Page 82 - Bonhams May 16, 2019 London Asian Art

The Property of an English Family 英國家族藏品
84
AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND LARGE BLUE AND WHITE
‘IMMORTALS’ DOUBLE-GOURD VASE
Jiajing six character mark and of the period
Heavily potted with tubular neck and large lower and smaller upper
bulbs, supported on a splayed foot, deftly painted in vibrant tones of
underglaze-blue around the exterior of the lower globular body with
Daoist deities and Immortals with various attributes and gifts including
Han Xiangzi with flute and Zhang Guolao with bamboo drum and
sticks, enclosed by stiff-leaf and petal-form lappets, the waisted center
with a scroll of lingzhi, the upper bulb with further immortals including
Liu Hai on his three-legged toad crossing a sea of crested waves,
between lappet bands, the narrow cylindrical neck with further scrolls
of auspicious lingzhi fungus.
55.5cm (21 3/4in) high.

£80,000 - 120,000
CNY700,000 - 1,100,000

明嘉靖 青花人物紋葫蘆大瓶
青花「大明嘉靖年制」楷書款

Provenance: J.Dearman Birchall (1828-1897), Bowden Hall, © Trustees of the British Museum
Gloucestershire, collection no.32, and thence by descent
來源：英國格洛斯特郡，Bowden Hall，J.Dearman Birchall
(1828-1897)收藏，編號32，並由後人保存迄今

J.Dearman Birchall (1828-1897) was born in Leeds, the son of a
successful Quaker wool merchant with roots in manufacturing and
retailing local tweed. A successful innovator and merchant, Dearman
led his family firm to prizes for their cloth at the International Exhibitions
in London (1862), Paris (1867), Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876),
Paris again (1878) and Sydney (1879).

All the time he was trading cloth, he was also acquiring Chinese
porcelain and Persian fabrics. His diaries note that in 1875 and 1877
he bought from, and sold porcelain to, the Dutch-based dealer Joel
Duveen, the first Duveen to make a base in the United Kingdom in
1866, opening a shop in Hull (Barnett and Duveen, 49 Waterwork
Street). By 1890, both his collection and Duveen’s domination of the
Chinese porcelain market had expanded vastly. As Dearman aged,
in 1892 Duveen offered to buy back his whole collection to ship out
to his insatiable new ‘robber baron’ clientele in New York, collectors
like Henry Clay Frick and J.Pierport Morgan. But the collection
survived this tempting offer, and remained on open display in Dearman
Birchall’s home, where he could indulge his Leeds business skills in
more congenial surroundings and support a variety of charitable and
philanthropic causes which rightly gave him considerable local prestige.

However, this appreciation of the subtle qualities of ‘sapphire blue’
Chinese ginger jars, especially the legendary ‘hawthorn’ jars, did not
normally involve much knowledge about Chinese reign marks. Nor
did the early collectors, except a few enlightened ones educated by
Watercolour, The Morning Room, Bowden Hall, Gloucestershire, scholars in the London museums, have either the opportunity or the
knowledge to acquire genuine Imperial reign-marked ceramics made for
19th century the Chinese domestic market. The finest Kangxi was apparently largely
made for the Export trade, and Birchall was even asking Duveen to find
it for him in Holland. However, at some point before the 1890s, Birchall
was enabled to buy some ceramics which fell way outside the well-
beaten collecting taste of late Victorian England; and, as his inventory
records, to his credit he knew what date these Imperial pieces were.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
80 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.