Page 13 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Bluett & Sons Ltd., London

collectors. In 1933 the significant decision was taken by the ‘Palace’ bowls than any other Western dealer in the 20th
OCS ‘Council’ to open up membership of the OCS to all century, and he discussed them briefly in his Memoir.
interested parties, as Leonard Bluett reported in a somewhat
unemotional 1933 letter to the firm’s erstwhile agent in The Palmers seem unaccountably to have missed the
Beijing, Captain W.F. Collins (at that time living in southern opening day of the Bluett/Boode Exhibition on 5 June 1934,
Rhodesia): ‘The Ceramic Society is now apparently open to but they made up for lost time two days later, when they
anyone who pays a subscription, we have joined…’. purchased for £46 a Zhengde-period flaring-rimmed spittoon
(zhadou), decorated in underglaze blue with dragons, which
Reggie and Lena must have joined around this time, and would subsequently be lent to the OCS Ming Blue and White
they would become staunch supporters of the Society’s Exhibition in 1953. A few days later, on 12 June, one (or
Exhibitions, from the first one - Ming Blue and White both) Palmers returned to the exhibition and bought for £36
Porcelain (Autumn 1946), until the splendid Chinese Jade an even more exceptional rarity, Bluett no.80, a Chenghua-
Throughout the Ages at the Victoria and Albert Museum period ‘Palace’ bowl, decorated with a continuous leafy
(Summer 1975). scroll around the exterior formed by the classically simple
and limpid design of fruiting melons, the interior of the bowl
In June 1934, Bluett presented what was probably the most left entirely plain. This splendid bowl was lent to the OCS
important selling exhibition of Chinese ceramics, particularly Exhibition The Arts of the Ming Dynasty (1957), no.131;
wares dating from the Ming dynasty, that was held by and finally it was among the small group of Ming porcelains
any London dealer before 1939: Old Chinese pottery and offered from the R.H.R. Palmer Collection at Christie’s in June
porcelain/recently collected in China/By Mr Peter Boode of 1982, selling for £170,000 (lot 79).
The Hague. Boode was a fascinating character, a Dutch sea
captain who had first travelled to China in 1913, and who had In 1936 Palmer bought another Chenghua ‘Palace’ bowl, this
by the 1920s established himself as a dealer in outstanding time directly from Peter Boode, who by then had a gallery at
Chinese ceramics, with addresses variously in The Hague, 125 Mount St, conveniently very close to the Royal Family’s
Beijing, Shanghai, and London. (His London home was at favourite supplier of Chinese art, John Sparks Limited. This
5 Carlos Place, the handsome mansion block flat opposite second bowl was more expensive at £50, because it was
the Connaught Hotel; his collector/client the second Lord decorated on both the inside and the outside with scrolling
Cunliffe lived very close and bought from Boode - as one did lilies. This handsome bowl finally left the Palmer Collection
at the time - three Chenghua ‘Palace’ bowls, on 7 January when it was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong in January 1989,
1947 for a total of £475). Boode had a relationship with its price of £145,000 reflecting the fact that Reginald Palmer
Bluett that lasted from his first letter addressed to the firm in had quite rightly not been deterred from buying a masterly
late 1924, until his death in 1971. in 1967 Boode (by then ‘Palace’ bowl 53 years earlier by its small rim chip.
living in Jersey) wrote a remarkable manuscript ‘Memoir’
which survives in the library at the School of Oriental and The Palmers continued to buy Ming and Qing ceramics
African Studies, University of London. it makes fascinating and various works of art enthusiastically right up until the
reading for anybody interested in the history of collecting beginning of the 1960s. Bluett acted for them at many of
top-quality Chinese ceramics in England during the inter-War the major auctions in London, including at Sotheby’s in June
years. Peter Boode probably handled more Chenghua-period 1935, when Charles Russell’s blue and white porcelain was

THE PALMER COLLECTION | 11