Page 62 - Tabor Collection Christie's New York April 10 2019

103
A RARE FAMILLE NOIRE FIVE-PIECE GARNITURE
KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)
Each piece enameled with four fower-form panels enclosing birds among large chrysanthemum
blossoms, all on a black ground of fowering prunus, chrysanthemum and peony, comprising three jars and
covers and two beaker vases
15 3/4 in. (40 cm.) high, each (5)
$60,000-80,000
PROVENANCE:
The Estate of Laurance S. Rockefeller; Sotheby's, New York, 11 October 2005, lot 13 (one jar and cover).
James Garland, no. C4232 (that jar and cover)
With Ralph M. Chait Galleries, New York (one jar and cover and both beakers).
LITERATURE:
William R. Sargent, Chinese Porcelain in the Conde Collection, Madrid, 2014, frontispiece.

Although black wares were known in Song ceramics, the taste for what was later named 'famille noire'
was almost exclusively a Western taste developed in the Kangxi period. These sumptous wares were
esteemed by collectors in that period like Augustus the Strong of Saxony and much later became highly
desirable amongst major turn of the century collectors like Frick, Widener, Garland and Salting. Famille
noire comprised a good part of the J.P. Morgan collection that was famously acquired through Duveen
by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1915.
Compare this garniture, which was brought together by the Tibor Collection founder, with a nearly
identical, "rare fve-piece famille noire garniture" from a private collection sold Sotheby's New York, 27
November 1990, lot 187, and probably the same sold Christie's London, 5 October 1970.

60 THE TIBOR COLLECTION