Page 19 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

attracted, intellectually and aesthetically, to the art and history of early periods in China and Japan. Before most
other Western collectors, he developed a taste for ceramic wares that were relatively unknown and unappreciated
in the West.
The Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore bears witness to the diverse and catholic interests of another col-
lector. Henry Walters, a modest man, son of a collector of paintings, followed his own enthusiasm and judgment
in purchasing, caring little for the current fashions or European tradition. His collection, assembled over a long
lifetime, is vast both in number of objects and in areas covered. It is important in the fields of Egyptian, classi-
cal, early Christian, and Near Eastern art, as well as in Oriental ceramics. He and his father, William T. Walters,
were attracted to Oriental ceramics at an early stage of their collecting activities, and by 1884 they owned around
9
four thousand pieces. A ten-volume catalogue of that collection was published in i897. Although the scope of
the Walters collection was different from the Wideners', there is an interesting parallel in the father-son relation-
ship and the continuity of purpose over two generations.
The Steele collection differs from the Freer's in the scope and depth of its ceramic coverage, but has
many works of a type not included in the Freer collection. Joseph Widener and Harry Steele were roughly con-
temporary, but Steele's collecting began much later in life, putting him into the next generation of collectors.
These later collectors of Far Eastern ceramics, buying from the 19205 to the present, were interested in this area
of art specifically, and did not regard their acquisitions as mere accompaniment to or augmentation of other
works of art from great periods of Western art. These specialized collectors were usually intensely interested in
the history of the art and in each piece they bought. The collections of Mrs. Walter Sedgwick and Sir Percival
David in England and of the Fondation Baur-Duret in Geneva are among outstanding European collections of
this type, as are the Hoyt collection in Boston and the Avery Brundage collection in San Francisco. It is possible
to become acquainted with many of the great collections through their catalogues, which are available in
libraries. 10
As John Walker explains, "basically [the early collectors] shared a belief that their works would be of
public benefit...these collectors looked upon themselves as the temporary custodians of a heritage belonging to
all mankind. Their belief in private property did not extend to artistic property. The duration of possession, they
believed, was limited by mortality....Then they wished their works of art to enter recognized and established
museums and to become the permanent heritage of the people." 11
JK

NOTES
1. Walker 1984, 22.
2. Pope 1974, 87.
3. According to a New York Times obituary (copy in NGA curatorial files), James A. Garland died in 1901, his son in 1906.
Tompkins 1970, 99, records the elder Garland's death date as 1902.
4. Tompkins 1970, 99.
5. Saarinen 1958, in.
6. Pope 1974, 87-90. See also the discussion of famille noire, pp. 16-17.
7. The significance of this difference is reduced when it is noted that most of the 147 blue-and-white pieces were bequeathed by
Mr. and Mrs. Childs Frick to the Frick Collection in 1965. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that blue-and-white
porcelain, particularly that of the Ming dynasty, became sought after at extremely high prices in the market.
8. This introduction focuses on a small part of the Widener collection. Details of the building of the collection as a whole by Peter

W I D E N E R P O R C E L A I N S 3