Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art
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Coordinates: 
51°31′29″N 0°7′49″W
The David Vases, said to be two of the best-known Chinese porcelains in the world.
The
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art is a collection of Chinese
ceramics and related items in
London,
England. The Foundation's main purpose is to promote the study and teaching of
Chinese art and culture. The Collection consists of some 1,700 pieces of
Song,
Yuan,
Ming and
Qing porcelain from the 10th century to the 18th. It includes examples of the rare
Ru and
Guan wares and two important
Yuan dynasty blue and white porcelain temple vases (the "David Vases") the oldest dated blue and white porcelain objects, from 1351.
[1]
It also holds a large library of Western and East Asian books related
to Chinese art. In 1950 the Collection was presented to the
University of London by the collector and scholar Sir
Percival David. Today, the collection is on permanent display in the
British Museum in
London.
倫敦大學舊地的中文簡介請參考
Ken Yifertw (
台語與佛典) -轉載的:
陸揚： 〈倫敦零拾---兼紀 2005 IABS〉
The collection
Two flasks with dragons, 1403–24.
The collection dates back to 1927 when many of the items in the Forbidden City were being sold off by
eunuchs and other members of the
Imperial Household Department. The
Dowager Empress
is said to have used many items as collateral for loans from various
Chinese banks in 1901. Sir Percival David convinced the officials to
mount a display of many of the best items. When they started to come on
the market, David managed to buy some forty pieces one way or the other
and export them to the
United States.
In 1930, he again returned to China and helped with various exhibitions
and produced a series of catalogues of the pieces. He also managed to
acquire more items through various dealers in
Beijing.
This means that many pieces were once owned by the Qing Emperors and
several pieces have inscriptions added by the orders of the Emperor
Qianlong (1736–95).
In 1931, David's collection was displayed in the
Dorchester Hotel in
London. It remained there until it was evacuated to the countryside during
World War II. Sir Percival David also created a Chair in Chinese Art and Architecture with the
Courtauld Institute of Art,
which is part of the University of London. Towards the end of his life
he was determined to keep the collection together and to this end
entered negotiations with the
University of London. An agreement was reached to keep the collection and the library together in a Foundation attached to
SOAS.
The Chair that David had created was also moved to SOAS. Just before
the opening of the Collection, the Foundation was also given a small
collection of porcelain belonging to
Mountstuart Elphinstone. The Collection was opened to the public on 10 June 1952 in a house in
Gordon Square,
Bloomsbury.
The former home of the Percival David Foundation in Gordon Square
The Foundation has been a generous lender to other countries. It lent many items of Yuan Dynasty porcelain to
Venice's 700th-anniversary celebration of
Marco Polo's expedition. It has also sent other items to places as far away as
Japan and the
United States.
The Library collection was a working library and as such was open to researchers from around the world.
Relocation
Due to a funding crisis, the Gordon Square building housing the
Foundation's collection closed at the end of 2007. The ceramics
collection has been loaned on a long-term basis to the
British Museum, where the whole collection, about 1,700 objects, is on permanent public display in a specially designed new gallery (Room 95,
British Museum) opened in April 2009, thanks to the generosity of Sir Joseph Hotung.
[2]
The public gallery is part of the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic
Studies, which will include facilities to use the collection for
teaching.
[3]
Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection,
by Regina Krahl and Jessica Harrison-Hall, was published in April 2009
by the British Museum Press to coincide with the opening of the new
display.
References
External links
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