Page 35 - Christie's Fine Chiense Works of Art November 2018 London

THE SOAME JENYNS COLLECTION OF

CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART (LOTS 20-43)

SOAME JENYNS AS I REMEMBER HIM

JAMES SPENCER, CONSULTANT AND FORMER CURATOR OF THE
CHANG FOUNDATION, TAIPEI

Soame Jenyns 詹甯斯(1904-1976)

Life was not all roses for the most junior member judgement on almost anything Oriental that was
of the Oriental Department at Christie’s in the put in front of him. As much as anyone I had ever
early 1970s. Once or twice a month, however, known, Soame had an ‘eye’ for Oriental art, an
there was a real treat. Our consultant, Mr Soame ability to discern the good from the ordinary, the
Jenyns, formerly of the British Museum, came on superlative from the good and the really rare from
one of his regular visits. the merely uncommon.

Soame, who soon became a friend and an ally, Soame often said that he thought his former
was already a legend in the feld of Oriental art ‘chief’ at the British Museum, R.L. Hobson,
and the author of some of the most defnitive never had a sense of beauty for things Oriental,
books on Chinese and Japanese ceramics. On but treated this vast subject as an intellectual
his visits to Christie’s he was shown any obscure exercise in dating and cataloguing. The
or dificult objects on which a second opinion same could never be said of Soame himself. I
was needed. In this he excelled. His career at particularly remember him being very excited
the British Museum, in addition to his years in about a damaged Chinese famille rose porcelain
China and his visits to Japan, had given him kendi (jug), circa 1730 which he bought and later
enough experience and confdence to pass