Page 21 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

THE STEELE PORCELAINS

ARRY GARFIELD STEELE was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1881 and died in Pasadena, California, in
1941. He grew up with his widowed mother in Pittsburgh, and initially worked as a clerk for the H. J.
HHeinz Company, later working for the Pittsburgh Transformer Company. In 1904 he married Grace
Cecelia Messner, and in the early 19205 he moved his family to Pasadena. In Los Angeles he bought a small inter-
est in the U.S. Electrical Manufacturing Company and eventually became its majority stockholder.
By 1930 Steele was an active collector, with particular interests in ancient coins, Renaissance prints, and
twentieth-century painting, graphic arts, and sculpture. Steele's interest in Chinese ceramics developed late in his
life, after a trip around the world with his family in 1936 and 1937, during which he traveled extensively in China
and the Far East. According to his son, Richard Steele, he "subsequently began learning more and more about this
art form and became vitally interested to the point where he taught himself through reading and contact with
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local Oriental art groups of the value of individual objects and what to look for in the way of fine quality...." As
his collection of Chinese ceramics grew, he devoted one room of his home entirely to the study and display of
porcelain. There he showed his Chinese ceramics to guests, encouraging them to handle the pieces in order to
study not only their visual aspect but also the weight and texture of their body and glaze—the qualities at the
heart of the connoisseurship of ceramics. After Harry Steele's death in 1941, his collection continued to be visit-
ed by discriminating collectors and dealers.
In building his collection Harry Steele aimed at both rarity and stylistic breadth. While the majority of
the ceramics in the Steele collection date to the Qing dynasty, there are also significant examples from the Song
and Ming dynasties. Steele rarely purchased ceramics at auction, preferring instead to do business with respect-
ed dealers whose knowledge and discretion could be trusted.
Of the vessels whose provenance is known, the largest number come from the former Parish-Watson
Gallery, New York. These include the rare Ming-dynasty enameled stem cup with a 'Phagspa mark (1972.43.5), the
Qing-dynasty Yongzheng stem cup (1972.43.20), and a Japanese Raku tea bowl (1972.43.62). A second group was
purchased from the Japanese dealer Yamanaka, who owned galleries in Chicago and New York before World War II.
This group includes some of the finest eighteenth-century Qing-dynasty ceramics in the collection; an example is
the Yongzheng period (1723-1735) dish depicting a Daoist paradise island (1972.43.43). From the dealer C. T. Loo,
who owned one gallery in New York and another in Paris, came the finest blue-and-white porcelain in the collec-
tion, an early Ming-dynasty (fifteenth-century) stem bowl dating to the Xuande reign (1972.43.5).
Comprising earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain vessels, the Steele collection is noteworthy because
it provides a coherent survey of Chinese ceramic techniques. The finest single group of porcelains in the collec-
tion is that made in the reign of the Yongzheng emperor in the early eighteenth century. The ceramics of this
period have long enjoyed an elevated status among collectors from China because of their elegant designs and
technical perfection. The eclectic archaizing tendencies characteristic of this period are well represented in the
collection by a white porcelain vase (1972.43.19). While the shape of this vessel is based on a Shang-dynasty
(c. thirteenth- eleventh-century B.C.) ritual bronze called a zun, the stylized phoenixes on the shoulder are based
on jade carvings of the Warring States period (c. fifth-third century B.C.) in the late Zhou dynasty. This vase was
Harry Steele's favorite ceramic object and is indicative of his refined taste.
SL

NOTES
i. Personal communication, November 1984.

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