Page 9 - Bonhams Passkon and Philanthropy MET Mjuseum March 2024 Asia Week

(1819-1894) to augment his budding Japanese collection for board members of the newly-founded Art Institute
with Chinese porcelain. Avery became a highly respected of Chicago to broaden their interests from Impressionist
art advisor in New York; access to knowledge of Chinese paintings to acquire Chinese and Japanese art. Inspired,
art connoisseurship was enhanced by Avery’s brother who or just competitive, Marshall Field (1834-1906) stepped up
became US Minister to China in 1874. Samuel Avery made with eight million dollars cash to found the Field Museum; he
sure that every public collection had Chinese ceramics. hired his first curator, Berthold Laufer (1874-1934) in 1911.
Eighty-two objects from his seminal 1879 sale of over Charles Lang Freer was encouraged to collect by the
thirteen-hundred Chinese and Japanese porcelains to the success of the World’s Columbian Exposition. As one of
Met are included in this sale. the greatest and most highly respected collectors of the
The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition broadened the early 20th century, Freer and his Detroit home and later
opportunities for acquisition by such illustrious figures as New York residence became a pilgrimage destination for
Henry O. Havemeyer, Charles Stewart Smith, and Mr. and collectors, museum curators and dealers, among them the
Mrs. Samuel Coleman who became early benefactors Havemeyers, Samuel T. Peters, Agnes and Eugene Meyer
to the Metropolitan Museum. The 1893 Chicago World’s and S.C. Bosch-Reitz, the Met’s curator of Far Eastern Art
Columbian Exposition opened the floodgates of opportunity from 1912-1927.

PASSION AND PHILANTHROPY: CHINESE ART FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART | 7