Page 24 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art London Nov. 2019

Property from the Mark and
Alice Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism,
Oxford, 1914; Henry Harrison Getty (1838-1919)
Courtenay Morgan, Viscount Tredegar
(1867-1934)
Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar
(1893-1949)
22 | BONHAMS
Peter Dineley Collections
Lots 15 - 20
According to family history much of the Chinese, Tibetan and
Nepalese art was collected in the late 19th/ early 20th century by the
American lumber baron Henry Harrison Getty (1838-1919). Born
in Batavia, New York, Getty retired from a successful career in the
lumber business aged 50, in order to travel in Europe and Asia to
collect Far Eastern Art. In 1890 his wife Carrie died, so Getty was
accompanied on his explorations by their daughter Alice. Settling in
Paris in the early years of the 20th century, Getty encouraged Alice to
compile a catalogue of his collection, which focussed on the Hindu-
Buddhist pantheon. This she did, and in 1914 Oxford Clarendon
Press published The Gods of Northern Buddhism, still one of the
foremost books on Tibetan art.
Following Henry Harrison Getty’s death, it seems that Alice Eliza
Getty (1868-1946) sold much of the collection to Courtenay
Morgan, Viscount Tredegar (1867-1934) in the 1920’s. Based at
Tredegar House near Newport in South Wales, one of the finest
17th century houses in Britain, the Morgan family were one of
Wales’s wealthiest families, having made a fortune over successive
generations, and establishing Newport as an important industrial and
commercial centre. Viscount Tredegar travelled extensively, and after
the First World War he made two circumnavigations around the world
on his steam yacht Liberty, during which he visited every colony in
the British Empire.
Viscount Tredegar died in 1934, and was succeeded by his son Evan
Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar (1893-1949). Deeply eccentric,
he lived alone at Tredegar with a menagerie of animals and birds.
Fascinated by the magic, he had a diverse and eclectic group of
friends, from the occultist Aliester Crowley to Lord Berners and
Augustus John. A keen art collector, Lord Tredegar had a interest in
Chinese jade, and visited China with Peter Watson the art collector.
He exhibited works from his collection at the Berkeley Galleries
exhibition of Chinese Art in the summer of 1943, and opened the
Exhibition of Art of Tibet and Neighbouring Countries at the Berkeley
Galleries in December 1945.
By the 1940’s Lord Tredegar’s lifestyle had eroded his vast
inheritance, and he started selling off parts of his art collection,
before dying in 1949. A Professor Bellerby is believed to have
purchased the Tibetan bronzes from Lord Tredegar. His wife
subsequently sold the collection to Mark Dineley after her husband’s
death. In 1960s a handwritten ‘A Catalogue of the Dineley Collection
of Tibetiana and Associated Buddhistic Objects’ was compiled by the
family listing many of the pieces in the collection.