Page 8 - A Time and A Place Catalogue, Jorge Welsh

conferences at both of our galleries. These are always accompanied
by a catalogue and cover subject matters that have not been the focus
of exhibitions in recent times; and which hopefully contribute to the
furthering of knowledge in those particular fields.

This exhibition and catalogue celebrate our 30th Anniversary. As has been
the case with most of our exhibitions, we have focused our efforts and research
on a very specific theme, one that, as far as we are aware, has not been the
subject of any exhibitions, or indeed publications, the exception perhaps being
the chapter ‘Villes, monuments, châteaux, paysages’ in what has become the
reference book on Chinese export porcelain decorated with European scenes,
La Porcelaine Des Compagnies des Indes a Décor Occidental, by François and Nicole
Hervouët and Yves Bruneau, published back in 1986. This exhibition, however,
is not restricted to porcelain wares, it also includes other works of art produced
in China such as paintings, ivory, fans and a lacquer panel.

The planning for this project has been a long one, mainly due to the difficulty
in sourcing what are fairly rare pieces decorated with the sort of scenes that
illustrate this particular subject. In 2003 we acquired the first piece for this
exhibition which now includes over one hundred and forty works of art,
of which one hundred and twenty-two are illustrated and discussed in the
eighty-four entries of this catalogue. Over the thirteen ensuing years of
preparation for this exhibition and catalogue, A Time and A Place: Views
and Perspectives on Chinese Export Art, we, together with our in-house team,
collected, researched, wrote and put together the exhibition and this very
publication around the theme of: Chinese export porcelain and other export
works of art, decorated with scenes that have been influenced in some way
by man and always include buildings, street or city views.

These are hugely interesting pieces for a variety of reasons: through their
study one can better understand the popular taste of the time and of different
Western markets, how trade and private orders took place and who some of the
players and relevant personalities were. It is possible to see the technological
and logistic developments that took place during this period and how on the
one hand there were cross influences and on the other the clear distinctiveness
in terms of design, between the European and the Chinese painters of the time.

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