Lot 50. A cinnabar lacquer stationary box and cover, Ming dynasty, 16th century; 42 by 30.5 by 10.3 cm, 16 1/2  in. by 12 by 4 1/4  in. Estimate 8,000 — 12,000 GBP. Lot sold 10,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of large rectangular form, the flat upper surface with two wasps among flowering chrysanthemum blooms issuing from a large garden rock on a riverbank, two cranes perched on the opposite side with two butterflies in flight above, all against a diapered ground, the sides deftly carved through the layers with flowering peony, the interior and base lacquered black.

Provenance: Kaisendo Museum, Yamagata (according to label).

Lot 50. A cinnabar lacquer stationary box and cover, Ming dynasty, 16th century; 42 by 30.5 by 10.3 cm, 16 1/2  in. by 12 by 4 1/4  in. Estimate 8,000 — 12,000 GBP. Lot sold 10,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of large rectangular form, the flat upper surface with two wasps among flowering chrysanthemum blooms issuing from a large garden rock on a riverbank, two cranes perched on the opposite side with two butterflies in flight above, all against a diapered ground, the sides deftly carved through the layers with flowering peony, the interior and base lacquered black.

Provenance: Kaisendo Museum, Yamagata (according to label).

Lot 78. A very rare cinnabar lacquered Yixing teapot, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795); 19.5 cm, 7 5/8  in. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 GBP. Lot sold 257,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

of compressed globular form, set with a short curved spout opposite a round loop handle, the exterior covered in layers of cinnabar lacquer except for the interior and base exposing the Yixing body, finely carved through the red lacquer layers with the bajixiang amidst scrolling lotus, reserved on a green diaper ground, all below a band of lappets around the rim, the cover similarly carved and set with a circular finial carved with a shou character.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Londres, 11 mai 2016

Lot 9. The Veltheim-Saldern Tankard. A large German parcel-gilt silver tankard, unmarked, probably Halberstadt or Helmstedt, dated 1578; 20cm., 8in. high, 1516gr., 48oz. 14dwt. Estimate 80,000 - 120,000 GBP. Lot Sold 100,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

engraved with bands of hatched arabesques and strapwork terminating in wolf, bear, bird and serpent masks, and surmounted by a squirrel, a hare and a mountain goat flanking named armorial roundels, one dated 1578, the cover centred by a raised armorial engraved disc, surrounded by embossed and chased roundels of The Binding of Isaac, The Nativity and the Resurrection, enclosed by winged male putti with cornucopias  flanking renaissance masks, Charity finial, inside the cover with an additional accollé armorial dated 1653, the back of the handle and wide spreading foot with similar chased ornament as the cover, the underside stippled Destedter Fideicomiss.

Provenance: Achatz von Veltheim, Lord of Harbke (1538-1588), and his wife Margreta von Saldern (1545-1615);
Property of a Noble family in Lower Saxony, Christies, London, 2 October 2013, lot 169.

Note: The cover disc is engraved with the accollé coats of arms of Achatz von Veltheim and Margreta von Saldern who were married on 24 February 1568; their arms are repeated at the body of the tankard; Achatz’s armorial on the body is additionally engraved with his initials AVV and the date 1578 and Margreta’s with the inscription Margreta v Salder Achatz v. Veltheim sein Elige Hausfraw.

The additional coats of arms relate to the female ancestors of the principal pair. On Achatz’s side his mother, Adelheid von Schwicheldt (c.1515-1545); his paternal and maternal grandmothers, Ilse von de Oberhusen (c.1450-1510) and Ilse von Rutenberg (1453-1515) and the same on Margreta’s side, her mother Jacobe von de Asseburg (1507-1570) and her paternal and maternal grandmothers, Jutta von Steinberg (1457-1520) and Eulia von de Westphal (?-1515).

Destedter Fideicommiss, engraved on the base refers to the entailed estate of Schloss Destedt a castle between Brunswick and Helmstedt, a Veltheim property since circa 1300.

The additional coats of arms inside the cover are those of Alvensleben and Rutenberg probably for Gerhard XXV Johann von Alvensleben who married Agnes von Rutenburg, granddaughter of Achatz and Margreta von Veltheim.

This concentration on the female ancestors seems curious, although devotional pictures of the time, show men and women formally separated, as they are depicted on the base of the epitaph to Achatz and Margreta in the Castle Chapel, at Harbke (Fig.1); perhaps originally there were two tankards respectively with the coats of arms of the male and female ancestors. There was no shortage of silver in the area.  Achatz and Margreta’s ruling duke, Julius of Brunswick and Lüneburg, (1528-1589) was a princely entrepreneur who developed the great mining potential of the area. In 1572 for instance, the same year that Achatz Veltheim started to build the castle, and Protestant church of St Levin at Harbke, Duke Julius employed Erasmus Ebener of Nuremberg to 'report on all kind of mountains and metals and whatever else is useful which are found in (the mountain region of) the Harz and especially Rammelsberg…where ..all of the silver contains gold’1 (Rammelsberg is about 30 miles from Harbke). When Julius’s highly educated son Heinrich Julius (1564-1613) was made rector of Helmstedt University (next to Harbke) in 1576 at the age of 12, the senate and miners of the Harz presented him with cup of gold and a cake of worked silver.2

Fig.1. A carved stone epitaph to Achatz v. Weltheim and his wife Margaretha von Saldern, circa 1588. Castle Chapel of St. Levin, Harbke bei Helmstedt.

Achatz Veltheim was administrator for the local rulers including the Brunswick-Lüneburg Duke and the electoral family of Brandenburg; he is recorded as Fürstlich Magdeburgischer Landrat and Stiftshauptmann zu Halberstadt,3 (the Hochstift Halberstadt representing the territorial possessions of the Diocese of Halberstadt).

Both Magdeburg and Halberstadt were important Catholic prince Bishoprics until the Reformation, with a long collective history, the prince Archbishop of Magdeburg being a member of the Brandenburg family who ruled over the Prince Bishopric of Halberstadt. With the Reformation this began to change and by the 1540’s the Halberstadt congregation had become Lutheran, culminating in the 1566 election by the catholic Cathedral chapter of the two-year-old Heinrich Julius of Brunswick and Lüneburg as its first Lutheran Prince Bishop. Achatz’s wider family were also closely connected to the Brunswick Lüneburg dukes. Margreta’s brother, Heinrich von Saldern (1532-1588), worked as councillor from 1569 at the court of Duke Julius, prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and is recorded in a double portrait with his wife (Achatz’s sister, also called Margreta), on their silver wedding anniversary in 1578, painted by Adam Offinger the court artist, (Fig.2). Heinrich von Saldern was also councillor to Duke Erich II ruler of the principality of Calenberg from 1571; in the portrait of 1578 Heinrich is pointing at a letter from the latter duke who writes to him as `Dem Edlen und Erenuesten Heinrich/von Saldern meinem gungsten lieben/Junkern Dentslik geschrieben’ (Authority given to the noble and honourable Heinrich von Saldern, my dearest Junker).4

Fig.2. Heinrich von Saldern pointing at a letter from Duke Elrich II of Calenberg, painted by Adam Offinger, 1578. copywright Landesmuseum Hannover.

Margareta von Saldern nee Weltheim, A silver wedding double portrait, Adam Offinger, 1578. copywright Landesmuseum Hannover

The date of 1578 engraved next to Achatz’s initials on the tankard is not necessarily the date that the tankard was made as the object could be earlier on stylistic grounds. It was quite possibly made in 1568 at the time of the Veltheim-Saldern marriage.  Whatever event it commemorates, the year 1578 would have been of great significance to Achatz von Veltheim, 7th December 1578 was the day of enthronement of Veltheim’s prince, Heinrich Julius as religious and temporal ruler of the prince Bishopric of Halberstadt.

Heinrich Julius as a Lutheran was the first non-catholic to hold this position in the history of the bishopric. While the territories or citizens of Halberstadt, had moved towards Lutheranism from the 1540’s, the principality was still governed by the Catholic Sigismund of Brandenburg. On Sigismund’s death in 1566 the Catholic cathedral chapter or governing body, possibly for economic reasons and encouraged by the then Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, Henry V, Heinrich Julius’s grandfather, elected the two-year-old as their first Lutheran Prince Bishop.

When Heinrich Julius came of age in 1578, in order not to offend canon law of the Holy Roman Empire, the service of his enthronement as spiritual leader had to be conducted with Catholic ritual, which included the shaved tonsure and many other elements offensive to Lutherans. Coinciding with this was a dispute about the frightening closeness to Catholicism that existed within certain elements of the Protestant Community. This enthronement, of a Lutheran prince with Catholic ritual, caused a storm, widely and within all levels of society; Heinrich Julius’s father, Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg, one of the richest rulers of Northern Germany, whose political role has been compared to that of Prussia in the days of Frederick the Great,5 was accused of Papist idolatry. Some of his severest critics being the faculty of his own university of Helmstedt which he had founded two years earlier and of which Heinrich Julius was the Rector. As a Lutheran and as Stiftshauptmann zu Halberstadt such an event would have been profoundly significant to Veltheim as it was throughout Protestant Germany.

Duke Heinrich-Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg, in the cover of a gold beaker by Paul van Vianen, Prague, 1610

1. Tara Nummedale, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, London, 2007, p.80
2. The Life and and Correspondence of George Calixtus, Lutheran Abbot of Konigslustter, Oxford, 1863, p.3.
3. Wolf Hobohm, Dorothea Schröder, Harmonie des Klanglichen und der Erscheinungsform – Die Bedeutung der Orgel bauerfamilien Beck und Compenius für die mittel deutsche Orgelkunst der Zeit vor Heinrich Schütz, in `Auftrag der Internationalen Heinrich-Schütz-Gesellschaft e.V.’ 32, Kassel, 2011, p. 89.
4. Inschriftenkatalog: Landkreis Holzminden Katalogartikel in Chronologischer Reihenfolge-Nr 86 Hannover Landsgalerie 1578: http://www.inschriften.net/landkreis-holzminden/inschrift/nr/di083-0086.html#content
5. Thomas Scheliga, A Renaissance Garden in Wolfenbuttel, North Germany,`Garden History’. The Garden’s Trust, 1997, 

Erwin Olaf and Taco Dibbits. Photo: Olivier Middendorp.

AMSTERDAM.- The Rijksmuseum has been a major source of inspiration for Erwin Olaf since his early youth, with Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Breitner and other Dutch artists being hugely influential on his work. To mark the transfer of his core collection the Rijksmuseum is staging the exhibition 12 x Erwin Olaf, in which Olaf places his photographs in dialogue with Dutch painting. This is the first time that his work is being displayed alongside that of his great examples. 

Core collection 
This exhibition is being held to mark the transfer of Erwin Olaf’s core collection. Last year the museum received almost 500 objects from the artist, including prints, portfolios, videos, magazines, books and posters. The vast majority were gifted by the artist, and some were acquired thanks to BankGiro Lottery players. 

60th birthday 
The opening celebrations took place on 2 July, the artist’s 60th birthday, and the exhibition opened to the public the following day. Olaf says, It fills me with pride that on my 60th birthday I will be surrounded by an abundance of the beauty that has inspired me since my earliest youth. This is the root of my artistic expression. 

Combinations 
Working in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum’s director Taco Dibbits, Erwin Olaf has selected eleven photographs and one video installation for display alongside eleven paintings and one print from the Rijksmuseum collection. Their combined presentation bears witness to Olaf’s effortless ability to bridge past and present. All artists face the same challenges and use the same instruments: light, expression, texture. I recognise myself in these paintings; the inner need for self-expression, says Olaf, I find this exploration of the interior the toughest of all, but also the most enjoyable. 

Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue by Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, for example, has been coupled with Erwin Olaf’s Hope – Portrait 5. The photographer chose Verspronck’s painting for a variety of reasons. The girl looks directly at the viewer. Her eyes may be composed of just a few strokes of paint, but as a viewer you feel like you are looking right into them – the painter’s rendering of the light in her eyes is utterly compelling. Olaf was also very affected by the texture of the fabric in this painting. There are striking correspondences between the two works: the blue and yellow dresses; the girl and the young woman. What is more, in their essence the compositions are fairly simple, with little of note to be seen apart from the subjects themselves. Without prompting, the model in Olaf’s photograph made precisely the right gesture: the hand seeking support from the wall. Such moments cannot be planned. Olaf regards this photograph and Verspronck’s painting as the results of a synergy between artist and model. 

Erwin Olaf, Hope – Portrait 5, 2005. Acquired thanks to BankGiro Lottery players.

 Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue, 1641. Acquired with the support of the Rembrandt Association. 

The print Nude Woman by Rembrandt hangs alongside Erin Olaf’s 1987 photograph La Penseuse (Squares). At the core of print and photograph alike is the depiction of the subject’s skin, which in both cases is finely rendered. Like Rembrandt, Olaf made the conscious choice to portray an imperfect body. To the artist, this model’s skin is far more interesting than that of a young, unblemished and perfectly proportioned body that is not yet in decline; that has not yet lived a life.

Nude Woman, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1629 - 1633. Bequest Mr and Mrs De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland.

La Penseuse, Erwin Olaf, 1987.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel A Different View. The Creation of Adam.

However, few will have had the privilege of being able to marvel close up at Michelangelo’s incredible figures of saints, sibyls, prophets and the ceiling’s centre piece, The Creation of Adam. 

Now that is all set to change in Winchester this summer, with the UK premiere of a ground-breaking new exhibition officially licensed by the Vatican Museums - Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: A Different View.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel A Different View. The Creation of Adam.

This show allows unprecedented closeness to the magnificent works of Michelangelo which adorn the chapel ceiling, normally 22 metres above visitors’ heads. Working in partnership with the Vatican Museums, the frescoes have been photographed, reproduced at high resolution and transferred onto special fabric webs. This technique allows a true-to-life reproduction of the ceiling and gives visitors a unique opportunity for an otherwise impossible close-up view of his brushwork. 

The exhibition is split across the three Winchester venues due to its sheer size: the visitor journey will begin at City Space on the ground floor of Winchester Discovery Centre, continue upstairs in The Gallery and finish at the 13th century Great Hall, home of the symbolic Medieval Round Table, where a giant 6 metre x 6 metre panel of The Last Judgment will be on display.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: A Different View. Lybian Sybil.

On display will be a series of panels that vividly reveal how Michelangelo used bright colours for the Sistine Chapel to make the figures more easily visible from the floor. He was originally commissioned only to paint the twelve apostles, but persuaded the Pope to let him paint scenes and individuals of his own choosing. Consequently, the chapel is peopled with over 300 characters from the Bible. By separating the frescoes into a series of panels, the exhibition allows art lovers to closely study particular aspects of Michelangelo’s work, rather than be overwhelmed by the Sistine’s 460m2 (5000 square feet) of frescoes. 

Also featuring as an integral part of the exhibition is the chapel’s depiction of The Last Judgement, which was painted 25 years after the ceiling (1536-1541) and completed when Michelangelo was almost 67 years old. The work sparked a furious row between the artist and Cardinal Carafa, who objected to the depictions of naked figures, and led the notorious ‘fig-leaf campaign’ to cover up the immoral and obscene aspects of the painting. Michelangelo also included a self-portrait of himself, albeit in a somewhat gruesome manner - as the flayed skin held by St Bartholomew. 

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: A Different View. Erythean Sybil.

Some years ago, while a TV documentary was being made during the cleaning of the chapel’s ceiling, The Sunday Times art critic, Waldemar Janusczak, wrote: “Under the bright, unforgiving lights of television, I was able to encounter the real Michelangelo. I was so close to him I could see the bristles from his brushes caught in the paint; and the mucky thumbprints he'd left along his margins… I also enjoyed his sense of humour, which, from close up, turned out to be refreshingly puerile. If you look closely at the angels who attend the scary prophetess on the Sistine ceiling known as the Cumaean Sibyl, you will see that one of them has stuck his thumb between his fingers in that mysteriously obscene gesture that visiting fans are still treated to today at Italian football matches." 

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: A Different View. Cumaean Sibyl.

“Every year, 4 million people visit the Sistine Chapel to view the magnificent frescoes on its ceiling,” commented Paul Sapwell, Chief Executive at Hampshire Cultural Trust, which operates The Gallery and City Space. “We are thrilled to be able to bring the UK premiere of this ground-breaking exhibition to Winchester and to give visitors the time to contemplate and enjoy Michelangelo’s breath-taking works at their leisure, far away from the streams of visitors to the chapel itself in Rome."

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: A Different View. Installation views.

Lot 350. A carved hexagonal-shaped carved Colombian emerald of 52.04 carats, late 17th to early 18th century. Estimate USD 200,000 - USD 300,000. Price realised USD 218,750. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Lot 355. A carved Colombian emerald of 51.96 carats, 19th century and reworked at a later date. Estimate USD 150,000 - USD 250,000. Price realised USD 212,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Lot 53. An imaginary carnation , Aurangabad, North Deccan, vs 1726-1669 AD. Folio 7 7/8 x 4 ¾ ins. (20 x 12.1 cm.). Estimate USD 40,000 - USD 60,000. Price realised USD 200,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Baga Artist, Guinea, “Male and Female D’mba Figures”, 19th century. Wood, 26 inches,Fred and Rita Richman Collection, 2002.284.1-2, High Museum of Art, Atlanta. © High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

These two d’mba figures share the same profiles as the headdresses of the masquerades performed during Baga weddings and on other joyous occasions.

For the Baga people living on the small tropical islands of coastal Guinea, d’mba is an abstract concept encompassing all that is good and beautiful in the world; it stands for a new state of being and new aspirations. 
This concept is embodied in both male and female figures.

Bamileke Artist, Cameroon, “Elephant Headdress”, 19th century.  Glass beads, wood, cloth, and raffia,  17 1/2 x 23 3/8 x 20 1/8 inches. Purchase through funds provided by patrons of the Second Annual Collectors Evening, 2011.  2011.1, High Museum of Art, Atlanta. © High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

During the nineteenth century, when this work was made, elephant masks were among the most prestigious of all the masquerades performed by groups of wealthy, titled men in the small Bamileke kingdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields. The elephant, like the leopard, was a royal symbol, though both animals have long since become extinct in Cameroon. They were also considered the alter egos of Bamileke kings, who were described as having the ability to transform into either creature at will. Elephant masks were referred to as “things of money” because they were profusely ornamented with glass beads made in Venice or Czechoslovakia.

Fang Artist, Cameroon, “Male and Female Reliquary Guardian Figures”, ca. 1875–1925. Wood, ancestral relics, brass, and glass, 18.25 inches, Fred and Rita Richman Collection, 2002.291.1-2, High Museum of Art, Atlanta. © High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

In the dense equatorial region of central Africa, Fang sculptures like these were carved as guardian figures to sit upon bark boxes containing a family’s ancestral relics. As sentinels, the sculptures are upright, frontal, and symmetrical; they are alert and at attention. A Fang elder described how, “Their faces are strong, quiet, and reflective. They are thinking about our problems and how to help us. We see that they see.” The harmonious, balanced contours of reliquary guardian figures convey a sense of tranquility valued in both art and life in Fang culture. Their boldly geometric forms also inspired artists of early twentieth-century Paris such as Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Constantin Brancusi.

COMPTON VERNEY.- Splosh, a brew, wink-tippling cordial, Rosie Lee, nectar of the gods, a cuppa, builder’s, char... Whatever you call it, or whether you put the milk in before or after, we can all agree that the British have a unique relationship with tea. This summer an immersive exhibition coming to Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, promises to take you on a journey across time and continents, to explore tea as a muse and its cultural significance throughout the centuries. 

A Tea Journey: from the Mountains to the Table will examine how a simple infusion of leaves from the Camellia Sinensis plant in hot water has travelled across the globe to permeate every strata of our society. From the plant to the pot, tea has inspired all manner of artistic expression; from ceramics, to paintings, to poetry. The exhibition includes over 150 works, from the Tang dynasty to the present day, with new work and commissions by contemporary artists including Robin Best, Phoebe Cummings, Charlotte Hodes, Selina Nwulu, Claire Partington, Bouke de Vries and Julian Stair. 

Johann Zoffany (German, 1733 - 1810) John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and His Family, about 1766, Digital image © of the Getty's Open Content Program.

The inspiration for the exhibition came from the 1766 Johan Zoffany painting of the Willoughby de Broke family, who owned Compton Verney in the 18th century, gathered for tea (above). Today the original can be found in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, but a copy of the painting, lent by the current Willoughby de Broke family (a Private Collection) will feature in the exhibition. Like so many paintings from the period, the depiction of teaware is as much a symbol of wealth as the attire of the sitters and the setting. It was this that inspired curator, Antonia Harrison to consider the aesthetic and theoretical nature of the tea table, and the symbolic contribution of tea parties towards women’s liberation. “From its introduction into British society, tea has been linked to women. Sometimes said to have been brought to court society by Charles II’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, tea and its paraphernalia became a fashionable luxury which women shaped and controlled. Prints and texts from the 18th century present a growing sense that the tea table was the instigator for both female sociability, but also the site of gossip and scandal! A moral crisis brought about by none other than our humble cup of tea”. 

From Britain’s oldest sample of tea (c.1700, Natural History Museum) collected for Sir Hans Sloan, to specially-commissioned art and poetry, the exhibition juxtaposes the work of tea pickers with the wealth generated by the tea trade. Once a luxury item held under lock and key, tea became a household commodity and transitioned from the castle to the cottage in less than 100 years – captured in paintings such as The Tea Party (c.1727, attributed to Richard Collins, The Goldsmiths Company) and A Cottage Interior: An Old Woman Preparing Tea (1793, William Redmore Bigg, V&A).  

The Tea Party, 1727, attributed to Richard Collins (d. 1732). Goldsmiths’ Company, London.

William Redmore Bigg RA, (1755 - 1828), A Cottage Interior: An Old Woman Preparing Tea, 1793. Oil on canvas, 199-1885. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The exhibition opens with a rare Chinese painted scroll on loan from The Ashmolean Museum which navigates a river journey through the Wuyi mountains of Fujian Province, home to prized Oolongs such as Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) and Lapsang Souchong. This will sit alongside early examples of tea vessels dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties, as well as a lidded tea bowl (gaiwan) loaned by The British Museum, inscribed by the Qianlong Emperor’s poetic response to the making and taking of tea.  

Kō Fuyō (1722 - 1784), Nine bends of the Juiquxi River in the Wuyi mountains (1772), ink and colour on paper, 22.9 x 577.4 cm. Purchased with the assistance the Higher Studies Fund, the Victoria and Albert Museum Fund, and with donations from the friends of P. C. Swann, 1966. EA1966.124. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Lidded bowl with inscription and poem by Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795), dated 1746, Qing dynasty. Blue enamel on white enamel ground on copper, 11.6 x 7.5 cm, 1969,1107.1.a-b. © 2019 Trustees of the British Museum

A Tea Journey: from the Mountains to the Table will also focus on the Japanese Tea Ceremony and how this revered performance continues to inspire teaware and architecture. One of the exhibition highlights will be a tea ceremony house, The Umbrella Tea House (2010). Made of bamboo and paper, is designed by architect Kazuhiro Yajima. The house is not only leaving Japan for the first time, but will be transported by ship following some of the original trading routes used by British tea clippers.  

Kazuhiro Yajima, The Umbrella Tea House, 2011. Photo: © Nacasa Partners Inc.

Contemporary artists have been commissioned to explore the links between tea, the British Empire and the complex history of trade between India, China and Britain. Phoebe Cummings is creating a new installation in unfired clay, juxtaposing Camellia sinensis with the Opium poppy. The work, entitled An Ugly Aside, alludes to the Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune who stole tea seedlings from China for cultivation at tea plantations in Indian, and to the illegal opium trade instigated by the British in exchange for tea from China.  

Alluding to historic texts and poems inspired by tea (a variety of which are on loan from Oxford’s Bodleian Library), writer and poet, Selina Nwulu has been commissioned to create a sound piece, Sea Change. This will be presented alongside artefacts referencing the transportation of tea cargoes and the human cost of the trade, including a model of a tea Clipper loaned by the National Maritime Museum. The exhibition will also feature field recordings of folk songs by tea plantation workers in North Bengal, and Hetain Patel’s film, How to Make a Proper Cup of Tea, which explores cultural assumptions in a kitchen setting.  

Through work by international artists, many of whom are creating new work especially for the show, the exhibition explores tea’s ongoing relationship to ceramics. Contributing artists, potters and ceramicists include Robin Best, Phoebe Cummings, Charlotte Hodes, Walter Keeler, Takahiro Kondo, Ian McIntyre, Bruce Nuske, Selina Nwulu, Claire Partington, Hetain Patel, Bouke de Vries, Paul Scott, Julian Stair and Edmund de Waal. 

Julian Stair, Teapot, Cup and Beaker on a Ground. 

No exhibition devoted to the subject of tea would be complete without a multi-sensory experience, enabling visitors to smell and taste the diverse flavours of this incredible plant. Compton Verney has partnered with independent, Berkshire-based company, Dragonfly Tea to create a “sensorium”, giving visitors the opportunity to sample several teas from the wide variety now available in Britain, and to enjoy their assorted scents and aromas; from oolong to rooibos to pu’er, and many more.

John Miller, Tea plant (Camellia sinensis): flowering stem with sectioned leaf and many floral segments, c. 1791. Wellcome Collection, London.

Teapot, 1670-1690, Japan, Kakiemon kiln. Porcelain painted in underglaze and overglaze enamels. © Chitra Collection.

Tea bowl and saucer, ca. 1750, China. Porcelain painted in underglaze blue enamels. © Chitra Collection.

Tea caddy, ca. 1780, England. Ivory with tortoiseshell inlay and gold banding. © Chitra Collection

Nicolas de Staël, Parc des Princes, printemps 1952, huile sur toile, 200 x 350 cm. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Paris – Christie’s France est heureuse de présenter aux enchères le Parc des Princes lors de la vente Paris Avant-Garde du 17 octobre 2019, pendant la FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain). Conservé par les descendants de Nicolas de Staël depuis sa disparition en 1955, ce tableau monumental compte parmi les chefs d’œuvre de l’artiste et constitue l’un des chainons de l’histoire de l’art de l’après-guerre

Exécutée au printemps 1952, cette œuvre magistrale et de grandes dimensions (200 x 350 cm) constitue le point d’orgue de la fameuse série des footballeurs, que Nicolas de Staël peint à la suite du match France-Suède auquel il assiste avec son épouse, en nocturne, le 26 mars 1952 dans le célèbre stade parisien. Sous la lumière des projecteurs, le ballet auquel se livrent les joueurs est un spectacle saisissant pour l’artiste qui, à son retour, se lance dans des compositions plus ou moins figuratives qu’il exécute de chic au couteau.

« Tout son atelier était encombré d’ébauches de toutes dimensions, inspirées par ce spectacle, ici le chef de l’équipe française, là le défilé des joueurs sur la pelouse, là l’extraordinaire ciseau d’un joueur près de tomber. Tout comme flambé, dans des accords bleus, rouges, des ciels, des hommes articulés violemment, le mouvement compartimenté et général, verts, jaunes, une espèce de « conquête de l’air » » : écrit Pierre Lecuire dans son Journal des années Staël.

Pierre Martin-Vivier, Directeur International des Arts du XXe siècle : “C’est un honneur pour nous de présenter une œuvre qui appartient à l’Histoire de l’art du XX^e siècle à Paris lors de la FIAC. Le Parc des Princes est un chef d’œuvre de Nicolas de Staël, l’une des œuvres plus symptomatiques des enjeux picturaux de l’immédiate après-guerre. Nous pensons que le marché accueillera ce tableau inédit avec le même enthousiasme qui nous anime. Provenant directement de la famille de l’artiste, Parc des Princes, estimé entre 18 et 25 millions d’euros, établira sans aucun doute un nouveau record pour Nicolas de Staël. » 

C’est davantage le jeu des formes et des couleurs, des mouvements des joueurs que la performance sportive qui intéresse cette figure montante de l’abstraction. La distance qu’il prend à l’égard de son modèle le conduit à une schématisation délibérée du motif. Cette période brève mais d’intense création marque un tournant vers une palette chromatique plus colorée, la disparition progressive des empâtements qui avait marqué jusqu’ici son travail. L’artiste est à l’apogée de son œuvre et opère une synthèse magistrale entre abstraction et figuration. Ce faisant, il apporte une réponse inédite et originale aux grands enjeux picturaux et esthétiques du XXe siècle qui marque durablement la création de son temps. «Ce que Les footballeurs apporteront à la peinture de Nicolas de Staël, et qui demeurera désormais, c’est sa façon si personnelle de partager la toile en champs d’intenses couleurs rompues d’accidents formels qui composent des métaphores visuelles évocatrices du réel. Staël imprègne notre regard, et aussi bien le sien, d’une vision singulière, percevant, comme il le disait à Jacques Dubourg, « la mer en rouge » et s’appuyant désormais sur le spectacle du vu pour poser l’évidente conviction de ses équivalences. »écrit Germain Viatte, en 1995, dans le catalogue de la rétrospective organisée à la Fondation Pierre Gianadda à Martigny. Et Nicolas de Staël de conclure dans une formule devenue célèbre : «La peinture ne doit pas seulement être un mur sur un mur. La peinture doit figurer dans l’espace. Je n’oppose pas la peinture abstraite à la peinture figurative. Une peinture devrait être à la fois abstraite et figurative. Abstraite en tant que mur, figurative en tant que représentation d’un espace».

Présenté au Salon de Mai de 1952, ce tableau est immédiatement salué par la critique. Elle accompagnera ensuite l’artiste lors des grandes expositions organisées autour de son œuvre : la première exposition de l’artiste à la galerie Knoedler en mars 1953, les grandes rétrospectives organisées au Palais de Tokyo en 1956, à la Kunsthalle de Berne en 1957 mais aussi à la Tate Modern de Londres en 1981, au Musée national centre d’art Reina Sofia à Madrid en 1991 et plus récemment au Centre Georges Pompidou en 2003.

Pierre Martin-Vivier, Directeur International des Arts du XXe siècle : “C’est un honneur pour nous de présenter une œuvre qui appartient à l’Histoire de l’art du XXe siècle à Paris lors de la FIAC. Le Parc des Princes est un chef d’œuvre de Nicolas de Staël, l’une des œuvres plus symptomatiques des enjeux picturaux de l’immédiate après-guerre. Nous pensons que le marché accueillera ce tableau inédit avec le même enthousiasme qui nous anime. Provenant directement de la famille de l’artiste, Parc des Princes, estimé entre 18 et 25 millions d’euros, établira sans aucun doute un nouveau record pour Nicolas de Staël. »

Deux semaines après avoir assisté au match, Nicolas de Staël décrit son enthousiasme au poète René Char :

«Très cher René,

Merci de ton mot, tu es un ange comme les gars qui jouent au Parc des Princes la nuit. […]

Je pense beaucoup à toi, quand tu reviendras on ira voir des matches ensemble, c’est absolument merveilleux, personne là-bas ne joue pour gagner si ce n’est à de rares moments de nerfs où l’on se blesse.

Entre ciel et terre, sur l’herbe rouge ou bleue une tonne de muscles voltige en plein oubli de soi avec toute la présence que cela requiert en toute invraisemblance. Quelle joie ! René, quelle joie !

Alors j’ai mis en chantier toute l’équipe de France, de Suède et cela commence à se mouvoir un tant soit peu, si je trouvais un local grand comme la rue Gauguet, je mettrais deux cents petits tableaux en route pour que la couleur sonne comme les affiches sur la nationale au départ de Paris. […] 

À toi. Nicolas»

(Nicolas de Staël, ‘Lettre à René Char, 10 Avril 1952’, cité dans : Françoise de Staël, Ed., Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, p. 975). 

Vente : Jeudi 17 Octobre à 19 h - Exposition : Du Vendredi 11 au Jeudi 17 Octobre - Christie’s: 9 avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris

© Christie's Image Ltd 2019

London – Christie’s Xhibition: Antoni Tàpies is now on view until 19 July 2019. Displayed in the St James’s galleries at King Street, the exhibition showcases 35 paintings and works on paper that explore the relevance and versatility of the sign `X´ - or cross in Tàpies’ work. Potent, economical and multivalent, the symbol is highly charged yet refuses rigid interpretation. Throughout his oeuvre of richly varied media, crosses are carved, painted, scrawled and collaged, constantly shifting their impact. Tàpies’ ambiguous use of the cross exploited its commonplace uses of marking locations on maps or deriving religious connotations, he even used it as the first initial of his surname.

Through his art, Tàpies evolved his own esoteric language to explore wider ideas about the relationship between matter and spirit. Developing his youthful interest in Surrealism, dreams and magic, he sought to physically incorporate mystery into his works. Despite his engagement with schools of complex existential and mystic thought, the materials he employed functioned to keep his work firmly anchored in day-to-day reality. The ‘X’, or cross married these notions within his practice, being graphically simple yet rich in allusion, it perfectly distills his ethos.

Antoni Tàpies, Gran creu negra, Executed in 1990. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Guillermo Cid, Specialist, Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Madrid, “Tàpies’ style encompasses a series of techniques and approaches that single him out as a unique voice within European abstraction of this period. He combined materialistic concerns with a symbolic cosmos inherited from the surreal art of Paul Klee and Joan Miró. The result was a radical and solemn language unlike anything else at the time. Whilst the matter is the flesh of his paintings, the crosses and the X symbols – in all their guises – are their bones and skeletons. Christie´s is thrilled to present the show as a significant part of our summer programme at King Street."

Antoni Tàpies, Gran ics gratada sobre gris, Executed in 1965. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Tobias Sirtl, Specialist, Post War & Contemporary Art, Munich: “Tàpies received the Rubens Prize of Siegen, West Germany, in 1972. That prize only came to confirm what had been obvious since the beginning of the ‘60s: that the well-informed European art scene of the time saw in Tàpies one of the champions of Post-War abstraction. Many of the Spanish-Catalan painter’s masterpieces are housed in major museums of central Europe and hang on the walls of the most renowned collections. We are grateful to those who have loaned us a selection of works to make this a landmark show. Tàpies’ unique pictorial idiom enriched the language of Informalism, incorporating innovative features common to contemporary movements such as Zero or Spatialism. His oeuvre is marked by a sober colour palette, the use of raw materials and the conception of his paintings as objects, rather than depictions of a reality outside the canvas. This show celebrates the pioneering language that brought Tàpies early critical acclaim in Europe and beyond."

Antoni Tàpies, Jo parlo amb la mà. Executed in 1999, Private Collection, New York. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

 Antoni Tàpies, Autoretrato. Executed in 1947, Neues Museum Nuremberg, loan from a Private Collection. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019.

Lot 126. A bronze figure of Neptune cast from a model by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Rome, second quarter 17th century; 21 ½ in. (54.5 cm) high. Estimate 250,000 - GBP 350,000. Price realised GBP 491,250. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

The figure of Neptune holding a later trident; on a naturalistic base.

Provenance: Purchased by the cousin of the present owner April 1949 at Copper and Adams (?), and thence by descent.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1964, figs. 629-631, pp. 596-600, 609.
R. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini – The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, third edition, Ithaca, 1981, no. 9, pls. 11, 18, 21, pp. 177-178.
P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and M. Camberera, Italian and Spanish Sculpture – Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection, Los Angeles, 2002, no. 22, pp. 170-176.

Note: Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) is considered to be the most celebrated and influential sculptor of 17th century Europe. His innovative designs and unrivalled skill at carving marble secured the patronage of successive popes and prelates, and propelled Rome to the forefront of the artistic world. The present bronze figure of Neptune is almost certainly cast from a model the artist produced as he attempted to finalise the composition of a marble fountain that had been commissioned in the early 1620s by Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto. Previously known in only four bronze casts – three of them in museum collections – the present bronze is the fifth cast known and has emerged from a noble collection in the United Kingdom.

Bernini first trained in the workshop of his father, Pietro Bernini (1562-1629), who was himself a successful sculptor. Gianlorenzo was a prodigious talent, and is said by his biographers to be carving in marble by the age of eight. By 10 years of age he had already sculpted a group of Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Satyr. His position as the new artistic genius of the age was cemented in the years 1618-24 when he carved four marbles for Cardinal Scipione Borghese: Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius leaving Troy, Pluto and Proserpina, Apollo and Daphne, and David (all today in the Galleria Borghese, Rome). The psychological impact of these groups, along with the compositional innovation and technical brilliance left him in a virtually unrivalled position. In partnership with his great patron, the Barberini pope, Urban VIII, he would go on to transform the fabric and interior decoration of St. Peter’s basilica. His work on fountains, monuments and civic spaces are among the most recognized and important contributions to the Roman urban landscape even today.

At the same time that Bernini was executing the marbles mentioned above for Scipione Borghese, he was asked by Cardinal di Montalto to execute a fountain in marble to be placed above a large basin of water in the formal gardens of the Villa Montalto in Rome. This was executed between March 1622 and February 1623 and depicted Neptune twisting dramatically with drapery swirling out behind him in cork screw folds. He holds a trident in both hands as if to strike, and he stands astride a seashell with the figure of Triton between his legs, blowing into a conch shell from which real water would gush forth. The marble fountain remained at the villa until 1786 before being purchased by the English art dealer Thomas Jenkins. It belonged briefly to Sir Joshua Reynolds before being sold to Lord Yarborough. It was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum from Yarborough’s descendants in 1950 (inv. no. A.18:1-1950).
As mentioned above, the present bronze is the fifth known cast of a variant composition of the Montalto Neptune. The others are today in the J. Paul Getty Mueum, Los Angeles, The Metropolitan Museum, New York, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Corsini collection (on loan to the Galleria Borghese, Rome). They differ from the marble group in that the figure of Triton has been replaced by a dolphin and the shell on which Neptune stands in the marble has been replaced by a rocky base.

In the entry on the Getty example, Peter Fusco argues convincingly that these bronzes must have been cast from an interim model created as Bernini’s idea for the fountain evolved (Fogelman, Fusco and Camberera, loc. cit.). Bernini’s stature as a sculptor was such that his models were highly unlikely to have been altered by followers. Fusco also argues against the idea that it might have been a later re-working by Bernini himself, pointing out the artist’s love of ‘unsupported masses extending into space’ (ibid., p. 172). Rather, the presence of the dolphin, which is structurally unnecessary in a bronze, makes sense in the context of a marble, where it would be required to support Neptune’s considerable weight. It seems likely then, that Bernini had originally envisaged the dolphin, but substituted the figure of Triton, whose body twists in the opposite direction from Neptune’s and creates a greater sense of drama.
Fusco goes on to theorise that little is known about Roman bronzes of the 17th century, and that the Getty Neptune (and by extension, the others) may have been cast by foundries which were also casting models created by his rival, Alessandro Algardi (1598-1564). This seems to distance the bronzes from their creator unnecessarily. Bernini was not himself a bronze founder and would always have taken his models to a specialist for casting. His roughly contemporary bust of Pope Gregory XV is documented as having been carved in marble but also cast in bronze by Sebastiano Sebastiani (Wittkower, op. cit., p. 180). It seems more likely that this variant composition, which would not have been widely known in its day, was cast at the instigation of its creator. In this way there would be a permanent record of the model which could be distributed or sold to friends and admirers.

With either the dolphin or the figure of Triton, Neptune remains one of Bernini’s most powerful and dramatic creations. His muscular torso leans forward, his brow is furrowed and his hair and cloak are swept back by the wind. It is unclear if he is stirring the seas or calming them but the sense of dynamism is pervasive. It is because of these characteristics, and the way his figures interact with the space around them, that Bernini is considered the most important proponent of the Roman Baroque era.

Christie's. The Exceptional Sale, London, 4 july 2019

Lot 108. The Williams-Wynn Meissen Hen from the Royal Saxon Porcelain Menagerie. A Meissen white porcelain model of a hen with her chicks, 1732; 13 ½ in. (34.5 cm.) high. Estimate 300,000 - GBP 500,000. Price realised GBP 467,250. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Naturalistically modelled by J.J. Kändler, with her head turned towards her tail, a chick preening itself on her back and further chicks peeping out from under her wings and feathers.

Provenance: Commissioned by Augustus II (1670-1733), King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (Augustus 'the Strong'), for his porcelain menagerie in the Japanese Palace, Dresden, and one of four delivered there in 1732.
By descent to Frederick Augustus II, King of Saxony (1797-1854), when it was one of two examples purchased by Helena Wolfssohn from the Saxon Royal Collection on 8 January 1851.
David Falcke, New Bond Street, London; his sale, Christie's London, 28 April 1858, lot 1449 (sold to 'Falck', most probably his brother Isaac Falcke).
Probably sold before 1862 to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet (1820-1885), and by descent in the Williams-Wynn family to the present owners, Llangedwyn Hall, Wales.

Note: One of only four examples, a 'hen and her young' (Gallus domesticus) is one of the rarer bird models created by the Modellmeister Johann Joachim Kändler for the Saxon Royal porcelain menagerie. Another is known in a private collection. The third remains in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden. The whereabouts of the fourth, sold to Prince Anatol Demidoff in July 1853, is currently unknown. The porcelain menagerie became the centrepiece of Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace, sometimes referred to as his porzellanschloss (porcelain castle), and the life-size models are still considered today to be the most important 18th century sculptures in porcelain. 

Obsessed with porcelain, the Elector-King Augustus ‘the Strong’ had the largest collection of Asian porcelain in Europe with over 29,000 pieces recorded on his death in 1733. After his own porcelain factory was opened at Meissen in 1710, he became increasingly interested in the idea of Meissen surpassing Asian porcelain in quality. The culmination of this ambition was the incredible idea of a menagerie of life-size birds and animals made in porcelain. Menageries were an important component of displaying princely power, so perhaps it is not so surprising that a porcelain-crazed king should have commissioned a porcelain menagerie. Several of his palaces had animal enclosures, and his Löwenhaus (lion house) included a number of savage beasts which were used for animal fights and hunting. When wild and exotic animals were displayed during pageants they were intended to astonish the crowds, but their display was also designed to demonstrate the king’s power over these magnificent creatures, signifying his ability to bring order to the world. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE JAPANESE PALACE
In 1717 Augustus acquired the Holländisches Palais (or Dutch Palace), installing part of his kunstkammer there in the same year: ‘His Royal Majesty bought the palace for a large sum of money in 1717 on account of its splendour and excellent situation, and has preserved it for posterity under the name of the Japanese Palace…Having done this, he had the world-famous kunstkammer brought to this palace three years ago from Neu-Dresden for the sake of good air.’ (1) This is the earliest reference to the palace as the Japanese Palace, and an indication of Augustus’s decision to create a Porzellanschloss. He had initially planned to remodel Schloss Pillnitz in the style of a ‘Saxon Versailles’ to house his expanding porcelain collection, but this didn’t come to fruition; the Dutch Palace was remodelled and expanded for this purpose instead. 

The king’s acquisition of porcelain was closely tied to his planned interior layout of the palace. A 1728 plan indicates that his porcelain was to be grouped according to colour or type, rather than used to furnish the palace in the traditional sense. The palace’s interior decoration was closely tied to the decoration of the porcelain, its walls to be clad in embroidered Indian satin and lacquer. Numerous alterations to the interior schemes were made by Augustus during the planning stage, but it is clear that he intended the ground floor to be furnished with Asian porcelain, and that the upper floor was to display Meissen porcelain. The porcelain from Meissen was to be grouped according to colour or type (celadon, purple or green coloured porcelain for example) (2), and visitors would pass along the Neustadt-side gallery where the animal models were to be displayed (the decision to display them here was made in the summer of 1730). The palace had the practical function of housing the collection, but it also had symbolic significance at a political, cultural and spiritual level. Walking through room after room filled with jewel-like porcelain, grouped symbolically into colours, and past a majestic porcelain menagerie, guests would have eventually arrived at the purple Throne Room which was designed to have a porcelain throne. 

THE CREATION OF THE PORCELAIN MENAGERIE
The success of the project was dependent on the Modellmeister having not only the creativity, but also a deep understanding of the technical challenges that such an ambitious project would pose. The task was initially given to Gottlieb Kirchner, the first sculptor permanently employed by Meissen. Kirchner was a difficult character, but he had valuable experience of working in porcelain which was essential to the early successes of the factory. He was joined shortly after by Johann Joachim Kändler, who was employed as his assistant in June 1731. Kändler had never worked in porcelain before, but his unique style and skills developed quickly, and it wasn’t long before it became clear he was the more gifted of the two as a sculptor. It has been argued that Kändler’s ability to expressively breathe life into his porcelain models was unparalleled in the 18th century. Both modellers either studied their subjects from live beasts in the collection of the Mortizburg menagerie, or the Dresden Löwenhaus, or sketched them from specimens in the Animaliengalerie at the Zwinger in Dresden. 

The vast majority of the larger animals and birds remained together until the beginning of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, when they were moved to the cellar of the palace. In the late 18th century, Count Camillo Marcolini attempted to move the figures to the Zwinger (where they are displayed now) (3), as he felt that they would be better appreciated within the context of a curated museum. This did not materialise, however, and the figures remained in the cellar until 1876 when they were eventually transferred with the remainder of the collection to the Johanneum (a former stable building). Here the menagerie models were seen in all their sculptural glory (4). 

SALES FROM THE PORCELAIN MENAGERIE 
In 1833, Gustav Klemm, Secretary of the Royal Library, was appointed ‘Inspektor’ of the Royal Porcelain Collection. Klemm’s vision was to widen the variety of the collection so that it formed ‘a kind of universal museum for the ceramics of all the countries and peoples of the world’ (5). In order to raise funds for this project, and create space for new pieces, he drew up a list of duplicate pieces in the porcelain collection which could be sold. The first recorded loss of large models from the menagerie in the 19th century was the 1836/37 exchange of porcelain with the Sèvres manufactory in France. Johann Carl Friedrich Teichert, the agent acting for Sèvres, acquired further duplicate bird and animal models from the Royal Collection in 1849. At the end of 1850 Teichert applied to purchase further models, including a model of a hen, but his suggested price for the group of pieces was rejected, and it seems that this sale never took place (6). In the same year two pairs of bird models were sold to the Dresden-based dealer Moritz Meyer, and a bird and three animals were sold to ‘Mr. Marks’ from London. By the time permission to sell to Marks was granted, he had already left Dresden, and the confirmation of receipt of the four models was signed for not by him, but by the dealer Helena Wolfssohn (7).

In 1850 Helena Wolfssohn applied to purchase 22 models from the menagerie, and she took receipt of 21 models (one was declined due to poor condition) on 8th January 1851. The present model, along with another model of a hen, was among these pieces (8). It is possible that the London dealer David Falcke was in Germany scouting for pieces to buy when he bought the two hen models from Helena Wolfssohn (9). David Falcke (1818-1866) and his younger brother, Issac (1819-1909), were the sons of Jacob Herbert Falcke (1784-1841), a dealer who had emigrated from Märkischer Kreis in the North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and settled in Great Yarmouth. Shortly after the birth of his second son Isaac, Jacob moved the business to Oxford Street in London. After Jacob’s death in 1841 the brothers moved the business to 92 New Bond Street. In the 29th December 1909 obituary for Isaac in The Times it noted that it was ‘during this period that the brothers made periodical visits to the Continent, particularly to Germany, France, Italy and Holland, picking up innumerable objects of art at very small prices’. 

When David Falcke retired in 1858 his brother Isaac had already retired. The firm’s stock was sold in a 19-day sale at Christie’s, starting on 19th April 1858. On the ninth day of the sale (28th April), the “2 Hens with young” models that he had bought from Helena Wolfssohn were sold as lot 1449 under the heading ‘FINE OLD WHITE DRESDEN FIGURES / From the Japan Palace, at Dresden’, making £7 and 10 shillings. Curiously, the buyer of the two hens is listed as Falck (without an e), who also bought the following two lots (two models of storks). Whether the buyer was his brother Isaac, or another buyer by the name of Falck (this seems improbable), is unclear. Isaac’s 1909 obituary notes that after his brother’s death in 1866, he continued to collect, periodically having to sell portions of his collection due to unfortunate investments (his maiolica, for example, was sold to Sir Richard Wallace, and is now in the Wallace Collection). 

If he was the buyer in the 1858 sale, and still owned the Meissen hens in 1862, Isaac would presumably have lent them to the 1862 International Exhibition in South Kensington, as he lent portions of his collection to this exhibition. He lent further pieces from his collection to the 1868 Leeds Art-Treasures Exhibition, and between 1875 and 1877 he lent pieces to the Bethnal Green Museum. The hens were not present in any of these exhibitions, or in the three sales at Christies after Isaac’s death (April, May and July 1910). This suggests that Isaac had probably already sold the hens, most probably directly to the Williams-Wynn family, by 1862. 

THE WILLIAMS-WYNN BARONETS
Although it is currently not certain which member of the Williams-Wynn family acquired this important Meissen hen, it was most probably Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet (1820-1885). It is also currently unclear as to which of their houses the hen was displayed in when it first arrived in their collection. By the 18th century, the Williams-Wynn baronets had become the largest landowners in Wales, and had numerous houses and castles. It is possible that it could have been acquired for Wynnstay which was rebuilt between 1859 and 1865 after a devastating fire in March 1858 (which destroyed the house and much of its contents). 

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn was caricatured by ‘Spy’ (Sir Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair as ‘The King of Wales’. A Lieutenant in the Life Guards (1842), he was also Member of Parliament for Denbighshire between 1841 and 1885, Lieutenant Colonel of the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry (1844-1877) and the aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria from 1881. The Williams-Wynn London residence was 20 St. James’s Square, which Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, the 4th Baronet, had acquired in 1771. The 4th Baronet had engaged the architect Robert Adam to remodel the house and its interiors (completed in 1774), and Adam also designed the carpets, door furniture and a silver service for the house. It is interesting to note that at the time when the Williams-Wynn family are most likely to have purchased the hen (circa 1860), Sir Watkin’s neighbour in number 19 was Lord Barnard of Raby Castle, County Durham (Northern England), where there are still four bird models from the Japanese Palace porcelain menagerie. The monumental model of pelican at Raby is almost certainly the pelican in David Falcke’s Christie’s 1858 sale, which came up two lots before the hens (10). It is very possible that the two families influenced each other's purchases. For the footnotes to this lot, see www.christies.com. 

(1) Samuel Wittwer, The Gallery of Meissen Animals, Munich, 2006, p. 32.
(2) Wittwer illustrates the assorted floorplans, see ibid., 2006, p. 33, figs. 31-33. The symbolic significance of the coloured displays of porcelain in each room would not have been lost on visitors to the Palace. Each room represented a different quality or state which was expressed through colour, for example red conveyed power, green symbolised humility, yellow conveyed splendour, blue gave a sense of divinity, before arriving into the throne room which was decorated in purple, which conveyed authority. 
(3) In the early part of the 20th century, plans were reformulated to house the collection at the Zwinger where it was partially displayed in 1939. The Porzellansammlung opened to the public in 1962 in its current home in the Zwinger.
(4) For a photograph of the gallery with Meissen porcelain in the Johanneum taken in circa 1900, see Samuel Wittwer, A Royal Menagerie, Meissen Porcelain Animals, Rijksmuseum dossiers, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 45, fig. 34. 
(5) Samuel Wittwer, ibid., 2006, pp. 223-224.
(6) Samuel Wittwer, ibid., 2006, pp. 225-226. 
(7) From 1843, Helena Wolfssohn ran a workshop which decorated white porcelain. She had a legal battle with the Meissen manufactory over her use of ‘AR’ marks on pieces, as this implied that they were Royal and 18th century Meissen-decorated, when they were in fact spurious (‘Augustus Rex’ marks were used by the manufactory in the 18th century on Royal pieces or for Royal gifts, such as the King of Sardinia Service, lot 104 in this sale). 
(8) Samuel Wittwer, p. 226. Another model of a hen was sold to Prince Anatol Demidoff in July 1853, noted by Wittwer on p. 227.
(9) Since the 1820s English dealers had travelled to Dresden and Meissen in search of 18th century pieces for re-sale in England, see Joachim Kunze, ‘Die Bedeutung des “Englischen Handels” mit Porzellan im “Altfranzösischen Geschmack” der Meissner Manufaktur in der Ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Keramos, no. 95, January 1982, pp. 37-50. 
(10) Falcke may have acquired the pelican from Wolfssohn, as one of the pieces on her 1851 list was a pelican.

Lot 104. A Meissen (Augustus Rex) porcelain royal armorial part tea and chocolate-service, 1725, blue AR marks and various drehers' marks, painted by J.G. Estimate 80,000 - GBP 120,000. Price realised GBP 262,500. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Finely painted with fine chinoiserie scenes and the crowned cipher or crowned arms of the King of Sardinia, the arms within the insignia of the Order of the Annunciation flanked by lion supporters and martial trophies, all within gilt Laub-und Bandelwerkborders, the teabowl interiors with stylised chinoiserie landscape medallions, comprising: 

A teapot and cover
A slop-bowl
Five teabowls 
A chocolate-beaker 
Seven saucers
The slop-bowl 7 ¼ in. (18.5 cm.) diameter
The teapot and cover 5 in. (12.7 cm.) high.

Provenance: Given by Augustus II (1670-1733), King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (Augustus ‘the Strong’) to Vittorio Amadeo II (1666-1732), King of Sardinia in 1725, and thence by descent to the Kings of Italy.

Note: The present lot represents the majority of the famous armorial tea and chocolate service which was sent to Vittorio Amadeo II, King of Sardinia by the Elector King Augustus ‘the Strong’ in 1725. The appearance of these pieces is an exciting discovery, as they were thought to be lost. Previously, only a few surviving pieces from the service were known. The 1725 gift is exceptional and important for two reasons; it was one of the earliest and most prestigious diplomatic gifts to include Meissen porcelain (the manufactory belonging to Augustus the Strong), and these pieces are among the very few works which are known to have been painted by J.G Höroldt, the Court Painter and head of the painting workshops at Meissen, as contemporary documents record that he painted them himself. 

Augustus’s gift is well documented in a range of surviving archival material. It was larger and more prestigious than most diplomatic gifts, consisting of about 300 individual items which had to be shipped in twelves crates. The surviving shipping lists (1) describe the contents of the crates, and crate 11 is described as follows:

‘Roth Ledern Futterahl mit grünen Daffet und Goldenen Spitzen ausgemacht, darinnen befindl: 6. St. Schälgen und Copgen mit dem Königl: Sardinischen Wappen und mit Japanischen Figuren und goldenen Zierrathen, nebst 1. Dergl: Spühlnapff, 1. Theepott, 1. ZuckerDose und 6 st. Choccolade Becher mit Unterschalen’ (a red leather case with a green lining and gold lace containing six saucers and teabowls with the Sardinian coat-of-arms and Japanese figures: also a bowl, a teapot, a sugar-bowl and six chocolate beakers with saucers) (2). 

The armorial service was one of the principal components of the 1725 gift, which also included five 7-vase garnitures, nine boxed coffee, tea and chocolate-services, two small table-services, other wares, two chamber-pots and prize horses. Some of the Meissen porcelain (such as the present service) was made especially for the gift, but other pieces were taken from the Saxon Royal collection, including the garniture of large early white porcelain vases designed by Raymond Leplat (circa 1715), which were recorded in the Japanese Palace (Dresden) inventory of 1721-27 (the Japanese Palace inventory numbers were removed before the pieces were sent) (3). 

A 1733 biography states that it was the long-standing friendship between the two kings that precipitated the 1725 gift (4). In 1688 Augustus (then Prince of Saxony) had been touring France and Italy on his Grand Tour when war broke out and he was forced to flee France. He narrowly avoided being arrested, and Vittorio Amadeo (then Duke of Savoy) offered him shelter from the King of France’s henchmen in Turin, refusing to grant his request to turn him over to the French. Maureen Cassidy-Geiger argues that an additional reason behind the gift could be that ‘1725 was the moment when Meissen had achieved the status of royal gift’ (5). Not only was Augustus’s gift unusually large, but it was also the first time that Royal Meissen porcelain had been taken out of the Royal Collection and sent abroad as a diplomatic gift, which indicated that it was a gift of very ‘special distinction’. The King of Sardinia sent a number of silk wall coverings in return, which would have been considered an equally luxurious item at the time (6). 

The quality of painting on this service is superb. When he painted this service, Höroldt had been appointed Court Painter only a few months earlier (in December 1724), and it seems probable that he was keen to carry out the commission solely by himself, given how important it was to the king. He used figures on sheet 41 from his Schulz Codex sketchbook as the basis for the family group on one side of the slop-bowl, and the other chinoiserie scenes appear to have been created specifically for this service. Höroldt completed the chocolate-beakers and saucers first, and they were delivered to Dresden in March 1725. A surviving note written by the factory inspector and dated 31st March describes the service as follows: ‘In addition, a number of chocolate beakers and saucers, decorated with the coat-of-arms of the King of Sardinia by the Court Painter Höroldt, have been sent to the warehouse in Dresden; they were wonderfully done and extraordinary to look at’. A few month later, in June 1725, ‘the tea service with the Sardinian coat-of-arms’ was sent to Dresden (7). The gift left Dresden in the middle of September and was sent via Venice, arriving in Turin in November 1725. 

It is not entirely clear when the dispersal of part of the service took place, although it preceded both the June 1968 Christie’s Geneva sale (8) and the Second World War (9). The other surviving pieces from the service are a beaker and saucer in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (10), a saucer in the Arnhold collection (11), an un-published beaker in the Museo Civico, Turin, a saucer in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (12), and a sugar-box in the Ernst Schneider Collection, Munich (13). A teabowl and saucer, formerly in the Gustav von Klemperer Collection, was destroyed in the Second World War (14). This leaves three chocolate-beakers and one saucer unaccounted for, and it very possible that they have been lost. It is extraordinary that the present pieces have survived in the same family since they arrived in Turin in November 1725. 

(1) Documents HStA13458, currently on loan to the Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Archives (‘Verschiedene Specificationen und Belege über Zu-und Abgänge 1700-1876’), ‘Nachrichten von den Sächssischen Porcellain so im Monath Septemb: Anno 1725 nach Turin ist geschicket worden.’ The full shipping list of what was sent is published by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, ‘Princes and Porcelain on the Grand Tour of Italy’ in Cassidy-Geiger, ed., Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts ca. 1710-63, 2007, pp. 327-331.
(2) Cassidy-Geiger, ed., ibid., 2007, p. 327 and I. Menzhausen, ‘Ein Porzellangeschenk Augusts der Starken für den König von Sardinien’, in Keramos, No. 119, 1988, p. 100f.
(3) The central vase from this garniture was sold by Sotheby’s London on 14th July 1998, lot 84. For an illustration of this and two other vases from the garniture, see Cassidy-Geiger, ibid., 2007, p. 208, fig. 10-1. 
(4) This was described in the first biography of Augustus the Strong by David Fassmann, Das Glorwürdigste Leben und Thaten Friedrich Augusti, des Großen, Königs in Pohlen und Chur-Fürstens zu Sachsen…, Frankfurt and Hamburg, 1733, p. 18. 
(5) Cassidy-Geiger, ibid., 2007, p. 211. 
(6) These were sadly destroyed by the Prussians in the Seven Years’ War. 
(7) Cited by Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, A Private Collection, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck St. Annen-Museum and Museen der Stadt Aachen Couven Museum Exhibition Catalogue, Lübeck, 1993, p. 58, from Berling, Königlich Sächsische Porzellanmanufaktur Meissen, 1910, p. 189.
(8) ‘An Important Collection of Early Meissen Wares, The Property of the Head of a European Royal House’, sold by Christie’s Geneva on 7th June 1968. In time, it became apparent that the property had previously belonged to the Kings of Italy.
(9) On the assumption that the portion which was dispersed was sold at the same time, rather than being sold piecemeal, the sale must have taken place before 1928, when the pieces in the von Klemperer Collection were published.
(10) A beaker and saucer is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, illustrated by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, ibid., 2007, p. 210, fig. 10-4. 
(11) Formerly in the Hans and Marianne Krieger Collection, illustrated by Ulrich Pietsch, ibid., 1993, pp. 58-59, no. 43, and subsequently in the Henry Arnhold Collection, illustrated by M. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-50, London, 2008, p. 326, no. 98.
(12) A saucer in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, see T.H. Clarke, ‘Böttger-Wappenporzellan’, in Keramos, no. 95, January 1982, p. 25, fig. 6. 
(13) In the Ernst Schneider Collection in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (ES 1985 a,b), and illustrated by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, ibid., 2007, p. 210, fig. 10-3.
(14) Illustrated by Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Porzellansammlung Gustav von Klemperer, 1928, no. 47, pl. 4.

Christie's. The Exceptional Sale, London, 4 july 2019

Lot 114. A pair of Chinese export armorial soldier vases and two covers, Yongzheng-Qianlong period, circa 1735-40; 51 ½ in. (130.8 cm.) high, each. Estimate 100,000 - GBP 150,000. Price realised GBP 175,000. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Decorated in a lustrous famille rose palette with a European style flower-filled urn raised on a bright blue pedestal, a deep cloud collar around the shoulders decorated with a combination of European scrollwork and Chinese cloud motifs on the matching blue ground and issuing lush peonies, on the neck the arms of Valdés Tamón for Fernando Valdés Tamón, Governor-General of the Philippines, one cover period but mismatched, the other a later lacquer replacement with original porcelain knop and inscribed underneath Febrero 20 de 1846 in black script, with later giltwood stands.

Provenance:  Commissioned by Fernando Valdés Tamón (1681-1741), Governor-General of the Philippines.
By descent in the family of Valdés Tamón.
With Spink & Son, London, 21 October 1975,
when acquired by
Pablo Deutsch, Mexico City and California.

Literature: J. Mudge, Chinese Export Porcelain in North America, 1986, p. 48 
R.R. Lake, La visión de un anticuario, 1999, p. 47
R. Diaz, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for Spain, 2010, p. 105.

Note: This pair of 'soldier' vases was commissioned by Fernando Valdés Tamón (1681-1741), appointed Governor-General of the Philippines by Philip V of Spain, who ordered at the same time a very similar set of vases with the arms of his patron, the King (see lot 113). Three pairs of the Valdés Tamón vases are known; in addition to this pair there is a pair in a private collection (formerly in the collection of Luis de Errazu, b. Paris 1854) and a pair in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

IN THE SERVICE OF THE EMPIRE

Fernando Valdés Tamón was a Knight of the Order of Santiago, a colonel and a captain of the Spanish Royal Guard Infantry and a brigadier when, in 1729, he succeeded Marquis of Torre Campo as Spain's Governor-General of the Philippines. The years of 1729 through 1740 when Valdés Tamón lived in the Philippines were the culmination of his career in service to the Spanish Empire. He was an active minister, negotiating a treaty with the Muslim sultanate in 1737 and securing key seacoast forts with additional armaments in 1739 as part of his ongoing campaign to better equip and fortify this important Spanish possession. At the behest of the King he established a school to train local clergy; he also looked after the indigenous workers by establishing maximum work hours and free healthcare. 

Following a 1733 Royal directive, Valdés Tamón commissioned a local Spanish Jesuit, a professor of canon law at the Jesuit college, to draw up an official map of the Philippine islands. The map was printed in Manila in 1734 and became the standard map of the Philippines for the next century. Valdés Tamón himself drew up the plans of the presidios and fortifications of Manila and nearby Cavite whose improvement was his mission.

THE MANILA GALLEON TRADE

As the Governor-General of the Philippines, Valdés Tamón had a central role to play in the important trade between China, New Spain and Spain. He executed the Royal warrants that regulated the trade and dictated the maximum value and character of cargo and goods allowed on the annual or biannual galleons that sailed from Manila to Acapulco and back again. Valdés Tamón would have been quite familiar with the scene at the vast Parián market in Manila where Chinese merchants descended to sell their goods and with the local merchants who plied the lucrative trade and executed special orders.

Cargo registers researched by Rocio Diaz show that Valdés Tamón sent gifts, crates and chests on the Manila galleon periodically. In 1736 four large vases are specified, split between two vessels. One register reads:
...And two large China vases numbers nine and eleven...claimed to be the property of the Honourable Brigadier Sir Fernando Valdes Tamon, Knight of the Order of Santiago, President Governor and Captain General of these islands.
Valdés Tamón was appointed field marshal in 1739 and in 1740 departed Manila, shipping on the Nuestra Señora de Covadonga thirty-seven chests and crates, twenty-three small and large cases, and thirty-nine large jars. As Diaz points out, without further identifying information it is impossible to know whether the Valdés Tamón armorial soldier vases or those for Philip V were part of any of these registered shipments. Sadly, Valdés Tamón did not make it home to Spain, dying in Cuernavaca in 1741.

THE VALDÉS TAMÓN VASES AND THEIR COVERS

The pair of Valdés Tamón soldier vases in a private collection and published by Diaz have covers enameled with formalized peony matching that on the vases' shoulders with distinctive, bright blue enameled flowers in between. It seems extremely likely that all of the Valdés Tamón vases were made with these covers, which match the vases so well, while the covers with the yellow fleur-de-lys knops would have been unique to the Royal vases. The Rotterdam pair likely had their covers switched with a Royal pair at some point, while the original covers to the present pair were likely broken. The lacquered cover of one of the present vases, inscribed in black script Febrero 20 de 1846, seems to have been made in Mexico about a century after the vases were made, when the original covers broke and only one suitable period replacement could be found.
For a full discussion of these vases, the others extant, the cargo registers and Valdés Tamón see R. Diaz, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for Spain, pp. 104-116.

Christie's. The Exceptional Sale, London, 4 july 2019

Lot 134. The William Beckford's heraldic green dahlia bowl. A George III silver-gilt mounted Chinese porcelain bowl, the porcelain 18th century; the silver-gilt mounts with mark of John Robins, London, 1811. 4 ½ in. (11.5 cm.) diameter. Estimate 20,000 - GBP 40,000. Price realised GBP 60,000. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

The bowl on stepped foot and with green dahlia on black background, and with gilt-mounts of stiff leaf foliage, the bowl with silver-gilt lining engraved with heraldic martlets and in the centre with coat-of-arms within a circular cartouche of scrolls, with a paper label on underside partially legible 'VJB', marked inside the foot and in the bowl.

The arms in the centre are those of Beckford for the celebrated collector and author William Beckford (1760-1844).

Provenance:  William Beckford (1760-1844), then by descent to his daughter
Susanna Euphemia, Duchess of Hamilton (1786-1858) wife of Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852), then by descent to their grandson,
William, 12th Duke of Hamilton (1845-1895), Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire; Christie's, London, 20 June 1882, lot 242 (£66 to Denison),
Christopher Beckett Denison (1825-1884) colonial administrator and M.P. for Yorkshire,
Christopher Beckett Denison, Upper Grosvenor Street, W1; Christie's, London, 11 June 1885, lot 588 (£21) to Kidson on behalf of William James (1854-1912) of West Dean House, then by descent to The Trustees of the Edward James Foundation, West Dean, Chichester.

Literature: D. E. Ostergard, ed., William Beckford 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, 2001, Yale, p. 323.
M. Snodin and M. Baker, 'William Beckford's Silver, Part I and II, The Burlington Magazine, November 1980, pp. 734-748 and 9 December 1980, pp. 829-830.

Lot 109. A Louis XIV Beauvais 'Chinoiserie' tapestry depicting 'La collation', after a design by Guy-Louis Vernansal, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and Jean-Baptiste Belin du Fontenay, circa 1700-1729; 126 in. (320 cm.) high; 149 ½ in. (380 cm.) wide. Estimate 80,000 - GBP 120,000. Price realised GBP 87,500. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019

Woven in wools and silks, from the ´Histoire de l’Empereur de Chine’ series, depicting ´La Collation’, with on the left side the Emperor with richly embroidered gown and peacock plumed headdress eared on a throne, the Empress seated on a stool facing him, within a draped pagoda with lambrequins and dragon-shaped gargoyles to the angles, attended by courtly dressed servants, one holding a tray with tea implements, another one carrying a cake, to the left hand side a servant attending the console fitted with ormolu-mounted blue and white porcelain vases and gilt serving dishes, below him a courtly dressed female musician playing music, a dancing dwarf and monkey performing, and to the foreground a lady tending a perfume burner before a serving table with fringed table cloth presenting a teapot, a dish with fruits and other vessels and containers in a lacquered tray, attended by a servant, with trees beyond, a Chinese house to the background and a palm tree to the right hand side with a woven basket with silver and gilt dishes and serving vessels to the lower right corner, within a scrolling foliate simulated picture frame border, ocre and green outer slip, very slightly reduced in size to the right hand side, the upper and lower horizontal borders possibly replaced, some minute restorations, minor areas of reweaving and small patches.

Provenance: From a private French collection, by family tradition acquired at the end of the 19th century.

Literature: E.A. Standen, 'The Story of the Emperor of China: A Beauvais Tapestry Series', Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 11, 1976, p. 111.
J. Boccara, Ames de Laine et de Soie, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 1988, p. 314.
N. de Pazzis-Chevalier, 'Gros Plan sur la Tapisserie Française aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles', Métiers d'Art: La Tapisserie, October - December 1992, p. 23.
C. Bremer-David, French Tapestries & Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, p. 95.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:  C. Bremer-David, 'Tapestries in the Wernher Collection', Apollo, May 2002, pp. 29 - 34.
E. Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. II, pp. 461 - 468.
F. Windt, 'Die Audienz beim Kaiser von China', Jean II Barraband, Bildteppich, Potsdam, 2000.

Note: SUBJECT

This tapestry forming part of the exotic and highly elaborate Histoire de l'Empereur de la Chine set illustrates everyday life of the Chinese Emperor, believed to be Shun Chih (reigned 1644 - 1661) and Kang Hsi (reigned 1661 - 1721) and their Empresses. Many of the images are based on Johan Nieuhof's Legatio batavica ad magnum Tartatiae chamum sungteium, modernum sinae imperatorem of 1665, which derived from the visit of a delegation of the Dutch East India Company to China from 1655 - 1657. For the botanical details Athanasius Kircher's China Monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis of 1667 seems to have served as inspiration. As its title Roi de Chine implied, the series was meant to illustrate the Chinese Royal Court, but many influences from other Far Eastern countries are discernable. The artists were keen to incorporate as many 'documented' exotic objects as possible in these tapestries.
The series traditionally includes: 'The Audience of the Emperor', 'The Emperor Sailing', 'The Empress Sailing', 'Gathering Pineapples', 'The Astronomers', 'The Return from the Hunt', 'The Empress's Tea', 'The Emperor on a Journey', 'The Gathering of Tea' (as yet unidentified) and 'The Collation'.

Frontispiece of Johan Nieuhof, Descriptio Legationis Batavicae (Amsterdam, 1668). The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library.

Johan Nieuhof, An embassy from the East-India company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperour of China, delivered by their excellcies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking, 1669.  McGill University Library

THE DESIGNERS AND FIRST WEAVING

The first set of L'Histoire de l'Empereur de la Chine, consisting of nine or ten subjects, was woven when Philippe Behagle (d. 1705) was the director of the Royal Beauvais Tapestry Manufactory. In a memorandum of tapestries made during his directorship Behagle mentions this series: Chinoise faict par quatre illustre peintre. Noël-Antoine Mérou (director 1722 - 1734) further reveals in a document of 1731: Une Tenture du dessin des chinois, par les sieurs Batiste, Fontenay et Vernensal, en six pièces. The painters referred to are: Guy Vernansal (d. 1729), the flower-painter, Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay (d. 1715) and Baptiste (the name used by contemporaries for the flower-painter Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (d. 1699)) and an unidentified fourth painter. Vernansal's signature on various models implies that he was the main designer of the series while the exact dating of the first woven set is difficult to ascertain with certainty. It is probable that it was after Behagle took over the directorship in 1684 but before Monnoyer left for England in 1690. A further undated memorandum by Behagle states that the first set, woven with gold-thread (rarely used by Beauvais) was vendu par M. d'Isrode à Monseigneur le duc du Maine (Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, d. 1736) for 20,000 livres. M. d'Isrode, who later had two further sets made, acted as an intermediary, while the set was actually manufactured for Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine (1670 - 1736). The popular series was finally abandoned at Beauvais in 1732, when the cartoons were so worn that they could no longer serve their purpose. 

ORIGINS

The success of the series was undoubtedly due to the increased interest in China at the end of the 17th Century, which had already manifested itself with the importation of enormous quantities of goods from the Far East to France by the Compagnie des Indes Orientales. The enthusiasm was further heightened when the Mercure Galant published a long description of the travels of father Couplet to China in 1684. The young duc du Maine, the legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, met the Jesuit Couplet (d. 1693) and his Chinese convert, Michael Alphonusus Shen Fu-Tsung (d. 1691), when they first returned from China and was deeply interested in his adventures. A second event that possibly generated even more interest was Louis XIV's glamorous reception at Versailles on 1 September 1686 for the ambassadors of Siam, who had been sent by the King of Siam Phra Narai (d. 1688). Among the participants at the reception at Versailles was again the duc du Maine, illustrated in an etching in the Almanach Royal of 1687 recording the presenting of the gifts to Louis XIV. The ambassadors of Siam are even recorded visiting the site of the Beauvais Tapestry Workshop in October of 1686. Proof of the duc du Maine's immense fascination with the Far East is further shown in his meeting with the Jesuit Joachim Bouvet (d. 1730), who was being sent by Louis XIV to Siam, and his gift to Bouvet of a scientific instrument that had been made for his own use. In this Sinophile environment, the Beauvais workshop found a ready audience for its new tapestry series. 

COMPARABLE EXAMPLES

A set of six tapestries (originally 10) from this series executed for Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse and duc de Penthièvre (d. 1737), which was woven between 1697 and 1705 is in The J. Paul Getty Museum (1). A tapestry depicting the Emperor Sailing from the Akram Ojjeh Collection and originally supplied to François-Louis (d.1732), Count Palatine and Prince Elector, in circa 1710, was sold Christie's Monaco, 12 December 1999, lot 21. Two tapestries with identical borders originally from the collection of the Earl of Cadogan and depicting The Emperor Sailing and Gathering Pineapples, were sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 21 October 2004, lots 1012 and 1013, respectively. Another, wider panel of La Collation is in the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi (2). An identical tapestry of the same design sold Christie's, London, 9 November 2006, lot 403 (£176,000 inc. premium); another sold Christie's, Paris, 3-4 May 2016, lot 29, 169,500 Euros inc. premium).

The Emperor Sailing, from The Story of the Emperor of China, 1716/22. After a design by Guy-Louis Vernansal (French, 1648–1729) and othersWoven at the Manufacture Royale de Beauvais under the direction of Pierre and Etienne Filleul (codirectors, 1711–22), France, Beauvais. Wool, silk, and silvered- and-gilt-metal-strip-wrapped silk, slit and double interlocking tapestry weave with some areas of 2:2 plain interlacings of silvered-and-gilt-metal wefts, 385.8 × 355 cm (151 3/4 × 139 3/4 in.). Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Worcester Fund, 2007.22. © Art Intitute of Chicago.

(1) Bremer-David, op. cit., cat. 9, pp. 80 - 97, the La Collation being 9 a.
(2) D. Di Castro et al, Il Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi e la Galleria Pallavicini, Milan, 1999, p. 104.