin iron-red glaze, now in the Bonhams Exhibition Catalogue handsome single purchase at the time.
no.11, cost him the rather high price of £45 - probably
reflecting the (correct) belief that it was exceptionally rare to By 1927 the Palmers had already begun seriously collecting
find yellow-glazed Ming porcelain partially covered by a thin certain categories of Chinese art, particularly Ming and Qing
iron-red enamel wash, itself painted in darker reddish tones, ceramics. In May 1927, Bluett acted for him at Christie’s sale
with conventional mythical animals and birds, in Ming taste. of John Love’s collection of Ming ceramics. Love, a book
dealer, started buying Ming ceramics in 1921, and had been
At the reception in 1926, Reggie (and quite possibly Lena) successful in finding many pieces fresh to the London market.
might well have rubbed shoulders with some of the other Bluett bought two pieces for Palmer at the auction, and three
great collectors of Chinese art of this generation, names weeks later sold him two more pieces that John Love had
like Baron George de Menasce, Dennis Cohen, Mrs Walter consigned privately for sale in their gallery; a Jiajing blue and
Sedgwick, and R.C. (Robert) Bruce, because Bluett’s white dish for £16, and a Wanli blue and white dish for £13.
Purchase Ledger records that all of them also made
purchases that day! The Palmers would certainly have The core sections of Reggie and Lena’s Collection were now
enjoyed meeting Robert Bruce. He was a close acquaintance beginning to be formed, and their particular interest in Ming
of Reggie’s; they were at school together and fought together and Qing ceramics become clearer through his purchase
as commissioned officers in the Grenadier Guards during the records which happily survive.
First World War (they were both awarded the Military Cross
for their distinguished service). The Palmer family suggests He made a significant group of purchases from Bluett in
that Robert might well have been the collector who initially February 1928 for a total price of £242. Among these pieces
stimulated Reggie’s interest in learning about his father’s were some classic Ming Imperial porcelains. A Zhengde
existing collection of Chinese Export porcelain. The Bruce ‘green dragon’ bowl cost £40. It had been consigned for
family had a connection with China back to the middle sale by Harry Oppenheim, one of the great collectors of
decades of the 19th century; Robert had inherited (and would the generation before the Palmers, and one of the 12 OCS
greatly extend) the collection of fine Imperial ceramics and founder-members in 1921. This fine bowl was later lent to
enamels formed between 1860-64 by the British Ambassador the OCS Exhibition Polychrome Porcelain of the Ming and
in Beijing, his great-uncle Sir Frederick Wright-Bruce. Manchu Dynasties, which the Society organised in 1950 as a

THE PALMER COLLECTION | 9