Page 49 - Sotheby's New York Chinese Jade Auction September 13, 2018
P. 49
Property from a
PRIVATE CALIFORNIA
FAMILY COLLECTION
Celebrating Marriages Across The Centuries And Oceans:
A Long Journey From Shanghai To Hong Kong To Taipei To Hollywood
his stunning white jade marriage bowl has been an heirloom of a family, native to the
TShanghai region, for generations. In early twentieth century, the bowl journeyed to the
port city of Hong Kong before sailing across the South China Sea to Taiwan, as one of the
family’s most prized personal possessions.
A few years later, the only son of the family left Asia to enroll as a college student in Los
Angeles, California. Between his studies, he patronized a family-owned Chinese restaurant
near downtown Los Angeles (Fig. 1), whose distinctive architecture, modeled after the real
Shanghai, perhaps reminded him of home. There he was introduced to the family’s youngest
daughter. In due course their engagement was announced, and the jade bowl made another
long journey, this time carried by hand across the Pacifc Ocean to arrive at the fancée’s
family compound in the Hollywood Hills. Far from its frst home in China, the jade bowl
again fulflled the purpose for which it was originally carved centuries ago: to celebrate the
joyous occasion of a wedding.
Since then, the jade marriage bowl has been treasured in the same private family collection
in southern California for more than half a century.
Fig.1 The Forbidden Palace Restaurant, Chinatown, Los Angeles, 1940-1950. ©William H. Hannon Library
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