New York Antiques Week, Part IV

Our next stop at the New York Ceramics Fair, and the one where Reggie truly lost his head, was the booth of Polly Latham, a dealer in Chinese export porcelain hailing from Boston, Massachusetts.  I have enjoyed visiting Ms. Latham's shop on Chestnut Street in that fair city over the years, and I had heretofore been able to resist the temptation to leave her establishment with one of her treasures under my arms . . . and a freshly signed cheque behind me in exchange for it.

Detail of the central medallion
of the plates I bought at the fair

Not so, I admit, at the Ceramics Fair.  Even though our household bank account had suffered depletion at the previous two dealers we visited at the fair, out came the cheque book, again, when I espied these beautiful tobacco-and-gilt-decorated plates.  I had to have them, Dear Reader.

These are the three beauties I could not resist

As I have made known in previous posts, I have a particular weakness for Chinese export porcelain made for the American markets, and I have collected it—sparingly, I admit, given its rarity and cost—since I was a teenager, when I first heeded its siren call.  I have been a devotee of it ever since.

The Hongs at Canton, attributed to Lam Qua, ca. 1830-1835
Collection of the Peabody Museum, Salem
Image from The Decorative Arts of the China Trade by Carl Crossman 

The first examples of Chinese export porcelain I purchased were ones I unearthed years ago while rooting through stacks of discarded, dusty plates at group antiques shops, thrift stores, and yard sales, where the purveyors knew not what they had.  I was able to buy the examples I found in such places at a only few dollars a piece, which was all that I could afford at the time.  I once even found a half dozen export saucers at the Salvation Army, for only fifty cents apiece.

One of our plates

But that was thirty years ago.  Today my purchases are found in loftier places and at loftier prices.  These days I'm lucky to find a good piece of Chinese export porcelain to add to our collection that costs less than a thousand dollars.  For, as I wrote earlier, my taste in china (and other things generally, for that matter) has become more catholic and expensive as I have grown older.  And what would have been shocking to me in my twenties seems entirely reasonable today.  For, as Oscar Wilde (another appreciator of fine china) wrote, "The more depraved I become, the more normal it seems."

A less decorated, but related example of Chinese export in sepia, ca. 1800,
showing a view of and inscribed "Monticello" and "Thomas Jefferson"
Collection of Dr. Wesley Gallup
Image from Chinese Export Porcelain in North America by Jean McClure Mudge

So what, exactly, is Chinese export porcelain, you may ask, and why do I collect it?

Interior of a Chinese porcelain shop, artist unknown, ca. 1820-1830
Collection of the Peabody Museum, Salem
Image from The Decorative Arts of the China Trade by Carl Crossman

The United States entered into trade with China in 1784, when the first ship since the revolution set sail from New York Harbor on February 22nd, George Washington's birthday.  Known as the Empress of China, the ship was bound for Canton, now known as Guangzhou, with its hold full of Spanish gold bullion, the primary currency of exchange that initially fueled trade between the two countries.  Trade expanded rapidly thereafter, and demand in the new republic for Chinese tea, silks, porcelain and other luxuries was virtually insatiable.  In return, the U. S. supplied bullion, furs, rum, cheese, grains, and opium.

A detail of the decoration at the rim of the platter
Note the gilding and the desired "orange peel"
surface of the dish

One of the most desired items of trade from China was porcelain, a form of hard, brilliantly white china that was far superior to the earthenware goods then produced in Europe and in America.  But porcelain was expensive and only affordable by the elite in this country, and ranked a distant fourth behind the much larger shipments of teas, fabrics, and spices imported to these shores.  Nonetheless, a lot of Chinese porcelain was imported, often in sets specially ordered and decorated with monograms, coats of arms, and insignia. 

Decorating porcelain, from a large set of the street trades
of Canton, artist unknown, ca. 1840
Private collection
Image from The Decorative Arts of the China Trade
by Carl Crossman

Much of the trade between the U. S. and China initially originated in New England, where vast fortunes were made buying goods in China and selling them here, often at great profit.  The first American millionaires in this country made their fortunes in trading with China.  The China Trade (as it was called) flourished from the 1780s until it ended with the Opium Wars of the 1840s.  Its "golden age" was from 1790 to 1820, the period that we concentrate our collecting on at Darlington House.

The labels affixed to the back
of the plates

The porcelain plates that we bought from Ms. Latham at the Ceramics Fair were commissioned by Thomas Willing (1731-1821) of Philadelphia, and date to approximately 1800.  Willing was one of the richest men in America at the time the plates were made, having made his fortune as a merchant in partnership with Robert Morris (1736-1804), one of the original investors in the Empress of China.

The barque Cynthia Off Lin Tin, by Sunqua, ca. 1840
Typical of vessels that plied the China Trade

In addition to his mercantile activities, Willing was at various times throughout his illustrious career the mayor of Philadelphia, a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a member of the Continental Congress, and the president of the Bank of North America.  In short, he was one of this nation's most illustrious citizens during his accomplished life.

Thomas Willing, 1782
painted by Charles Wilson Peale
Collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York
Image courtesy of same

While the provenance of our plates certainly adds to their value and desirability, it is not what attracted me to them, and it is entirely incidental to my enjoyment of them.  No, I had to own them because I found them beautiful, finely made, and exquisitely decorated.  I had a visceral reaction when I first saw them.  They grabbed me in the middle of my stomach and said, "You must own us. You must!"

I was helpless.  I had to have them.  So I got out my battered cheque book, and I bought them.

And that, Dear Reader, concludes my tour of (most of) what we bought at this year's New York Ceramics Fair.

All photographs by Boy Fenwick