Page 15 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Bonhams Exhibition Catalogue no.25, was an exceptional
purchase from Hancock, a London dealer in Bury Street
who principally sold fine Kangxi-period ceramics. Among
the few enamelled Qing and later pieces purchased from
Bluett is the pair of slender baluster famille rose vases
bearing iron-red hall marks and datable to the early 20th
century, Bonhams Exhibition Catalogue no.23. These
were bought on 14 October 1947 for £18, after Bluett had
originally purchased them in September 1946 from H.R.N.
Norton. They were included in the OCS Exhibition Enamelled
Polychrome Porcelain of the Manchu Dynasty (1951), no.208.
The Palmers were ahead of their time with this purchase, as
there was little interest from collectors in this type of 20th
porcelain until the 1970/80s; even then, pioneer collectors
and dealers like H. A. van Oort, Michael Kaynes, Simon Kwan
and Peter Wain were very much the exception to the rule. By
coincidence, the previous item in this 1951 OCS Exhibition,
no.207, was also a Palmer piece of enamelled late porcelain;
a small yellow-ground bowl with sepia decoration, bearing
the Dayazhai mark and hence part of the special commission
made for the Empress Dowager in the late 19th century. Also
originally coming from H.R.N. Norton, Bluett had sold it to the
Palmers in August 1929 for £10.
The first of the auctions from the Palmer Collection was held
at Sotheby’s on 27 November 1962. A single-owner sale
of just 83 lots, significantly it credited both the collectors
with the title ‘Important Ming Porcelain: The Property of Mr Reginald Palmer, 1965
and Mrs R.H.R. Palmer’. This must have been something
of an event in the Chinese art world, the first sale from such
a well-known collection, now comprising types of Chinese Sotheby’s was the principal London saleroom for Chinese-
ceramics for the first time much in demand among both taste and archaeological ceramics and works of art over
Asian and Western buyers (though during the 1960s there nearly 50 years, that is, until the late 1960s. Other pieces,
were inevitably always more Japanese buyers in London than including the Palmer Jiajing ‘fish’ jar, were sold at Bonhams in
Chinese ones). Bluett’s copy of the sale catalogue is carefully 2003 and 2009.
marked, and a list of pieces purchased for their stock and for
their clients records that several items were bought for the Reggie and Lena would have been pleased to read in the
young collector Roger Pilkington, emerging into the limelight Daily Telegraph that their careful selection of outstanding
from a similar background to Reginald Palmer’s, and sharing and unusual pieces, brought together at Hurst Grove over
his tastes in Chinese ceramics. several decades, created so much interest among the world’s
current connoisseurs and collectors. Pleased, but perhaps
Another group of nearly 100 Palmer Collection ceramics and not surprised. They were lucky to be buying at a time when
jades, dating from the Wei to the Qing dynasty, was sold at there was a constant supply of fresh material on the London
Sotheby’s on 28 May 1968; and there were smaller dispersals market; they had ready access to academics creating an
in 1974 and 1976. An outstanding group of five early Ming entirely new chronology for Chinese ceramics, particularly
blue and white porcelain vessels was sold at Christie’s on ones in Imperial taste; and they shared a flourishing spirit of
14 June 1982, following the death of Lena who had survived friendly competition with personal friends. This must have
her husband. Nineteen Yuan and Ming blue and white ensured a stimulating and entertaining atmosphere at every
pieces, offered together in a single-owner sale at Christie’s OCS meeting; at every exhibition opening, whether Bluett
Hong Kong on 17 January 1989, comprised what the Daily or Sparks or Spink; at every sale preview at the London
Telegraph’s distinguished artworld commentator Godfrey auction houses; and at every dinner, even if at a competitor’s
Barker recorded as “Christie’s most important single-owner home! The Palmers were fortunate to be collecting in a
group of Ming porcelain it had offered in the 20th century”. unique context, the decades of Republican-era China before
This was probably a fair comment. During most of the 20th the shutters came down again in Maoist China. During this
century, Christie’s continued to dominate the British auction period, now a long-lost memory of collecting Chinese art in
market when the contents of great country houses came to Europe, the convergence of fine objects arriving for the first
be sold, but normally the Chinese contents were impressive time from China, a Home-Counties-based coterie of wealthy
Export-taste ceramics such as large display vases, British collectors, and ready access to new Museum-based
mantlepiece garnitures, armorial dinner services; whereas, as scholarship, created for the British community of Chinese art
so many Palmer/Bluett purchases consistently demonstrate, enthusiasts a ‘perfect storm’ of opportunity.

THE PALMER COLLECTION | 13