Page 9 - Metropolitan Museum Collection September 2016

Fig. 2. Illustrated letter with messages from artists Jean-Léon Gérome, J. M. SAMUEL PUTNAM AVERY (1822-1904)
Millais, and William Hollman Hunt , from Samuel Putnam Avery’s papers. ©
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum’s frst major grouping of Chinese ceramics came
from the collection of Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (fg.
1). Samuel Avery was an engraver, collector and dealer, who also
served as an advisor to other collectors. Avery eventually gave up
commercial engraving and concentrated on collecting and dealing
in art – particularly in Dutch painting and French landscape
painting. Indeed in 1867 he was appointed Commissioner of the
Fine Arts for the Paris Exhibition Universelle. His travel diaries
for the period 1871-1882, preserved in the Metropolitan Museum,
show that he travelled extensively in Europe visiting galleries, artists’
studios and art sales. He even mentions visiting Christie’s auctions
in London. He became friendly with various artists, who sent him
sketches and notes, such as the sheet with messages from Jean-Léon
Gérome, J.M. Millais and William Hollman Hunt (fg. 2).

Avery was one of the founding trustees of the Metropolitan
Museum, and more than 1,300 ceramics (predominantly Chinese)
were purchased from his collection in 1879. Photographs taken in
1907 show the wealth of ceramics from Avery’s collection displayed
in the Great Hall on the second foor of the Museum, which was
part of the recently completed new wing designed by Richard
Morris Hunt. Avery’s collection of Chinese ceramics concentrated
on porcelains from the Ming and Qing dynasties, as was usual for
collectors at the time. The delicate Yongzheng famille rose dish
[Lot 926], included in the current sale, is an example of the fne
18th century enamelled porcelains from his collection. Samuel
Avery gave his collection of 19th century American and European
etchings and lithographs to the New York Public Library in 1900,
and these provided the foundation of the Library’s Print Collection.
In addition he donated a signifcant collection of architectural
books to Columbia University.

Hearn has noted that the last two decades of the 19th century saw a
signifcant arrival of Asian decorative arts into the Museum, and has
suggested that this was in part due to the frst offcial world’s fair to
be held in the United States – the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia, which was attended by some ten million visitors, and
which displayed a fascinating range of decorative arts from China
and Japan.2 Exposure to the arts of East Asia during the so-called
Gilded Age not only motivated collectors to acquire items from
this geographical region, but also inspired designers, such as Louis
Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) and artists such as James McNeil
Whistler (1834-1903).

Lot 926

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