The Morton and Grace Gordon Collection: Passion and Individuality Morton and Grace Gordon were collectors of the purest kind. Their collection was amassed through a passionate interest in, and love for, Chinese art and history. They did not collect with an eye on financial appreciation of their art works, but because they found them both fascinating and beautiful. The Gordons also relished the intellectual challenge presented by collecting and studying Chinese art. Morton Gordon was a chemist by training, who, through his own efforts, built up a highly successful business involved in the importation of pharmaceuticals and neutroceuticals from all over the world. One of the most important countries with which he had business links was China. The Gordons were extremely unusual amongst Americans in the 1970s and 1980s in that they travelled to China on three occasions - visiting locations such as the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall. They did not purchase any art during these visits, but rather undertook them as 'pilgrimages of cultural enjoyment'. The Gordons began collecting Chinese art in the early 1970s, at a time when very few Americans had any significant knowledge of Chinese culture. They were part of a small circle of like-minded collectors, which included Arthur M. Sackler and Paul Singer. The latter, who lived nearby in New Jersey, was instrumental in developing the Gordons' desire to collect Chinese art, as well as being a trusted advisor in this area. However, they maintained a fierce individuality in both their intellectual pursuits and in their style of collecting. Relatively little Chinese art was available in America at that time and the Gordons enjoyed the 'thrill of the hunt' and being the first to spot an important piece. They bought mainly at auction or from trusted dealers, including Frank Caro (successor to C.T. Loo) in New York, and the firms of Eskenazi Ltd., S. Marchant and Son, Bluett & Sons Ltd., and John Sparks Ltd. in London. Both Morton and Grace Gordon appreciated the continual cultural development that could be traced throughout China's long history. Tang dynasty China had a particular fascination for Grace, who wrote a novel about Yang Guifei, the beloved concubine of Emperor Ming Huang. The Gordon's collection grew to be surprisingly comprehensive, with bronzes, ceramics and scholar's objects all well represented. Ceramics comprise the largest portion of the collection and the majority focused on the period from the Tang to Qing dynasty; their Qing dynasty porcelains, in particular, include superb monochrome-glazed porcelains. However, the collection also came to include paintings as well as three-dimensional works. In the latter part of their collecting careers Morton and Grace Gordon became interested in the work of Ding Yangyong, a disciple of Qi Baishi, and assembled a large and diverse collection of his paintings. Ding Yangyong, some of whose paintings had been exhibited at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in the 1980s, and who is characterized by a bold and whimsical style, was introduced to the Gordons by Wang 'Fred' Fangyu (1913-1997). Professor Fred Wang was a friend of Morton and Grace and a noted calligrapher and professor of Chinese painting at Yale University. In keeping with traditional expressions of friendship, Professor Wang dedicated a number of works to the Gordons and gave them paintings as gifts on auspicious occasions. He also arranged for the Gordons to acquire a lovely landscape painting from the renowned artist Zhang Daqian during one of his visits to New York. Morton and Grace Gordon lived surrounded by their treasures at their Georgian estate in New Jersey. The pieces in their collection, representative of the types of Chinese artworks which could be acquired in America and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, have remained largely unseen for some thirty years. It is only just now that this remarkable collection can be appreciated by the wider art community and serve to inspire the next generation of collectors. The Elegance of Single-coloured Ceramics Rosemary Scott International Academic Director, Asian Art While Chinese ceramics are known for their great variety, and many people think of them in terms of blue and white wares or porcelains decorated in the polychrome famille rose or famille verte enamel palettes, in China itself single-coloured ceramics have traditionally been among the most admired. The prestige of classic monochrome ceramics was first established during a period in which the technology and status of ceramics reached new heights. It was in the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907) that ceramics were first truly appreciated by Chinese connoisseurs for their beauty as works of art, and at that time it was not the multi-coloured wares that were the subject of imperial approbation and literary plaudits, but the monochrome ceramics with plain white glazes or grey-green celadon glazes. Tang celadon-glazed stonewares from the Yue kilns of Zhejiang province were the recipients of particular praise. The Yue kilns had produced celadon-glazed stonewares for centuries, and the Gordon Collection contains a particularly interesting jar (lot 1104) from the Western Jin (AD 265-316) period which is decorated using both impressed and rouletted decoration. This jar is particularly noteworthy for the fact that it bears sprig-moulded relief in the form of a seated Buddha figure - one of the earliest representations of the Buddha in the Chinese decorative arts. The Tang dynasty writer Lu Yu (AD 733-804) in the Cha Jing (Tea Classic) paid contemporary Yue celadon wares the ultimate compliment of declaring that they were the best vessels from which to drink fine teas. These Tang celadon wares established the appreciation of such subtle celadon glazes, which are the ancestors of the refined celadon glazes seen on some of the 18th century imperial porcelain vessels in the Gordon Collection. In the Song dynasty (AD 960-1279) the appreciation of monochrome wares grew at courts renowned for their refined sophistication, and among the literati. Both the Northern (AD 960-1127) and the Southern Song (AD 1127-1279) periods saw the development of new kinds of high-fired monochromes which were esteemed by succeeding generations and influenced ceramics produced in later dynasties. Green celadons, white ceramics such as Ding and Qingbai ware, the blue-toned Ru and Jun wares, black-glazed ceramics, and the crackled-glazed wares of the southern kilns, were to prove the most enduringly appreciated and influential. The Gordon Collection includes celadons from north and south China, including an especially charming eight-lobed dish (lot 1113) with carved lotus decoration made at the Yaozhou kilns of Shaanxi province. The Gordon Collection also contains a broad range of Qingbai wares, including a handsome meiping (lot 1119) decorated with six-lobed floral panels, and a ribbed ewer with animal finial lid (lot 1118). The Ding and Qingbai wares owed their colour to the purity - that is lack of colouring trace elements - of the materials from which they were made. The celadons, and also the black wares owed their glaze colours to differing amounts of iron in the glaze constituents and the atmosphere in which they were fired, while Jun wares, such as the jar (lot 1134) from the Gordon Collection, obtained their opalescent blue colour partly from small amounts of reduced iron and partly from the optical effects of the glaze structure. Green Jun, such as the Gordon dish (lot 1134), is closer to traditional celadon glazes. Early in his reign the first Ming dynasty emperor, Hongwu (AD1368-98) brought monochrome ceramics into a new area of court life - they were used for state ritual. The vessels used on imperial altars had previously been made of bronze or some other precious material, but as early as the second year of his reign, in 1369, Emperor Hongwu not only re-established imperial production at the Jingdezhen kilns in Jiangxi province, but in the same year issued an edict declaring that the vessels used on the imperial altars should thenceforth be made of porcelain. Although this decision to eschew bronze was undoubtedly driven in part by the need to conserve copper, which would otherwise have been used in the manufacture of bronze vessels, its effect on the porcelains made for and preserved by the Ming and Qing courts was considerable. During the Ming and Qing dynasties the imperial altars at which the emperor personally made sacrifices were the Altar of the Sun, which was served with red porcelain vessels; the Altar of Heaven, which had blue vessels; the Altar of Earth, which had yellow; and the Altars of the Moon and to the imperial Ancestors, which would have had white porcelain vessels. Red, blue, yellow and white porcelains were thenceforth made for use in rituals as well as for secular purposes, hence the names 'sacrificial red' and 'sacrificial blue'. The Gordon Collection is especially rich in monochrome porcelains from the Qing dynasty (AD 1644-1911). This is not surprising, since the re-establishment of fine imperial porcelain production at Jingdezhen during the Kangxi reign (1662-1772) meant that well-potted, elegant shapes with monochromes glazes once again came to the fore in the High Qing period. The late 17th and 18th centuries also saw the reigns of emperors who were great patrons of imperial porcelains and who took a personal interest in their production. The desire of these emperors for new colours also encouraged the expansion of the glaze and enamel palettes at the Jingdezhen kilns. The Imperial kilns of this period also came under the directorship of extremely able men, some of whom have been particularly associated with the monochrome glazes produced during the time of their tenure. One of these was Lang Tingji, who was Governor of Jiangxi province and concurrently supervisor of the Imperial kilns from AD 1705 to1712. The name Langyao (Lang wares) has been applied to several monochromes made under his supervision. It is most often applied to pieces with a brilliant copper-red glaze, but is sometimes also applied to porcelains with copper-green glazes, and to very thinly potted white wares for which he was also famous. The technique of producing fine copper-red glazes like those so-called 'fresh reds' of the early 15th century, seems to have been lost in the second part of the Ming dynasty, and was not reinvented until the Kangxi reign. Good copper reds were made by the end of the 17th century, but it is recorded that Lang Tingji in the early 18th century was particularly famous in his lifetime for producing copies of the fine glazes of the early 15th century. In the case of copper red, changes to the glaze recipe compared to the 15th century resulted in reds that were sometimes of an even greater brilliance. The Qing red glazes generally contained greater quantities of calcia and alumina, and smaller amounts of silica and alkalis than their 15th century predecessors. This had relatively little effect on their appearance, but the Qing red glazes also contained somewhat less copper, and this contributed to the production of a brighter red. Indeed Chinese copper-red glazes from Yuan to Qing contained progressively less and less copper, leading to brighter and brighter reds. The Kangxi copper-red glazes also had a longer firing time, and this resulted in their appearing somewhat glassier than their 15th century counterparts. The Langyao copper-red wares generally are glassier than other Qing red glazes, probably due to being fired at a somewhat higher temperature. The shaded white band around the mouth of Langyao reds is also frequently more pronounced than on other Qing dynasty copper-red porcelains. This white band, seen to some extent on most Ming and Qing copper-red wares, is due to the fact that the development of the colloidal copper which provides the red colour is inhibited both by contact with the atmosphere in the kiln and also by contact with the clay body. The colour only develops in the centre of the glaze, and where the glaze is not thick enough to sustain this central layer, for example where it has run thin at the rim, the glaze appears almost colourless. As the 18th century progressed new versions of the copper-red glaze were produced, which were quite different from the earlier versions, as can be seen from the glaze on the exquisite 18th century Qianlong yuhuchunping, pear-shaped vase (lot 1144), in the Gordon Collection. This vase has a glaze with more finely ground glaze components, more even colouration, and narrower white band around the rim, and was probably fired to a slightly lower temperature than the Langyao pieces, and with a shorter firing time. Such fine 18th century copper-red pieces owe some of the richness of their colouring to the tastes of the Yongzheng Emperor, who in the 8th month of 1729 complained that the glaze on some recent copper-red porcelains was too thin. The emperor sent five rim sherds with thicker red glaze to the Director of the imperial kiln, Nian Xiyao, to provide a bench mark for future production. Such fine copper-red porcelains of the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns were prized for use and decoration as well as for ritual, and can be seen in a number of informal Qing court paintings. It is probable that these more radical new colours were developed in the Yongzheng reign (AD 1723-35) under the auspices of the most famous of all the supervisors of the Imperial kilns - Tang Ying (AD 1682-1756). In the first year of the Yongzheng reign Tang Ying was appointed Vice-Director of the Imperial Household Department at court before being sent to Jingdezhen in 1726, initially working as assistant to Nian Xiyao, but soon assuming overall responsibility for production at the Imperial kilns. Tang Ying became a knowledgeable ceramicist in his own right, and was also a keen author. His surviving writings provide much useful information about production at Jingdezhen. In 1735 Tang wrote Taocheng jishi bei (Memorial on ceramics inscribed on a stele). This lists some fifty-seven different types of glaze. While some of these were inherited from the Ming dynasty and others were initiated during Kangxi's reign, it is clear that a significant number were developed as a response to the Yongzheng Emperor's desire for new colours. There is a wide variety of glazes in which iron is the major colorant. The warm yellow glazes owe their colour to a small percentages of iron oxide, but iron in slightly larger amounts was used to produce attractive coffee-coloured monochromes, which first seem to have gained popularity in the Ming dynasty during the Jiajing reign, and re-emerged in even more controlled form in the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, remaining popular throughout the Qing dynasty. Still larger amounts of iron were used to produce the rich black glazes of the Qing dynasty. Good black glazes had been problematic in the early periods of Chinese ceramic history. While black or dark brown glazes were popular, there were no good glossy black glazes on high-fired wares in China before the Tang dynasty. In the Tang dynasty, however, a base glaze with reduced lime content was produced in central China and this allowed the production of deep, glossy black glazes which paved the way for the famous black wares of the Song dynasty, which in turn inspired the production of black-glazed porcelains at the Jingdezhen imperial kilns. In the Kangxi reign a new black was added to the repertoire which had a surface that earned it the name 'mirror black', as exemplified by the black-glazed 'phoenix-tail' vase in the Gordon Collection (lot 1138). This black glaze contained not only iron but also manganese and cobalt, adding to the intensity of its colour and sheen of its surface. Another inventive monochrome glaze was produced using iron as its colorant, but with deliberate under-firing so that fine crystals of the pyroxene family developed during long cooling. Depending on the precise colour, this type of glaze goes by many evocative names in China such as teadust, snake-skin, eel-skin, and old monk's habit, but was characterised by a colour range from dark golden brown to yellowish-khaki, each with micro-crystalline effects creating delicate variations on the surface. A well-potted Qianlong vase with teadust glaze is included in the Gordon Collection (lot 1139). Teadust is a glaze, described by Yang Boda as having 'a lush quality suggestive of hoary antiquity', that works well with all manner of forms and sizes. One suspects that glaze colours like teadust were originally discovered by accident, but were found to be so visually pleasing that they became part of the potters' repertoire. Versions of the teadust glaze can be seen as early as the Tang dynasty, but it was not until the Qing that it seems to have developed its full potential. An interesting variant of the teadust glaze can be seen in the 'iron rust'-glazed jar (lot 1136) in the Gordon Collection. In addition to providing the colorant for teadust glazes, yellow glazes, brown glazes and black glazes, iron is also the colorant used to produce the pale celadons of the Qing dynasty, which have been greatly prized by both Asian and European collectors alike. Although celadon-type glazes, coloured with small quantities of reduced iron, applied to a porcelain body were produced at Jingdezhen in the early Ming period, the Kangxi potters perfected a particularly delicate version applied to a very white (low iron) body. The delicate celadon glaze was coloured using only about half the amount of iron found in typical Longquan celadons, and was further modified in the Yongzheng period to produce an even more finely textured and slightly bluer pale celadon glaze, seen on the beautiful Yongzheng celadon-glazed bowl in the Gordon Collection (lot 1146). The Yongzheng Emperor is known to have been particularly fond of these fine pale celadons, and in the 6th year of his reign (1728) sent a celadon vase to the imperial kiln with an order to make a flower pot with the same glaze. These celadons and the others created with minute variations in tone and texture have traditionally been much admired by Chinese connoisseurs and have been given names such as douqing (bean green) and dongqing (eastern green) in the Kangxi reign, dongqing (winter green) and fenqing (soft green) in the Yongzheng reign. In the Qianlong reign these fine celadon glazes were sometimes used on undecorated pieces, such as the double gourd vase (lot 1135) in the Gordon Collection - the perfection of the glaze enhancing the elegance of the form. Also in the Qianlong reign the low-relief decoration under the glaze often became bolder, as on the magnificent vase in the Gordon collection with archaistic decoration (lot 1112). This rare vase has surface decoration which is inspired by the decoration on cast bronzes of the Zhou dynasty, and reflects the Qianlong Emperor's enduring fascination with antiques. Another aspect of archaism seen at the court of the Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors was the application of Song-type celadon glazes to porcelain, such as the Ge-type glaze applied to the Yongzheng hu-vase in the Gordon Collection (lot 1120). The use of Song-type glazes on porcelains had started at the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen in the early Ming dynasty, and was one of several archaistic trends that continued into the Qing reigns. Song dynasty glazes that were particularly revered by the Ming and Qing emperors included Northern Song Ru ware and Southern Song Guan ware and Ge ware. Sometimes the Qing dynasty Song-style wares made with these archaistic glazes were made in ancient forms, like the Gordon Yongzheng vase in the shape of a bronze hu vessel, and sometimes the glazes were applied to contemporary forms. The Yongzheng Emperor is recorded to have specifically ordered that good copies of Song glazes be produced at Jingdezhen, and fortunately the successful copying of these Song dynasty stoneware glazes on Qing dynasty imperial porcelains was something else for which Tang Ying was to become renowned. However, it is worth noting that in 1725 (before either Nian Xiyao and Tang Ying came to the imperial kiln) Wuhelida and Dong Xianfang made Guan-type wares for the Yongzheng Emperor. The Qianlong Emperor was also greatly taken with them and commissioned ceramics with Song-style glazes in an even wider range of forms. Glazes coloured with cobalt also found great favour on imperial porcelains of the Qing dynasty. It is worth noting that the cobalts used in the Yuan and early Ming dynasties had been high in iron, which affected the colour of the glazes containing them, as did the manganese in the cobalts used from the early Ming dynasty. However, the cobalt used for Qing glazes was relatively low in both iron and manganese. Nevertheless, nickel and copper were found in some cobalt ores and could alter the tone of some Qing glazes. In addition, glazes where the pigments were high in alumina tended to develop cobalt aluminates in firing and produce cooler blues, while those containing more silica produced cobalt silicates which gave warmer, more purplish blues. Despite the first Qing emperor Shunzhi's frustrated attempts to re-establish an imperial kiln at Jingdezhen in 1654 and again in 1659, there are some monochrome blue wares that can confidently be dated to his reign, and indeed the sacrifices he performed at the Temple of Heaven, seeking divine intervention to prevent further natural disasters, would have required them. The Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors also admired a range of cobalt blue glazes and some very fine examples were made during their reigns. The Gordon Collection includes exceptional pieces from both the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns. A rare ganlanping (olive-shaped) Yongzheng vase (lot 1157) in the Gordon Collection is a particularly fine example, as is the Qianlong flask with bird-shaped handles (lot 1147). As early as the Yuan dynasty potters had applied gold decoration to blue-glazed porcelains, and this combination of blue and gold was revived in the Kangxi reign and continued to find favour throughout the Qing period. The Gordon Collection includes a cobalt blue vase (lot 1152) from the Guangxu reign which has been decorated with auspicious motifs in gold. Fine monochrome porcelains demand perfection from the potters, and the craftsmen at the imperial kilns of the Qing dynasty rose to the challenge, as illustrated by pieces from the Gordon Collection. The research on this topic is discussed by Nigel Wood in Chinese Glazes - Their Origins, Chemistry and Recreation, A&C Black, London, 1999, pp. 118-24. For a discussion of this topic see Nigel Wood, 'The Evolution of Chinese Copper Red', Chinese Copper Red Wares (Rosemary Scott ed.), Percival David Foundation Monograph Series No. 3, London, 1992, pp.11-35. The Tsui Museum of Art: Chinese Ceramics - IV- Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 51. For a discussion of this topic see Rosemary Scott, 'A Question of Blue Imperial Monochromes in the Shunzhi Reigns', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, Vol. 73, 2008-2009, pp. 145-151.

A BRONZE TRIPOD RITUAL WINE VESSEL, JUE

SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE TRIPOD RITUAL WINE VESSEL, JUE
SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
Raised on three blade-form supports, the sides cast with a band of two taotie masks reserved on a leiwen ground and separated by narrow notched flanges, one mask centered on a third flange, the other centered on the C-scroll handle issuing from a bovine mask, below a band of small blades filled with cicadas and larger blades below the spout and opposite end, with a pair of capped posts rising from the rim, with mottled green patina
7½ in. (19 cm.) high

Provenance

In the Gordon Collection, United States, by 1997.

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