Private and Public Museums in China

Rose Kerr, Honorary Associate of the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, previously Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum from 1978-2003

Throughout the history of the People’s Republic of China (1949-) museums have presented no political threat to its government. Indeed, they have been employed to frame and present history and culture in a manner that the authorities approve. For that reason, museums kept their doors open through the dark days of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and continue to be generously supported by cities and state. In recent years, many old museum buildings have been replaced, renovated or renewed. Since the 1990s, the growing wealth of China has led to the opening of many private museums. The enormous affluence of certain individuals has ensured that most private museums contain rich, diverse collections of art objects.

One Family’s legacy, the Treasures of Burghley House

Miranda Rock, Executive Chair of the Burghley House Preservation Trust

Burghley House still stands largely unchanged as a proud legacy to the ambitions of its creator William Cecil, Lord Treasurer to Elizabeth I. This extraordinary sixteenth century ‘prodigy’ house is a rare survival intended to establish the Cecil family as a powerful dynasty long into the future. Stepping inside the house today, it is clear that many generations have left their mark and what remains is a fascinating history of taste and collecting over the last 400 years.

While very little remains of the Elizabethan interiors, the principle apartments remain lavishly furnished in the seventeenth and eighteenth century styles and display some of the most intact Grand Tour collections of any English country house. Perhaps the most interesting survival at Burghley is the remarkable archive documenting the history of the purchases, gifts and commissions over the last four centuries. Understanding these layers of collecting, connoisseurship and the characters involved has been the key to understanding the history and importance of Burghley, and to ensuring its preservation for the future.

The Royal Collection in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth II

Caroline de Guitaut, Deputy Surveyor of The King’s Works of Art

The Royal Collection, one of the greatest European dynastic art collections still in royal ownership, represents over 500 hundred years of collecting by successive monarchs. Through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the Royal Collection has become more publicly accessible than ever before. Focussing primarily on decorative art, this paper will reflect upon how change and innovation in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II has shaped the collection now and for the future.

Medici porcelain

Professor Timothy Wilson, Honorary Curator, Department of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum

Medici porcelain is the first European porcelain of which examples have been identified. Their beauty and rarity make the 60-odd known intact pieces among the most iconic works of European ceramics.

Various attempts in Renaissance Italy to imitate Chinese porcelain, precious and seeming almost magical, are recorded. In Ferrara Duke Alfonso II d’Este employed two brothers, Camillo and Battista Gatti of Castel Durante; at his death Camillo was described as “the modern rediscoverer of porcelain”. No examples of this Ferrarese porcelain have yet been identified.

At the same time, in Florence, experiments were taking place under the aegis of Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici; success was achieved by 1575. Porcelain-makers worked alongside goldsmiths and hardstone workers and the designs reflect Mannerist shapes as well as Chinese prototypes. Production depended on granducal patronage and tailed off after Francesco’s death; there is no continuity with later European porcelain.

‘… Let no man put asunder’: how much do collections matter?

Dr Timothy Schroder, FSA, Former Curator, Lecturer and Author

Collections are clearly important. Related objects when seen together have more to tell us than when seen alone and a good collection is always more than the sum of its parts. But objects are promiscuous and they move thoughtlessly on from one collection to another without losing their identity or significance. A quite different question is whether old collections, just by virtue of having been together for a long time, should stay that way. This lecture looks at different collections, in different media and from different times, and asks whether the very fact of their longevity as collections matters too, or whether we are confusing substance with sentimentality.

“Has collecting really died or just changed direction?”

Anna Somers Cocks OBE, Founder editor of The Art Newspaper and journalist

My introduction to collecting was, aged seven, in my late grandmother’s Venetian palazzo, which had six, big 17th-century, Spanish chests, vargueños, down the great central sala, their little drawers full of endlessly exciting things: fans, coins, mosaic tesserae, shells, Spanish silver reliquaries, African talismans and so on. She was definitely in the category of true collectors and although I met her once because she was born long before the turn of the century, those objects literally put me in touch with her. They passed from her hands directly into mine. I was planning to be a doctor, but some how I ended up as an Assistant Keeper (when that title still existed) at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Granny had intervened.

Then, in my 13 years at the V&A, I got to know the collectors of the past whose enthusiasms had built up the museum, but also those of my counterparts, such as Gillian Wilson at the Getty, who were true collectors themselves, the ones with the personal, passionate urge to acquire for their institutions, while others were happier just studying or teaching.

I have spent time with major collectors including Heini Thyssen, Jayne Wrightsman, and Sir Paul Ruddock. I have observed the way in which collecting knowledge and collecting objects goes together.

When I first joined the V&A in the 1970s, we were told that one of the reasons for our collections was for outside collectors to be able to come and compare their pieces. That synergy sounds quaint now, but it bound the museum and collectors together in a mutually beneficial way, so what happened to weaken this bond? Was it the V&A’s own diminished interest in collecting, or the decline in collecting outside the museum?

I shall try to answer this question by analysing some true collectors I have known and also looking at the economic, social and intellectual forces that have been at play. I will even attempt to suggest what lies ahead.

The Corning Museum of Glass: Nearly 75 years of Collecting, Research, and Inspiration

Karol B. Wight, Ph.D., President & Executive Director, The Corning Museum of Glass

Since it first opened in 1951, The Corning Museum of Glass has aspired to be the international leader in transforming the world’s understanding of the art, history, and science of glass. Through its comprehensive collection development; exhibitions and publications; grants and commissions; teaching the art of glassmaking at The Studio; and creating the library of record on glass at the Rakow Research Library, this museum strives to inspire all to see glass in a new light. The museum staff collaborates with many communities - of scholars, collectors and makers from around the world, and delights its visitors by sharing the story of more than 35 centuries of man-made glass. Created as a gift to the American people as part of the celebration of the Corning Glass Works’ 100th anniversary, the museum has grown to become a centerpiece of its community and region, attracting nearly 300,000 visitors per year. It was just named one of the ‘7 Wonders of the Glass World’ by the international steering committee for the U.N. International Year of Glass.

Heaven on Earth. The phenomenon of Baroque Austrian monasteries

Dr. phil. Claudia Lehner-Jobst, Art historian and director of the Augarten Porcelain Museum, Vienna

At the height of the Counter-Reformation, the cultural landscape of Austrian monasteries developed into a network of Baroque architectural extravagancies and flamboyant art collections. The unfailingly successful connection between heaven and earth engaged architects, sculptors, painters, musicians, porcelain and silk makers, and a stage designer, in creating perfect universes of glorification. The Gesamtkunstwerk of an Austrian monastery is made of a grand architectural structure, often at imposing positions in the countryside, and magnificent interiors which visually dissolve physical boundaries. Representing the hierarchy of the heavens, as well as the relations with the Imperial house, monastic collections grew with important commissions and inheritances, including all things rare and divine, from Kunstkammer treasures to porcelain for the dessert table, exhilarating celestial frescoes and calyxes adorned with the empress´ jewellery.

You that way; we this way: Whither the Future of Public Collections in the United States?

Dr Matthew Hargraves, Director, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

The concept of a public collection of art has existed in the United States since 1842 when the Wadsworth Atheneum was incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut. Today, after 180 years there are somewhere in the region of 1,000 art museums depending on definitions. The majority are defined as public collections, formed by visions of philanthropy and public spiritedness that face such challenges at present that it is reasonable to ask whether they can long endure. What lessons might the past contain to suggest the future direction of public collections in the United States?

Kings & Queens and Soup Tureens: The evolution of the Campbell Collection

Patricia Halfpenny, Vice President Northern Ceramic Society, Curator Emerita Ceramics & Glass, Winterthur Museum

Chartered as a non-profit educational institution in 1966, the Campbell Museum was housed at the headquarters of the Campbell Soup Company in Camden New Jersey. The focus of the museum’s collection was soup tureens with an emphasis on great European silver and ceramic examples of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1969 the museum published its first catalogue detailing 82 items in full colour and highlighting some impressive provenances. The collection continued to grow, more catalogues were published, and a selection of objects travelled to major American art museums and to a few prestigious English venues. What Power & Prestige did this collection project? Who was responsible for the creating the collection; why was it formed; what remarkable objects did it included, and why was it dispersed 30 years after it was established? These are some of the questions explored in this presentation.

A Prince’s Treasure: From Buckingham Palace to the Royal Pavilion. The Return of the Royal Collection to Brighton

David Beevers, FSA, Former Keeper Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Nicola Turner Inman, Curator of Decorative Arts at Royal Collection Trust

In September 2019 over 120 magnificent objects, commissioned or acquired by George IV for the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and removed by Queen Victoria in 1847-8, were returned on loan by Queen Elizabeth II. This lecture will examine the stripping of the Royal Pavilion in the 1840s and the subsequent installation of these objects in other royal palaces, most notably Buckingham Palace, where three rooms were created in the new east wing especially to house works of art once at Brighton. Here, under Prince Albert’s direction, a serious attempt was made to recreate in London the lost splendours of the Royal Pavilion.

The Reservicing Programme at Buckingham Palace, a project to overhaul the building’s essential services, began in the east wing and required the decanting of all the contents including all those once at Brighton. This presented a once in a lifetime opportunity for the return of some of the most spectacular objects back to the rooms at the Royal Pavilion where they were originally displayed.

The transfer and movement of objects between buildings is a complex matter and the lecturers will discuss the logistics of the loan and the benefits both to Brighton and the Royal Collection Trust.

Hungry for the Past - Baroque Buffets, Ducal Desserts and Rococo Suppers

Ivan Day, Food Historian, Museums and Country House Consultant

Ivan Day will share some of the highlights of a thirty-year career working with museum collections in the recreation of period table settings using silver, porcelain and glass, but most of all reuniting these wonderful objects with the extraordinary food for which they were originally designed. Above - a recreation of an English dessert in the ‘intimate’ rococo style, with Chelsea, Derby and Worcester porcelain. (Bowes Museum 1994). The panelling is from Chesterfield House, the London home of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who employed the French chef de cuisine Vincent de Chapelle, author of The Modern Cook (1733). La Chapelle went on to cook for John V of Portugal and Marie Leczinska.

The Soane Museum and what is to come of it?

Dr Bruce Boucher, Director, Sir John Soane's Museum

My title comes from an article published in The Builder in 1859, which summed up the puzzlement of the general public as to the purpose of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Sir John conceived of his house and museum as an academy for the enlightenment of the general public as well as a catalyst for the creation of new art by future generations, and he took the controversial step of promoting a private bill in Parliament to establish it as a new national museum in 1833. In so doing, Soane created challenges that successive trustees, curators, and the public have grappled with for almost two centuries. My talk will focus upon how these challenges were met as well as the synchronicity of between the rehabilitation of Soane’s Museum with the rehabilitation of his reputation as an architect.

A manufactury‘s past, present and future: the collection of Museum Schloss Fürstenberg

Dr Christian Lechelt, Director, Museum Fürstenberg

Dating back to 1747 Fürstenberg as one of Germany‘s oldest porcelain manufacturies produced figurines, tableware and all kinds of fashionable items as well as utilitarian porcelain over the ups and downs of a 275 years period. Dramatic changes in taste and habits evolved, transformed and shaped a distinctive range from the beginning in the courtly rococo era until the present day’s idea of modern luxury.

The collection of Museum Schloss Fürstenberg was begun in the 1950s, when planning started to create a coporate museum. The objective was to introduce visitors of the historic site to the company’s long and lively tradition by displaying magnificent pieces from the past alongside contemporary, newly created porcelain. Over seven decades a unique collection with an encyclopaedic character developed, which offers not only a view through a looking glass into the past, but also serves as a vade mecum for the future.

Diplomatic Gifts in Gold

Dr Timothy Schroder, Dlitt, FSA. Former curator

Gifts have always been an integral part of diplomacy and were presented by sovereigns to visiting ambassadors as a complement to his royal master and as a means of sweetening the passage of a treaty. The commonest fate of those in gold or silver was to be melted down and turned into cash, but occasionally they have survived, although sometimes transformed into something else and inscribed with a record of the original gift. The favoured form of these gifts changed over time. In the sixteenth century it was common to present a departing ambassador with a gold chain; in the seventeenth the gift would often take the form of a cup, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth the snuff box was the favoured form. But in whatever form, they are a striking reminder of the importance of the ambassadorial role at a time when historic and binding decisions had to be taken without any possibility of the ambassador referring back to his government for new instructions.

The Art of War, the Arts of Peace: patronage and production of luxury crafts for the samurai

Gregory Irvine, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Research Department, V&A

Twelfth century Japan was riven by civil war but in 1185 the samurai warlord Minamoto Yoritomo defeated his rivals and established his military government at Kamakura. In 1192 Yoritomo was appointed Shōgun by the Emperor Go-Toba, thereby beginning nearly 700 years of military rule of Japan.

By 1615 the Tokugawa clan had unified warring Japan and art and culture flourished under their shōgunate. They formed courts where leisurely accomplishments such as calligraphy were deemed appropriate, and they adopted courtly rituals and styles of clothing far removed from their military past.

The peaceful Edo period (1615-1868) saw developments in the production of porcelain, lacquer, metalwork, and textiles which found a ready market amongst the samurai elite who had become significant patrons. It also created an environment in which the merchant classes prospered, and they would increasingly become the new patrons of the arts.

The lecture will look at the exquisite objects created for these patrons.

Augustus the Strong and the "red porcelain" from Saxony

Dr. Julia Weber, Director of the Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Even a century after its invention, the so-called Böttger stoneware was still referred to as the first Saxon porcelain. For contemporaries, it was far more than a particularly fine red stoneware that offered entirely new possibilities for refinement due to the density and hardness of its body and thus could advance to become luxury goods of the first rank. Born out of the royal art of alchemy, the new material was associated with ideas of mercantilist success and political ambitions, which explain why Augustus the Strong held on to Böttger stoneware even after his sensational white porcelain had long since won the favour of buyers.

The lecture will begin by looking at collections of Böttger stoneware in the 18th century to find out why this specific material was valued and how it was classified in different contexts. Special attention will be paid to the promotion of "red porcelain" by Augustus the Strong, which will be traced on the basis of individual pieces and partly new archival sources.

The Art of Giving: Diplomacy at the Bourbon Court

Dr Helen Jacobsen, Executive Director of the Attingham Trust

Diplomatic gifts have always played a central role in international relations, despite – or perhaps because of - the ambiguity between gift and bribe. Hand-in-hand with France’s rise as a centre of fashion and supremacy in the decorative arts came an added reliance on luxury goods such as tapestries, carpets, gold boxes and porcelain as part of the diplomatic language. It was, however, a very structured language and many misunderstandings have arisen since - after all, who doesn’t love a good royal provenance? This talk will look at some of the beautiful works that were gifted and the context in which they were presented, hoping to shine a light into the highly prescribed world of diplomatic etiquette.

The Medici and maiolica in the time of the Florentine Republic

Professor Timothy Wilson

The period covered by this talk covers the golden age of Renaissance art and culture in Florence, from the rise to political dominance of the Medici family in the person of Cosimo "il vecchio" in 1434 to the appointment of Alessandro de' Medici as first Duke of Florence in 1532. Successive members of the Medici family, notably Lorenzo "il magnifico" were personally interested in ceramics. The most brilliant factory associated with the Medici was at their villa of Cafaggiolo, north of Florence; while the town of Montelupo, on the Arno, became one of the most productive of all commercial maiolica centres.

Attributes of Splendour: jewels and the projection of power in Royal India

Dr Amin Jaffer

Whether an emperor portrayed in a Mughal miniature or a maharaja depicting in a Victorian studio photograph, rulers in India were typically characterised by the abundance of jewels they wore. The proliferation of precious stones was not only a reflection of wealth – and therefore authority – but also an evocation of the cosmic power of certain gemstones by virtue of their association with planetary forces. In a survey of Indian kingship from ancient times to the early modern period, Amin Jaffer will explore the importance attributed to gems in the articulation of power, drawing on ancient treatises about the power of precious stones, court memoirs and contemporary accounts.

Face to Face: Dame Rosalind Savill in conversation with Brian Haughton

Brian Haughton was already a successful dealer when in 1982 he launched the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, and today we celebrate his achievement over forty years. He would transform the world of the ceramics dealer, collector, curator and scholar by bringing together in one place each June a new, radical and magical combination of some of the best dealers in the world, strict vetting procedures, academic lectures given by an international range of experts, and a sense of glamour, fun and camaraderie. This conversation will explore how Brian developed such a special vision, how he and his wife, Anna, delivered it year after year, what impact it has had on the decorative arts in recent generations, and how they organised annually four international Art & Antique Fairs in New York, one in Dubai & Art Antiques London.

Polishing the Crown – The Influence of Artists and Scholars on Royal Berlin Porcelain Orders

Dr. Samuel Wittwer, director of Palaces and Collections at the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg

In the representation of the Prussian monarchs Berlin porcelain played quite a role. Since the foundation of KPM in 1763 vases and other decorative objects were displayed in significant places at the royal palaces to help in proclaiming the king’s glory. On the table, services had to convince guests of the royal taste and widely observed state gifts to other courts served as ambassadors of power – in a highly sophisticated atmosphere of nuances. What a perfect trap for a king to make a fool of himself, if these porcelains turned out to be slightly off-key and missing the intended allusion! But who were the advisers to preserve the crown from ridiculousness? And how were they involved? The lecture shows some outstanding examples and the story of their genesis.

Thomas Jefferson at Monticello: Prestige, Power and the “Peculiar Institution” of Slavery

Leslie Greene Bowman, President, Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Leslie Greene Bowman will discuss Thomas Jefferson’s commitment to the arts as central to his advancement of a fledgling United States, and as a means by which he advanced power and prestige while relying upon and yet deploring the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Bowman will excerpt images and ideas from a book she has just produced with Rizzoli, entitled Thomas Jefferson at Monticello: Architecture, Landscape, Collections, Books, Food, Wine.

For Sultans, Grand Dukes and German princes: Chinese Porcelain as Diplomatic Gift

Dr. Eva Stroeber

Silk and Porcelain were the most important diplomatic gifts the Chinese emperor gave to foreign rulers. Silk is long gone; but porcelain, mysterious, beautiful and priceless, is preserved, sometimes documented.

This talk will focus on three case studies of Chinese porcelain as diplomatic gifts, and will explain the specific role porcelain played in the diplomatic and cultural exchange of China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Italy and Dresden in the 15th and 16th century.

Firstly, I will talk about the famous Princessehof dragon vase, made in the reign of the Yongle emperor (1403-1424), found in the Sangir Islands, now Indonesia, made as an diplomatic gift for a probably Muslim ruler on the archipelago and connected with the diplomatic missions, the Seven Sea Voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He.

Secondly, I will mention a diplomatic gift of a celadon dish and vase from the Egypt sultan Qai’it Baj to the Medici in 1487, the porcelain with the inscriptions preserved in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

Lastly, I will discuss a group of Chinese porcelain given by Ferdinando de Medici to the Saxon court in Dresden in 1590, preserved in the Porcelain Collection, Dresden, and documented in inventories from the 1590.

How Chinese Emperors Used Ceramics to Support their Power and Prestige

Rose Kerr, Honorary Associate of the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, previously Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where she worked from 1978-2003

As the Son of Heaven, emperors employed sacrificial vessels for religious ceremony, demonstrating their divine legitimacy to rule the country. Each year, a major sacrifice conducted by the emperor in person was presented to Heaven, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Temple of Imperial Ancestors, the patron saint of Agriculture and the Guardian Spirits of the State and Harvests. In earlier times gold, silver and bronze vessels were used but in 1369 an imperial order went out ordering that all ceremonial vessels used in the state sacrifices should henceforward be made of porcelain. Fine porcelain items were also used as accoutrements for the throwing of banquets and other power events. Wares for the palace were regulated, with colours and designs for each member of the imperial family listed as to rank. Perhaps most significantly of all, ceramics were a material demonstration of China’s superior technology to the outside world.

Rebuilding a Collection: 20 years of working with palaces, paintings, sculpture, furniture and porcelain

Dr. Johann Kräftner, Director, Liechtenstein, The Princely Collections

For the collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein, the events surrounding World War II brought drastic changes. 80 % of the princely assets had been lost through the confiscation of the estates in the Czech Republic and a return of the artworks to Vienna after they had been evacuated to Vaduz was out of the question.

It was necessary to ensure the family’s financial survival through the sale of works of art. Only after the now reigning Prince Hans-Adam II had achieved to reorganise the financial basis in the 1970s, it was possible to stop selling works of art and to make a new start.

The first major sign of life was the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1985/86. A second significant step was taken with the restoration of the summer palace in the Rossau quarter and the opening of the Liechtenstein Museum in 2004, followed by the restoration of the city palace in the centre of Vienna, both now presenting substantial parts of the Princely Collections.

At the same time, the fundamental reorganisation of the collections was carried out. This was accompanied by sales of less important collection items and a targeted acquisition policy spanning the last three decades, which raised the collections to a new level.

Prestige despite Disfavour : the Prince de Condé & Chantilly porcelain

Dr Mathieu Deldicque, Curator, Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly

A grandson of Louis XIV through his mother, great-grandson of the Grand Condé through his father, Louis-Henri Prince of Condé, generally known the Duke of Bourbon, was one of the great patrons of the first half of the 18th century in France. He had a prominent political career that culminated with the position of prime minister under Louis XV. He fell into disgrace in 1726 and went into exile at his property at Chantilly. There, he took refuge in modernizing his chateau and creating a porcelain manufactory that could be admired among Europe. He was a formidable collector of decorative arts and very fond of Asian porcelains. Around 1730, he added the services of a potter from Saint-Cloud, Cicaire Cirou, to create a soft-paste porcelain manufactory at Chantilly: inspired by Japanese ceramics, it became one of the most important porcelain manufactory in France, until the creation of the Sèvres’ one.

This lecture will aim to study the context of development of Chantilly porcelain and the international competition it produced. Because behind this charming production hides politics and the race for prestige.

Jewellery, politics and national identity: Princess Alexandra and her wedding gifts

Judy Rudoe, Curator, British Museum

Princess Alexandra of Denmark married the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in March 1863. The gifts of jewellery that flooded in from across the UK and Denmark were widely publicised, displayed to huge crowds at the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A), and recorded in a lavish illustrated volume of 1864. This talk examines the role of some of these jewels as national symbols, linked to the immense political changes across Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Among them are the 'Old Norse' recreations of spectacular archaeological discoveries given to her from Denmark, the ‘Etruscan lady’s’ jewel casket by Castellani from British noblemen in Rome, and the Egyptian-style ‘Thebes’jewels from the Prince of Wales incorporating ancient trophies brought back from his 1862 visit.