Amazing and expensive ceramic finds: Chinese 1722-35 and American 1763-73

I know that ceramics from the later 17th century and all the 18th century are greatly prized by Chinese collectors, for their technical skills and often coloured decoration. The best work came from the three great Qing Dynasty emperors, Kangxi (ruled 1661-1722), Yongzheng (1722-35) and Qianlong (1735-96).

The Yongzheng Emperor (1678–1735) was the 5th emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, reigning for 13 years. According to the National Palace Museum in Taiwan the Yongzheng Emperor promulgated an order in 1727 for court objects that had to differ in appearance from those outside, thus establish­ing a unique style for his court. The painted enamel motifs that Yongzheng loved were blue landscapes, landscapes with flowers, peacocks and wild goose, plums, orchids, bamboo and chrys­anthemums. The exquisite under-glaze blue wares made in Yongzheng’s imperial kilns are some the best creations of the entire Qing era.

In 2009 the Taiwan museum borrowed 37 relics from the Palace Museum in Beijing for its exhibition on Qing Dynasty Emperor Yongzheng. The pieces included an imperial stone seal and a massive Yongzheng portrait.

Yongzheng doucai lingzhi wine bowl, 1722-35

10.4 cm high

photo credit: Woolley and Wallis, Salisbury

Recently a ceramic object from the Yongzheng dynasty, in the Woolley and Wallis catalogue from their Salisbury Sales of May 2015, caught my attention. A 10.4 cm Yongzheng doucai lingzhi wine bowl had a gently flaring body was delicately decorated with four pairs of ruyi-heads separated by florets extending to leafy tendrils. All the exterior decoration was contained within concentric bands, while the interior was glazed white.

The original estimate was £100,000-150,000, but on the day of the auction, the bids came thick and fast. The successful buyer was a Chinese private collector who paid £482,800 ($740,000) for the lot, including auction costs.

Two references for Qing porcelain are very useful. Firstly consider For the Imperial Court: Qing Porcelain from the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, written by Rosemary E Scott and pub­lished in 1997. Secondly Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcel­ain of Three Chinese Emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, published in 2004, is valuable.

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An unexpected find was 9 cm tall teapot, decorated with a bright blue pattern featuring two cranes under a palm tree on one side, and a man on a bridge on the other side. When found in 2016 in Britain, the teapot was already missing a lid, and the handle was repaired.

Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury identified it as the work of John Bartlam, a Staffordshire potter who left Britain in 1763 for South Carolina, drawn by its plentiful supplies of local kaolin and its wealthy consumers. He established the first known manufacturer of porcelain in the USA. British apprais­ers said this was the only known Bartlam American teapot in existence, and thus earliest USA-made porcelain teapot to survive.

Porcelain teapot, 9 cms high

made by John Barlam between 1763-73

photo credit: Woolley and Wallis, Salisbury

Interest in the teapot unexpectedly skyrocketed, thanks in particular to strong engagement from American bidders, and the post sold for a hammer price plus fees of US$800,000. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York won the auction and will house the unique teapot in their collection.

Woolley and Wallis Auctioneers said the vessel’s historic imp­ortance rested in its association with the beginning of Amer­ic­an porcelain product­ion. Because of era of manufacture, the pot was said to represent the unique entrepreneurial spirit and important historical era, before the Boston Tea Party of Dec 1773. Thus this art object meant so much more to the Americans than it did to the other buyers.

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The wine bowl and the porcelain tea pot are about the same size (10.4 cm Vs 9 cms respectively), were put up for auction within a couple of years of each other (2015 and 2018) and earned about the same amount of money ($740,000 Vs $800,000). Yet they succeeded at auction for totally different reasons.

The tiny wine bowl was worth a fortune because of fine crafts­man­ship, delicate decoration and historical value to fans of early C18th Qing ceramics. The teapot was not valuable because of its fine craftsmanship or delicate decoration; rather because of its great rarity and strong nationalist sentiment.