Page 20 - 2019 OctoberEnammelled Jewels Sotheby's Hong Kong

fig. 7 fig. 8
Portrait of Prince Gong (1833-1898) Portrait of Abel William Bahr (1877-1959)
© National Portrait Gallery, London © A.W. Bahr Papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Penelope
Jane Bahr, November 12th, 2001, FSA_A2001.14

instrumental in organising an exhibition of some 3000 pieces of with his brother Eugene, who collected Ming and earlier ceramics –
Chinese porcelain and other works of art in Shanghai in 1908, of assembled an outstanding collection of Qing imperial porcelains. As
which he published a catalogue in 1911. In 1922, the American Art his collection included several falangcai porcelains also decorated
Galleries in New York organised a large sale of antiques he had in the Beijing Enamelling Workshops, this piece and its companion
collected, another sale was organised in 1926 by Anderson Galleries perfectly complemented his ceramics. The couple donated many
of New York, and further sales followed in later years. He lent pieces to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and after Paul Bernat’s
several paintings to the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition in London death, a large part of his collection, including this vase and its
1935-6. Chinese paintings and other works of art in many different counterpart, was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
media from his collection have entered the Metropolitan Museum of
The companion bottle, now in the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which
Art, New York, the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, The
apparently shares the same provenance from Prince Gong Yixin
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, the British Museum, London, and
over A.W. Bahr to Paul and Helen Bernat, was sold in these rooms
many other museums, either through purchase or donation.
15th November 1988, lot 77; it has also been much published, for
Paul Bernat (1902-1987, fig. 9) was a textile manufacturer living in example, by Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command. An Introduction to
the Boston area, who, together with his wife Helen, – and in parallel Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, pl. 41.

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