Page 4 - Longsdorf Collection of Song Ceramics, 2013, J.J. Lally, New York

Introduction

y interest in collecting began at a very early age. As a child, I
collected leaves and stones, stamps and Lincoln-head pennies, the
Mthings I could come by for little or no cost. As an adult my collecting
appetite grew stronger and more sophisticated, starting with Chinese furniture

(19th century hongmu “restaurant” furniture) and Japanese ceramics. Sometime
in the mid 1980’s I became interested in a group of late Qing enamelled wares
marked with the characters “Da Ya Zhai”, (“Studio of Great Refinement”). I
was attracted more to the mystery surrounding their origin than to their brash

aesthetics. At that time there was no consensus about the provenance and
dating of that distinctive group of porcelains, even among the knowledgeable
dealers. My research eventually led to the conclusion, which I published in
1992, that they were made for the personal use of the Empress Dowager, Cixi
when she was in power in the late Qing dynasty. My analysis was confirmed by
Chinese scholars at the Palace Museum in Beijing who found in palace archives

and published in 2007 many of the original designs for these porcelains done
during the Guangxu period (1862–1908).
My first approach to collecting Chinese ceramics was really an exercise in
historical research more than art collecting, but before long I became interested
in the ceramics of a much earlier period: the Song dynasty. The aesthetics

and style of the Song are the polar opposite of the late Qing. After such long
exposure to the over-decorated bourgeois ceramics of the late Qing, the utter
simplicity of the Song wares was a welcome change, but I knew nothing about
them. Of course I didn’t let that stop me from buying. My first piece was a
small carved Dingyao white porcelain bowl from the Northern Song—a piece
which I still have, more than twenty-five years later. I was hooked immediately

and whatever little knowledge I have acquired over time has come piece by