Page 59 - March 22 2022 Bonhams

Richard and Diane Milhender at their Boston home. Richard and Diane Milhender 夫婦，攝於波士頓家中

The New England coastal ports of Boston and Salem always As a member of Boston’s illustrious St. Botolph Club, Richard has
assume a central role in any study of the American maritime trade served on its Art Committee for many years. Founded in 1880 at the
with Imperial China, even though the harbours in Philadelphia and apex of the golden cultural epoch of the City of Boston, its original
New York were also important ‘China Trade’ ports at the same time. members were mostly eminent individuals connected to the arts,
The ‘New Nation’s’ first small trading ship to China, ‘The Empress literature, music, architecture, public affairs, as well as the vast
of China’, one of many converted frigates and privateers, left the commercial, shipping, and professional empires that supported them.
busy wharves of New York’s waterfront in February 1784 to trade To this day the Club continues to serve its founding purpose as a
for the first time directly in Canton, freed from the trading straitjacket place for those with a love of the arts, sciences, and humanities to
of Britain’s ‘Honourable East India Company’ which had hitherto gather and converse.
muzzled trade with Asia. ‘The Empress’ was laden with unassuming
agricultural and useful North American products to exchange for Richard has spent many years sharing emerging scholarship,
Chinese arts and crafts, among more routine commodities and tea. discovering, and identifying unrecorded China Trade objects which
As with earlier ‘John Company’ imports from China into the United now enhance several public institutions. He also formed his own
Kingdom, the ‘Empress’ and its many ambitious New Nation joint- specialist collection of Chinese export furniture, portrait paintings,
stock competitors would commence a period of Asian commerce and Indian Colonial silver, the latter now part of the Boston Museum
which greatly enriched the cultural life of many East Coast states of Fine Arts. Never a particular enthusiast for China trade porcelain
in the late 18th and much for the 19th century. Ever since 1784, (traditionally the most readily available popular category for China
Boston remained one of the greatest entrepots for supplying trade collectors), he has preferred to encourage research into other
imported decorative Chinese furnishings into a discriminating East specialist China Trade areas; principally Huali furniture and portrait
Coast clientele of fashion influencers, ‘upholsterers’ and successful paintings.
individuals decorating unprecedently elegant newly-built homes.
During the later 20th century, Boston had become the epicentre The Milhender Collection of Chinese Export Furniture is deliberately
for imaginative and innovative research about the culturally small, very carefully chosen and representing some of the finest
cross-fertilising Sino- American relationship, very much based on pieces surviving anywhere. Most are well known and published.
pioneering studies notably (among many others) by Doctor Crosby Some were key exemplars for Carl Crossman, illustrated by this
Forbes, himself the heir to the Robert Bennett Forbes house and leading American dealer a generation ago in his seminal study, ‘The
China trade contents at Milton, now preserved in its entirety as a Decorative Arts of the China Trade.’ In this ground-breaking book,
classic China trader’s New England home. New England was and eleven pieces of his Huali furniture are illustrated, many of which are
remains the most fertile source for original collections of Chinese for sale in the current sale. Six oil paintings of illustrative personages
export art in America. are also illustrated. Among the most important, is the pair of
beautifully rendered paintings of Jefferson and hitherto-unidentified
I first met Richard Milhender when I was newly based in New York in companion, also offered for sale here. Crossman acknowledges in
the late 1970s. I became very friendly with Crosby and Richard after I his introduction, “the dogged determination of certain collectors such
lectured at Old Sturbridge Village, about comparative Chinese export as Richard Milhender, to assemble the very best of the China trade
art in England; happily, my friendship with Richard has lasted for over furniture of the 18th and 19th centuries.”
40 years.
This collection brings together a remarkable assemblage of rarities,
Richard has been part of the great Boston-based coterie of ‘China almost all made of finely-figured Huali wood, and of great beauty in
trade’ scholars, collectors, and dealers during its most exciting era design. It uniquely encompasses a range of functional and display
of ‘Trade study’ since the late 18th century. He served as a Trustee pieces, Chinese cabinet makers recreating (fairly) faithfully many
of the China Trade Museum, Milton (1978-84), and subsequently distinctively- designed fashionable western originals, presumably after a
of the Peabody Museum, Salem as Trustee and Board member few years’ lag transferring the designs to Canton. Bonhams is delighted
(1984-94). It became restructured as the Peabody Essex Museum to offer for auction this unique group, each piece carefully selected
in 1992 where he also served on the Visiting Committee for Asian over four decades as a prime example of a rare genre of fine Chinese
Export Art from 1984-2011. He also served as Charter Member of craftsmanship explicitly copying a foreign source of inspiration.
the Collections Committee for Asian Art at the Harvard University Art
Museums (1992-2019). His association with the Boston Museum Colin Sheaf
of Fine Arts has spanned the years 1972-2018, serving on three Emeritus Global Head of Asian Art, Bonhams London
different Visiting Committees. His has therefore a distinguished February 2022
record of philanthropic support for the arts in Boston museums.
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