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This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2002 Jun 26 @ 02:00UTC-08:00 : PST/AKDT
Burghley Revisited: The Discovery of Two Pieces of Early Arita Porcelain The recent discovery of two pieces of early enamelled Japanese porcelain in a private collection in Hampshire has added another chapter to the story of the famous collection of oriental ceramics at Burghley House. Much of the collection was amassed during the tenure of John, the fifth Earl of Exeter and his wife Anne, in the latter third of the 17th century. Great patrons and connoisseurs of the fine and decorative arts, the Earl and Countess travelled extensively throughout Europe acquiring paintings, sculpture, tapestries furniture, jewellery and object d'art on their four (recorded) tours between 1679 and 1699. There is no mention of them buying porcelain abroad in any of the surviving documentation relating to this period. Among the archives are two highly important inventories: the room-by-room listing of the contents of all the rooms at Burghley drawn up by Culpepper Tanner, personal secretary to the fifth Earl, in 1688; and the Devonshire Schedule of 1690, a bequest from Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire in favour of her daughter Anne, wife of the fifth Earl. The latter document includes (with three exceptions) a large quantity of late Ming and Transitional porcelain and is therefore irrelevant to these recent discoveries. The 1688 inventory is the earliest listing of Japanese porcelain in which at least some of it remains in the same place at the present time. It is mainly by reference to the 1688 inventory that the three items in question can be related to the early Japanese porcelains at Burghley House. The contents of a great house such as Burghley are subject to the molestation of time and to the ebb and flow of paintings, furniture and art objects in tune with the fashion of the day and the particular interests of its incumbents. After the 1688 inventory and the death of John, the fifth Earl in 1700 it is clear that more Japanese porcelain was added to the collection. It is also known that some important inventoried pieces were disposed of in the sale at Christies in 1888 and again at Christies in 1959 (Lot 22 - An Important Pair of Japanese Figures of a Stag and Doe, late 17th Century. These may well be the "2 large hindes" in "My Lords Bedd Chamber" or the "2 staggs" in My Lords Dressing Roome in the 1688 Inventory). Both pieces in question are of early Arita enamelled porcelain - a vase modelled after an archaistic bronze beaker (lot 89) and a figure of a woman standing by a rock applied with pine and painted with bamboo (lot 90). They are both relatively primitive and probably date from c. 1660 to 1670. Composed of somewhat greyish paste, the body is dressed in a thinnish off-white glaze. Both are decorated in thickish and irregular saturated enamels characteristic of the earliest phase of Arita exportware between c.1660 and 1680 - a rich, almost blood red; deep cerulean, turquoise and a little black detailing. Each piece has a small paper label bearing the name and a number written in black ink. These, and another item, a boy on a shogi table, still in the collection, were exhibited in the Red Cross Exhibition of Japanese Art and Handicraft in 1915 nos. 50 (although confusingly the labels state 49 and 49a), 51 and 67 with a footnote stating that the first two were formerly in the collection of the Marquess of Exeter at Burghley House. In addition there are paper labels each bearing the name Read and the numbers 8, 7 and 6 respectively. All three were entered for the exhibition by Sir Hercules Read. Charles Hercules Read was, at the time of the Exhibition, Keeper of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum. Whether Read bought any or all of these pieces at the Christies Auction of the Marquess of Exeter's sale in 1888 is unknown. The rather loose catalogue descriptions make it possible only to identify the figure by the rock with any degree of certainty. This first figure may be paired with the example in the British Museum, which is illustrated by Soame Jenyns in Japanese Porcelain, plate53A. In the 1688 inventory Tanner has listed under the heading "My Ladyes Bed Chamber - China over ye Chimney and in ye Roome - 2 Rockes & figures under them" (Jenyns, op.cit. misquoted the Burghley Inventory when he employed "trees" rather than the correct "them"). Or, allowing some latitude in translating late 17th century usage, is it the "2 Juggs like Rocks in The Tea Roome" ? The British Museum version, together with another Kakiemon enamelled figure of a bijin (Jenyns,op.cit. 55B) also in the Museum, have labels indicating their former existence at Burghley House. A small blue bordered paper label stuck to the base is inscribed 'Read 7.', another label printed in a sans serif typeface with 'Burghley House. This latter piece is further inscribed in faded ink with a group of characters in a hand very close in style to that of Culpepper Tanner with a script 7 L, m, 7 and what appears to be a kind of ampersand. In the Christies Auction on 8th June 1888 (the second day) under 'Old Japan Porcelain' lot 198 reads: "A pair of curious matchpots formed as trunks of trees with female figures flowers and foliage in relief and in colours, 7 and 1/4in." Apart from the paper label citing its Burghley provenance (and the label 'Read 8') the bronze shaped vase has proved to be more elusive. As it was not listed in the 1688 Inventory it may have been overlooked or may have been acquired not long afterwards. Although the bronze shaped vase and the figure of the boy on the shogi table have not been found in the 1688 inventory, the attached labels and the very similarity to extant examples at Burghley House most strongly suggest that all three pieces were part of this great collection. It is very likely that all three pieces were purchased by Sir Hercules Read through a dealer, some other agent, or by private treaty at the time of the partial dispersal of the Burghley collection in the 1880s. Bibliography Jenyns, Soame, Japanese Porcelain, Faber and Faber, London, 1965 Lang, Gordon, The Wrestling Boys, Burghley House, Stamford, Lincs., 1983 The Red Cross Exhibition of Japnaese Art and Handicraft, London 1915 Christies Sale Catalogue, Oriental Ceramics, Objects of Art, etc., 7th June 1888, London Christies Sale Catalogue, An Important Collection of English, Continental and Oriental Porcelain, 13th July 1959 Original sources The Inventory of Burghley House of 1688 A Japanese Arita vase, of archaistic bronze form, with flared hexagonal section neck, moulded handles, the sides moulded with panels and on a flared lobed lozenge shaped foot, the surface moulded in shallow relief with chrysanthemum to the neck and chrysanthemum, rocks and waves to the main panels all picked out in iron red, blue and green and painted with waveds to the foot, 17cm, circa 1660-1680, old firing cracks and some restoration, with paper labels stating 'Burleigh (sic) House' and 'Read 8', and paper label for Red Cross Exhibition wrongly numbered 49a Provenance: Probably Burghley House Sir C Hercules Read Gerald Mere Collection (see illustration) £15,000-20,000
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United Kingdom
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Saturday 22nd June 2002, 9.00 a.m.-12.30 p.m., Monday 24th June 2002, 9.30 a.m.-7.00 p.m., Tuesday 25th June 2002, 9.30 a.m.-4.30 p.m.
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