Page 34 - For the Love of Porcelain

‘Flower Arrangement, etc.’ in Laurence Binyon’s 1916 catalogue of Japanese and Chinese woodcuts from the British

museum, this colourful woodblock print was given the modest title ‘Flower arrangement, etc.’ 2

Anne Gerritsen 1

1 2
Flower arrangement in Detail (Scene 1) of
vase with furniture, ‘Guwan tu’ (Pictures
ornaments and of Ancient Playthings),
inscription, printed paint on paper, Beijing,
woodcut, colour on 1728, h. 62.5 cm,
paper, Suzhou, l. 20 m, British Museum,
1700 - 50, inv. no. PDF,X.01
British Museum, © Trustees of the British
inv. no. 1906,1128,0.22 Museum
© Trustees of the British
Museum A tall vase with bright red flowers, a fly- and had presumably come to Europe with
brush in a blue-and-white porcelain bottle, the German polymath Engelbert Kaempfer
3
a yellow foshou (Buddha’s hand) citrus fruit (1651–1716) in 1692–93.
on a green leaf, a red-inked seal, a blue
and yellow enamel porcelain vessel with a The poet and art historian Laurence Binyon
curved spoon, a partially unrolled handscroll (1869–1943) spent his entire career at the
depicting bamboo, and a square bronze British Museum. He started in printed books,
censer (fangding) with a small lion-dog on then moved to prints and drawings, and from
the lid – these items make for a very striking 1913 established and led a semi-autonomous
arrangement (fig. 1). Binyon explains that sub-department of Oriental prints and
this print forms part of a set of 29 woodcuts, drawings, with the famous sinologist and
preserved in an album entitled Japanese and translator of Chinese and Japanese poetry,
4
Chinese Drawings ex MSS Kaempfer, which Arthur Waley (1889–1966), as his assistant.
had been in the possession of Hans Sloane, Binyon developed the museum’s collections

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