Page 24 - Sotheby's Sir Quo Wei Lei Collection Oct. 3, 2018

Sir Quo-Wei Lee (1918-2013) was known to all as a man of singular vision, wisdom and
integrity, a man whose contributions to education, public service and philanthropy
remain indelible. In contrast to his legacy of achievements in society, his study was
the repository of a quiet and obsessive collecting journey through Chinese art. This
lifelong passion began in the late 1950s, when Sir Quo-Wei and his family lived in quaint
Village Terrace, Happy Valley, three floors above my grandfather, the Chinese art
dealer Edward T. Chow. Lady Lee remembers how this fortuitous encounter sparked
his interest in Chinese porcelain and how his neighbour guided him early on. The most
prolific period in Sir Quo-Wei’s collecting came in the early 1970s after Julian Thompson,
who then headed the Chinese art department at Sotheby’s, brought auctions of Chinese
art to the city. The two men shared a love for Chinese porcelain and many of Sir Quo-
Wei’s finest pieces were acquired in the 1970s and 1980s, that golden time in the
Chinese art market.
The collection spans from the rarest early Ming porcelains to the finest Qing Imperial
jade carvings. It reveals an exacting eye particularly sensitive to court taste, yet
unceremonious, equally delighting in a baroque wall vase shaped as a luth or an
understated late 14th century blue and white cupstand. The collection above all
manifests a deep affection for blue and white porcelain in all its declinations, as well as
for the purest, most exquisite jades.
This catalogue and the exhibition to follow will provide for the first time an insight into Sir
Quo-Wei Lee’s lifelong passion for art. For connoisseurs, this very private collection, rich
in its variety and distinct in its character, will no doubt be a revelation. We wish to thank
Lady Lee and the Lee family for entrusting us with it.

Nicolas Chow