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Classic Chinese Ceramics from
The Peter W. Scheinman Collection

(Lots 1115-1145)

Peter Scheinman and his wife Barbara Giordano

Peter W. Scheinman

(15 July 1932 - 2 February 2017)

Anative New Yorker and a graduate of both Trinity-Pawling School and the University of Virginia, Peter W. Scheinman (1932–2017)
was a learned man of many and varied interests, from business and fnance to Chinese ceramics and vintage automobiles. A
dear friend, Peter and I frst met in 1986, our friendship evolving over the subsequent thirty years and continuing until his death early
this year. Apart from his family, whom he loved, cherished, and ceaselessly praised, Peter had two passions: fnancial management
and Chinese ceramics. He began collecting the latter in the mid-1980s, starting with Qing monochromes but quickly moving on to
form a comprehensive collection ranging from Neolithic earthenwares to Qing enameled porcelains. A quick student, Peter rapidly
acquired a specialist’s knowledge, developed a connoisseur’s eye, and assembled a surpassing collection. In 1992 the Baltimore
Museum of Art featured a portion of Peter’s collection in a special exhibition and associated catalogue entitled Born of Earth and
Fire: Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection. A generous donor to the Harvard Art Museums, Peter chaired the museum’s
Asian Collections Committee from its inception in 1992 until his retirement from the committee in 2011. Although he sold most of
his ceramics in a 23 March 1995 sale at Christie’s, New York, Peter retained nineteen Song- and Jin-dynasty, dark-glazed vessels for
inclusion in my exhibition Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black Glazed Ceramics, 400–1400,
which premiered at the Harvard Art Museums in 1995 and then was shown at China House Gallery, New York, in 1996. Harvard
subsequently acquired those dark-glazed pieces, along with many other works from Peter’s collection. Finding his passion for
collecting rekindled by the Hare’s Fur exhibition just as he was experiencing seller’s remorse, Peter assembled a second collection of
Chinese ceramics over the ensuing years; selections from that collection are ofered in this auction.

Robert D. Mowry
Senior Consultant, Christie’s, and
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
Harvard Art Museums