Page 45 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art Nov 2013 London

By definition, much of this earlier porcelain available in Europe The game was beginning to change significantly by the 1950’s. The
to collectors had been ‘Export’ quality, handed down from older first generation of great collectors saw their collections pass into
European collections, and enjoyed since the late 17th and 18th public ownership (David, Raphael) or be dispersed, often at auction
centuries for both its colours and functional value. But by the (Clark, Sedgwick, Palmer). The two great Eumorfopoulos auctions
1870s it was being more carefully ‘collected’, displayed in shelves in 1936 and 1940 mark a high point (or, rather, a low point?) in the
with the marks and symbols identified; and published in glossy dispersal of a spectacular early collection. There was nevertheless
catalogues, such as the one Whistler illustrated, to publicise ‘The still great scope for a newly emerging group of English collectors,
valuable collection of Nanking Porcelain formed with great taste and to buy regularly and easily, but they were often buying from other
judgement by Sir Henry Thompson’, subsequently sold at auction in collections. The radical novelty of collecting Chinese-taste ceramics
1880. The mid/late 19th century saw enormous interest in ‘Chinese as early as the 1880s was over. The corpus of knowledge was
pots’, with buyers regarding them for the first time as ‘aesthetic’ established, though still incomplete. No longer were consignments
objects, not functional ones. This ‘first generation’ of specialised arriving in London and Stockholm from sites at Changsha, or
collectors and taste-formers like James Whistler, Charles Liddell and excavated railway cuttings in Gansu Province, revealing entirely new
Oscar Wilde demonstrably got as much pleasure from their Kangxi- categories of early ceramics over which specialists could pore. The
period ‘six-character teapots’ and their ‘blue dragon bowls’ (to judge ground rules for dating early porcelain were in place, and transmitted
from their writings and paintings) as the Davids and the Clarks would to a wider public by the OCS (and other) exhibitions in London during
do later from their better-understood Yuan and Ming. the 1930s and ‘40s; notably by the unprecedented 1935 Royal
Academy Loan Exhibition, which uniquely included masterpieces lent
The outstanding sale at Bluett’s in 1929 from the Liddell Collection by the Chinese Government.
reflected the emergence of the second great generation of ‘the
British collecting Chinese ceramics’. Bluett’s was founded in 1884 Every collection is formed in its own cultural and social context. The
and had always specialised in Chinese ceramics and artefacts in sale of ‘The Liddell Moon Flask’ recreates those decades of utterly
‘archaeological’ and ‘domestic’ Chinese taste, unlike their great early pleasurable collecting between about 1890-1930, when interesting
rival, John Sparks Ltd., Bluett’s, Sparks, Boode, Spink and CT Loo material was abundant, knowledge evolving rapidly, competition
were among the greatest European dealers in Chinese ceramics, between collectors relatively amiable, and prices remarkably static.
handling what we now accept are the ‘classics’ of Chinese ceramics:
splendid Song and Ming monochromes; outstanding Ming coloured Bonhams is grateful to the authors of Provenance (published by Roy
wares; early archaeological pottery when it was still little-known Davids, Oxford, 2011) for making available much information about
but highly rated, when assessed beside comparable European the Liddell Collection.
material. These early 20th century collectors had the benefit of
access to cutting-edge academic knowledge in London; the great
early ceramic specialists and authorities, from Brankston through
Eumorfopoulos to David, moved seamlessly from assisting museum
exhibitions, to sharing evolving knowledge at Oriental Ceramic
Society lectures and private dinners, to the basement at Bluett’s as
new consignments arrived fresh from Beijing and Shanghai. Happily,
this close and mutually beneficial relationship in London between
Museum experts, art dealers and auction houses specialists has
been carefully maintained. It generated, and continues to underpin,
the unique character of the annual Asian cultural week which
Bonhams helps present as ‘Asian Art in London’.

The pre-eminent position that the London dealers (and auctioneers)
enjoyed in trading classic Chinese art between about 1910-1960
began to end with the emergence of new, richer, equally well-
informed buyers in Chinese-speaking Asia. No wonder before
the ‘60s that London (and other top European) dealers could offer
masterpieces for sale in London: could maintain teams of suppliers
(and even open branch offices) in Beijing and also Shanghai; could
pick through endless supplies of interesting material, to select the
best for the benefit of their changing roll call of collector clients in
Europe (and also America such as the Falks, Charles Freer, Avery
Brundage and Frederick Mayer).

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