Page 220 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018

Erwin Harris sketching works of art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, circa 1985.

Chinese and Ordos Bronzes From the Harris Collection

(Lots 924-936)

cross a momentous and remarkable life, Erwin Harris (1922-2013) earned As a scholar and connoisseur, Erwin Harris made a point of sharing the
Aa reputation for surprise. “With Erwin,” the collector’s wife Therese wonders of his collection in the public sphere. In 1996, he contributed nearly
mused, “he just did things other people didn’t do.” The founder of a successful ffty unique works for the groundbreaking exhibition Traders and Raiders on
advertising frm, an astute collector of Chinese art, Harris was a man who China’s Northern Frontier at the Smithsonian’s Arth M. Sackler Gallery. A
embraced the world with open arms. His passion for ideas and discovery revealing examination of intellectual cross-pollination in ancient China, the
formed the cornerstone of an extraordinary private assemblage of Chinese art exhibition demonstrated Harris’ contribution to a largely overlooked area of
and antiquities – a decades-long pursuit of beauty and knowledge. Acquiring collecting and academic study. He gifted important works to institutions
works from notable dealers such as J.J. Lally, Giuseppe Eskenazi, and such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Freer Gallery of Art. Harris’s
Charlotte Horstmann, Harris assembled an exceptional private collection of extraordinary collection of Chinese art represents a lifetime’s dedication
art from northern China, southern Siberia, and central Asia. Diverse in material to adventure and connoisseurship – a venerable legacy that continues to
and period, the works in the Harris Collection are united by their enigmatic resonate.
visual appeal and the connoisseurship with which they were acquired. Erwin
and Therese Harris’s elegant Miami residence became a repository for
museum-quality Chinese works of art, including Tang dynasty horses, Shang
dynasty bronze ceremonial vessels and Ordos antiquities.

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