Page 9 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin W. Howard and Ada Palmer, 1904

old and new Chinese art into Europe (and notably London). to revitalise an almost extinct demand for fine early 18th
This led, in the later part of the 19th century, to a novel taste and century Chinese porcelain. By an amazing marketing sleight
demand in England for Chinese art, and especially porcelain. of hand, the ingenious Duveens managed to recreate, in
Availability was complemented by greater public awareness fashionable mid-Victorian London, a traditional 18th century
of what traditional Chinese arts and crafts looked like. Dutch demand which still survived in the Netherlands. Using
their old sources in Amsterdam and elsewhere, they supplied
Under the influence of aesthetic collectors such as JM and increased the London demand for Chinese porcelain
Whistler, collecting early 18th century Chinese porcelain dating from the Kangxi period (1662-1722). Much of the
to decorate his avant garde house and studio in Chelsea, demand was for ‘blue and white’, but enamelled wares were
and Oscar Wilde, trumpeting the exquisite beauties of long- also increasingly popular, particularly famille verte – both
ignored blue dragon porcelain, new collectors began in the on a white and on a ‘powder blue’ ground. In addition the
1860s to appreciate and actively buy pots which had not Duveens encouraged a taste in famille noire, which became
been looked at seriously for a century and a half. the ‘Holy Grail’ of the newly emerging taste of a generation of
wealthy American collectors like JP Morgan and Henry Clay
Thus it was that in the late 19th century collectors such as Frick, collecting through the Duveens’ New York branch in
Howard and Ada Palmer rediscovered for themselves the the 1890s.
beauty, craftsmanship and history of 17th and 18th century
Chinese porcelain and began their collection. There was therefore an established interest in Chinese art,
especially ceramics, among members of the Palmer family,
The credit for this rediscovery among collectors and avant both when Howard and Ada were collecting and when
garde influencers of the day must go in large part to the Reggie and Lena began to create their own collection in
Duveen family, an influential dynasty of Dutch antique dealers 1924. Indeed, the first item of porcelain in RHRP’s Collection
dominated in England by Joseph (later Sir Joseph) Duveen. ledger is a “Set of 12 Blue and White Plates K’ang Hsi”, a
With his nephew James, ‘Joe’ moved initially to Liverpool in wedding present from his widowed mother. However, the
the 1860s bringing with them the old Dutch Jewish tradition Collection put together by Reggie and Lena was one much
of enjoying blue and white and famille verte porcelain more firmly steeped in Chinese traditional connoisseurship.
alongside Dutch late 17th century furniture. In the 1880s, It focused less on objects made in Export taste for the West
when Duveen Brothers opened a branch on Bond Street in and more on objects created for an entirely Chinese domestic
London’s increasingly fashionable West End, they managed market, albeit one often at the highest social level.

THE PALMER COLLECTION | 7