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The Western market demand for Chinese Works of Art 1700-1860
Lynda McLeod has been Christie’s London based archivist, librarian and company historian for over 20 years (22 years to be precise). Lynda and her team of three provenance researchers are the ‘go-to’ team to help Christie’s staff, clients and art institutions with their provenance research. With 253 years’ worth of historical sources to harvest and a methodical approach to provenance research, Lynda has access to hand-written journals, historical auctioneers’ books, sales catalogues and daybooks, together with external libraries and online sources.
Lynda disseminates and shares the Christie story through presentations, seminars and training sessions within the company. She also prepares and presents talks and lectures to a wider audience at conferences and at educational establishments and she has been called on and appeared in TV programmes as a provenance expert on series such as ‘Fake or Fortune?’ on BBC 1. She also researchers and writes published articles and contributes to books on the subject of provenance research.
Today Lynda can be found concentrating on two big projects: Overseeing and contributing to the Christie’s global departmental library-book database; and managing a major digitization project of the London based historical auction records.
Before Christie’s Lynda was to be found ensconced in the Windsor Castle Library as part of a team of library cataloguers contributing to the Royal Collection inventory project (RCCIS), today known as the Royal Collection Trust online database (RCT.UK). Before that she worked in the information worlds of advertising at J. Walter Thompson (JWT) and at the management consultancy Bain & Co.
This session aims to investigate the European/Western demand for Chinese works of art bought and sold outside China between 1700 and 1860: who were the market movers and shakers? In what way did the Prince Regent, later King George IV (1762-1830) influence the desire in Britain for Chinese works of art? Did his enthusiasm for an Asian theme at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton influence the market? Where did the ambition to have ‘Chinoiserie’-themed rooms come from? Such as the ‘Chinese Room’ at Claydon House, Buckingham, home of the Verney family.
Unlike the European ‘Grand Tour’ when paintings and works of art arrived relatively easily into Britain from the near continent. How and where did buyer’s find their new Chinese blue and white porcelain or their ‘Japanned’ lacquer cabinets? Who was selling export porcelain? Did you purchase them at a shop, at a local warehouse or ‘Pantechnicon’ stuffed with exotic Asian goods? Who were the art dealers exporting eastern works of art to the west? What role did the auction house play in creating a market? By selling these appealing goods did they contribute to a growing market or develop a trend?
This session will examine and introduce some of the key individuals: the traders and the collectors. It will shine a spotlight on the cultivation of and demand for goods exported to the west for sale or brought back from Asia by travellers happy to display their new curious purchases. The narrative will also focus on such questions such as: – “what route to the west did these cultural artefacts and remarkable objects take?” “How significant was the Silk Road trading passage?” Along the way we will discuss whether language was a barrier to trade? And how did the demand for Chinese export porcelain fuel a growing market sector?
Imports of Chinese works of art since the mid 17th century had given rise to the aesthetic of chinoiserie in Europe, which represented fanciful European interpretations of Chinese style. From the English willow pattern to the Kew’s Pagoda, China was fabricated as a flimsy fantasy and an imaginary landscape.
While most studies focus on how the European misperceptions of the Far East had influenced the development of chinoiserie style in the West, this paper will explore the role that China played as a cultural producer in the manifestation of the European vision of China. It sees chinoiserie in a field of productive relations yielded from the global exchange of things, ideas and aesthetics since the 17th century.
Although the term ‘chinoiserie’ generally refers to imitations and adaptations by European craftsmen of visual motifs taken from imported Chinese objects, the resulting hybrid style was not a a simple invented European idea of the Far East. By conducting comparative studies between Chinese porcelain, including wares made for both the domestic and overseas markets, and English ceramics, this paper will show how China had actively engaged in producing such representations by intentionally exporting selected images of China and ‘othering’ itself.
American-born art dealer Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904) amassed around 1,400 Asian art works, primarily Chinese porcelains. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired his collection, its first in the field of Asian art, in 1879. Avery probably purchased his first works in Europe when he served as Commissioner of the United States Fine Arts at the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition. He never traveled to China. Instead, he purchased most of his porcelains in Paris from Siegfried Bing (1838–1905) and the brothers Auguste (1838–1886) and Philippe Sichel (1839/40–1899) among other dealers. In addition, he educated himself by visiting private collections, such as Philippe Burty’s and Henri Cernuschi’s (1821–1896) collections (before the Musée Cernuschi opened in 1898). He continued visiting and buying from international exhibitions including the 1873 Vienna International Exhibition and 1878 Paris Universal Exposition. He first loaned his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1875. They included his collection in their Pottery and Porcelain handbook. Four years later, he sold it, not without some dissent, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Museum visitors would encounter a faraway culture for the first time through its objects. Analyzing this pioneering collection informs us today about a triangle of trade among China, Europe, and the United States as well as taste making in the late nineteenth century. What lasting effect did this collection have on the museum and its public? How and what did visitors learn about Chinese porcelain and Chinese culture?
The demand for ‘Oriental Curiosities’ in the latter part of the 18th century from the newly emerging ‘middle-classes’, was sated through the purchase of products available to buy in London shops. Another source for obtaining ‘exotic’ goods from China and Japan was the opportunity to buy decorative pieces at public auction. James Christie (1730-1803), the founder of the firm and his son ‘Jimmy junior’ (1773-1831), played a significant role in the distribution of works of art including: fine Asian ceramics exported to the west; Chinese & Japanese export furniture and furnishings. Both men exploited the desire for owning these fascinating objects by holding numerous sales every year in their ‘Great Rooms’. Thereby facilitating the distribution of these objects. The paper will take a broad look at the Asian goods being sold, highlight some of the individuals who were selling and what they were willing to pay. The market was boosted with the enthusiasm for all things ‘chinoiserie’ by the Prince of Wales (1762-1830, later King George IV) who bought objects and furnishing with abandon for his seaside paradise, the Pavilion at Brighton.
In this paper, I will demonstrate, that the Messrs. Christie did not have to source goods for auction from the East. They did not rely entirely on international traders shipping goods to London. No, their market was principally reliant on collectors’ bringing their oriental curiosities, often purchased by the owners during travels in the far east, to the sale room, where they were snapped up by buyer’s hungry for these fashionable objects.