Page 1 - Chinese Porcelain The Altman Collection
P. 1
Chinese Porcelain in the
Altman Collection
by F O N G C H O W AssistantCuratorof Far EasternArt
Under a vibrant and tender green sky seven sculptures. The Rospigliosi cup is one of
Yellow-centered prunus blossoms high. the most famous treasuresof his collection.
Anyone who looks with leisure at the green Mr. Altman began his career as a collector in
hawthorn vase illustrated on the cover will be 1882, when he was forty-two years old, with the
modest purchase of a pair of Chinese copper
rewarded with an instant sense of spring. White- vaseswith enamel decoration. Soon afterwardhe
breasted birds chirp joyfully while they thread
in and out of the aubergine and green branches, began to acquire porcelain, with the help of
among swaying bamboos and lichen-covered Theodore Y. Hobby, Keeper of the Altman Col-
rocks. Perhaps only nature and great works of lection from 1914 to 1958. The porcelains he be-
art can move us so deeply; for the Chinese there queathed to the Museum number 429, most of
has always been a close connection between the which can be called masterpieces. Only one
two. other collection in the world can be ranked with
The vase is one of the magnificent porcelains this one: the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. collection
given to the Museum in 1913 by Benjamin Alt- of Ming and Ch'ing ceramics, seventy-three
man, whose great bequest also included fifteen pieces of which were bequeathed to the Museum
Oriental rugs, fifty-one paintings from the fif-
teenth to the seventeenth centuries, and twenty- in 1961.
The Altman porcelains are now exhibited in
a new setting on the north and south balconies
Fig. i. Left: mantleset of five pieces in famille rose. Ch'ing dynasty,Ch'ien-lungperiod (I736-1795).
Heights25 and23 inchesR. ight:threepiecesfroma setoffiveinfamillenoire.Ch'ingdynasty,K'ang-hspi eriod
(I662-I722). Enamel on biscuit. Heights 24 and i8 inches
All the objects illustrated in this article were bequeathed to the Museum by Benjamin Altman in 1913
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