Page 12 - Sotheby's Chinese Art and Porcelain Auction New York September 12, 2018

STEPHEN JUNKUNC, III

PORTRAIT OF A COLLECTOR

LOTS 101!121

There are a handful of names in the world of various aircraft parts, including B-29 hydraulic spools
Chinese art that are inextricably associated with on behalf of Ford Motor Company, who was sub-
works of exceptional quality. Stephen Junkunc, III contracting work from engine maker Pratt & Whitney.
is amongst these luminaries. The name itself is Alongside his role as manager and part owner
instantly evocative of a period during which some of the company, Stephen Junkunc, III spent his free
of the greatest Chinese treasures came to America. time forming an extraordinary collection of Chinese
The Junkunc name today serves as one of the most art. With an unabated hunger for knowledge, Junkunc
important, and indeed desirable, provenances for was a voracious reader who studied the Chinese
Chinese art. Formed in America in the mid-20th language and kept extensive libraries of Chinese art
century, by Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978) the reference books and auction catalogues at both his
Junkunc Collection at its height numbered over home and o" ce. Junkunc appears to have made
2,000 examples of exceptional Chinese porcelain, his Þ rst acquisitions in the early 1930s, apparently
jade, bronzes, paintings and Buddhist sculptures; after having happened upon a book on Chinese
serving as a testament to a period of unprecedented art. It is perhaps no coincidence that Junkunc’s
wealth of Chinese material available in the West, as initial collecting activity largely coincided with the
well as to an astounding intellectual curiosity and establishment of the Chicago branch of the reputable
the means with which to buy internationally from the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., Ltd., who opened
leading dealers in the Þ eld. a gallery at 846 North Michigan Boulevard in 1928.
Stephen Junkunc, III was born in Budapest, Many of Junkunc’s early purchases came from
Hungary circa 1905, and emigrated to Chicago, Illinois Yamanaka, and before long, he was buying directly
as a young child, where his father Stephen Junkunc, from the leading London dealers specializing in
II (d. 1948), a tool-and-die maker, founded General Chinese art: Bluett & Sons, W. Dickinson & Sons,
Machinery & Manufacturing Company in 1918. The H.R.N. Norton and, of course, John Sparks, seeking
company specialized in the manufacture of metal Þ ne examples of porcelain for his collection.
stampings for casket hardware. With the outbreak The collection of Chinese ceramics from the
of World War II, General Machinery converted its Junkunc Collection ranks amongst the greatest
shop for the war e! ort and began manufacturing assemblages of porcelain ever formed in the West.
The collection included two examples of the fabled
Ru ware, of which only eighty-seven examples in the
world are known. These two dishes represented two
of the only seven examples of Ru ware to have been
o! ered at auction since the 1940s. One of the Ru
dishes, purchased from C.T. Loo in 1941, set a new
world record when it sold at auction for $1.6 million
in New York in 1992, and is today in the esteemed
collection of Au Bak Ling. Junkunc’s discerning eye
for ceramics was well established even in his nascent
years of collecting, as evidenced by a letter he wrote
to W. Dickinson & Sons in October 1935, requesting
that they be on the lookout for him for Kangxi and
Yongzheng period copper-red, peachbloom and
celadon-glazed ‘cabinet pieces’ of ‘very Þ ne quality
only’. In May of 1936, he wrote to Bluett & Sons in
London requesting that they continue to look for
Stephen Junkunc photographed with his collection, illustrated in The
Chicago Tribune, 7th September 1952 underglaze-red and peachbloom pieces for him, and
⎚吪剔ɀ䑲偗ᶱᶾ冯℞㓞啷⎰䄏炻↲㕤˪剅≈⒍婾⡯⟙˫炻1952⸜9㚰7㖍 to H.R.N. Norton in July of 1936 asking that he ‘send