Page 110 - Sothebys Fine Chinese Art London, November 2018

Fig 7. Residence of Gustav Detring, Tianjin
圖七 德璀琳故居，天津

Whilst Detring and von Hanneken’s professional later becoming the 31st President of the United States,
endeavours in China are well documented, their who collected Chinese blue and white porcelain; and von
collecting activities are less known. Collecting Chinese Hanneken’s brother-in-law Ernst Ohlmer (1847-1927), a
art appears to have been something of a hobby for both maritime customs officer better known for providing one
men - no doubt facilitated through their close working of the earliest photographic records of the remains of the
relationships with Li Hongzhang as well as their access Yuanming yuan in 1872, and whose extensive collection
to the Qing court, including to the Dowager Empress of Chinese porcelain is today housed in the Roemer-
Cixi and to the Guangxu Emperor. Certain works from Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim.
the collection were likely personally gifted to them by
the Qing court, but collecting may well also have been Von Hanneken returned briefly to Germany in
a means of decorating their palatial Tianjin homes (fig. 1895, bringing a large quantity of porcelain from
5, 6 & 7). Furthermore, both men moved in the same his collection back with him for safekeeping. In
professional and social circles in China as some of 1899. Approximately 160 pieces from his collection
the most legendary Chinese art collectors of the time, were loaned to the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in
including Alfred E. Hippisley (1848-1939), commissioner Hildesheim. They were returned to the heirs of
of the maritime customs between 1876 and 1884, who Constantin and Elsa von Hanneken in 1959. In 1919,
formed one of the greatest collections of Qing dynasty the family left Tianjin and settled in Hannover, Germany.
porcelain; Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), a mining Against the backdrop of the post-war economic
engineer who worked at the Kaiping Mining operation, depression in Germany, von Hanneken returned to

108 SOTHEBY’S