Page 58 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

From the Summer Palace 1860 43
of Minister Plenipotentiary. Bruce formed a significant collection of eighteenth century
porcelains and enamels during his four years in Beijing, which was placed on long-
term loan by his family to the V&A from 1913 until it was withdrawn in 1923. 33
A moon flask, now in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham, was part of the
loan and in its form and decoration relates to other examples indicative of an imperial
provenance. 34 Its quality and connection to Bruce might indicate a Yuanmingyuan
provenance, but nothing more.
Two significant collections of jades and enamels formed in the wake of 1860 and
acquired by the V&A within roughly two decades of the Second China War, help
us understand the pattern of collecting this material soon after its appearance on the
art market and who was collecting it. Arthur Wells (1815–1882) and William Tayler
(1808–1892) were both relatively obscure collectors. 35 Wells was a Nottingham
lawyer, Clerk of the Peace, and a Deacon of the Church and although well-traveled
and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society did not, it seems, visit China nor
36
have any Chinese connections. His collection of Chinese and Indian hardstones and
enamels, first loaned to the V&A in 1872 and then bequeathed in 1882, consists
primarily of eighteenth century period items of outstanding workmanship. 37 His
obituary makes clear that Wells was a very private person, a Liberal in politics, “but
never a prominent party man” and “a man of considerable knowledge and refinement
. . .” It goes on: “his valuable collection of precious stones and carved curios of the
East will be remembered as a conspicuous object at the Exchange and the Castle
Museum.” 38 Apart from his work for the church, his hardstone collection was his
“chief recreation and intellectual pleasure,” a clear indication that Wells was more
than just an amasser of objects. His collection must represent one of the earliest
collections of such material in Britain at the time and, as Ming Wilson has observed:
“a few pieces undoubtedly came from the Qing imperial collection.” 39 They are
certainly marked so in the acquisition registers and include many in addition to the
Fosbroke jade already mentioned (Figure 3.2).
A decade earlier, the V&A purchased a collection of jades and enamels from
William Tayler. Tayler, a colorful figure who had been an East India Company official
and later a lawyer in Bengal, India, between 1829 and 1867 and author of an equally
colorful autobiography, formed a collection of primarily Indian, but also Chinese
and Japanese material during the 1850s and 1860s. 40 His autobiography says little
about his collection, other than the fact that he formed it while traveling in Bengal
as Postmaster-General and established a “museum” within his house in Patna. He
amused himself “by ascertaining all available particulars regarding the habits, manu -
factures, ornaments, religious and social, in each of the districts I visited . . .
thus, long before my resignation, I had gathered together an extensive collection of
interesting objects from all parts of my postal dominions. . . .” 41 However, in a foot -
note he writes: “After my return to England, circumstances induced me, though with
great reluctance, to part with the collection which is now in the South Kensington
Museum. The purely Indian articles are in the Indian Department, while the bronzes
and jade stone objects from Japan and China are in the principal rooms.” 42 Within
the collection that went to the Museum, no less than eight items from Yuanmingyuan
are itemized, including a pair of champlevé blue enameled lobed boxes and covers
of outstanding workmanship (see Figure 3.3). They are discussed and illustrated by
Stephen Bushell in volume two of his Chinese Art, with the Summer Palace connection
to the fore. 43