Highlights from the Palmer Family Collection of Asian art

In a corner of Reading Museum, about an hour west of London, is a group of unusual antique biscuit tins that tell a story of one local family’s extraordinary passion. Each resembles a traditional Chinese work of art. One look likes cloisonné enamel, featuring a bird-and-flower design on a turquoise ground. Another recalls a vase decorated with famille verte panels. A third depicts white prunus blossom against a blue cracked-ice background.

They were all manufactured by biscuit makers Huntley & Palmers, established in 1822. After becoming the first baker to mechanise production, the business was known as ‘The Most Famous Biscuit Company in the World’, at its height employing 8,000 staff and serving no fewer than 137 countries. And with the proceeds, the Palmer family funded their obsession with Chinese works of art, amassing one of the greatest collections Britain had ever seen.

Until 12 November 2025, Art of Asia Including the Palmer Family Collection — Online offers more than 100 objects and artworks from the collection, spanning the Song (960-1279), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

‘During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a collecting mania for Chinese art in the UK,’ explains Kate Hunt, head of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art at Christie’s in London.

‘It was fuelled by highly educated, scholarly collectors, who had access to incredible things, the likes of which would never be available now. Three generations of the Palmer family were key figures in this movement, and their collection is the last great English example that I know of in private hands.’

It was begun by William Howard Palmer (1865-1923) — the nephew of the company’s founder — and his wife Ada (1870-1953). Their collection passed to their only son, Reginald Howard Reed Palmer (1898-1970), who, together with his wife Lena (1900-1981), added the greatest number of pieces.

In 1989, 19 lots were offered in Important Early Ming Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of the Late Mr and Mrs R.H.R. Palmer — one of the first auctions of a private collection at Christie’s new salerooms in Hong Kong. Among the items were a Chenghua ‘Palace’ bowl and a Xuande-marked blue-and-white double gourd flask.

More than three decades later, the couple’s son, William Alexander Palmer (1925-2020), and his wife Cherry (1928-2023), entrusted Christie’s with more than 150 lots from their share of the family collection. Offered between 2023 and 2024 across three sales in Hong Kong, they raised more than HK$83 million (equivalent to around US$10.7 million).

Highlights included a rare imperial mother-of-pearl Songhua ink stone, which fetched HK$7.8 million; a famille verte brush pot that realised HK$5.1 million; and a small blue-and-white cup decorated with chickens, dating from the Kangxi period (1662-1722), which made HK$1.38 million.

The 112 items coming to London this autumn represent the final selection from the collection to be auctioned.

‘The Palmer family were meticulous note-takers. Everything they bought is documented in handwritten ledgers,’ says Hunt. ‘You can trace their visits to London, when they would meet with the most renowned dealers, such as John Sparks, Spink & Son, Mallett, and Bluett & Sons.

‘There are also details of all their loans to important shows, including the 1935 International Exhibition of Chinese Art at the Royal Academy, Chinese Jades organised by the Oriental Ceramic Society in London in 1948, and Chinese Painted Enamels at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1978. The collection’s provenance is outstanding.’

Below are five highlights from the sale, selected by Kate Hunt.

Six painted enamel ruby-back dishes

Among the most appealing groups of objects in the sale are the enamels painted on copper. Many of them were lent to the Ashmolean in 1978 for its landmark exhibition on the medium, which hasn’t been the focus of a show in the UK since. Two of these saucers were included.

They all date to the Yongzheng period (1723-35), which is a high point for enamelling, celebrated for its refined designs on sparse backgrounds. It’s a very accomplished technique, here used to illustrate flowers and fruits, which all have different auspicious qualities. The dishes have beautiful ruby-pink backs, which are a real pop of colour and highly unusual.

Four of the six were bought in April 1933 from Spink & Son. The other two were purchased from John Sparks, on Mount Street in Mayfair, in April 1987. To find a pair of dishes like these isn’t too hard, but to have a group of this many is extremely rare.

A famille rose ‘flowers and birds’ dish

This dish is from the same period, but is enamel-painted porcelain rather than copper. It has a beautiful white ground and an imperial reign mark, meaning that the dish was made for the imperial household. It shows two pairs of birds among prunus blossoms and bamboo. The exterior is coated in black enamel.

It was purchased by the Palmer family in July 1936 from Yamanaka & Co. in London, which was a major dealer with contacts in China who had access to the very best porcelain. We still have Yamanaka’s original sale catalogue, which illustrates this dish. It cost £200 — a substantial amount at the time.

In 1951, the Palmer family lent it for the Oriental Ceramic Society’s Exhibition of Enamelled Polychrome Porcelain of the Manchu Dynasty 1644-1912. It still bears the label from that show on the reverse.

A red-overlay white glass washer

This type of small, shallow vessel is called a brush washer and would have belonged to a calligrapher. This example has red glass dragons overlaying an opaque white ground and dates from the Qianlong period (1736-95).

According to the family ledger, it was gifted to Reginald and Lena by their son William and his wife Cherry on the occasion of their ruby wedding anniversary in 1964. They purchased it from John Sparks in London, and it still has the original dealer’s label.

A cloisonné enamel incense box

This cloisonné enamel box and cover has an imperial reign mark that dates it to the Qianlong period (1736-95). It’s just five centimetres in diameter and decorated with beautiful flowers. It was purchased by the Palmer family from Spink & Son in March 1934.

As for the function of the box and cover, it’s difficult to say for sure, but during the Qianlong reign there was a fascination for miniature works of art, which were displayed in curio cabinets by the emperor and the scholarly elite. They would have been considered luxury decorative items and valued for their artistic merit. They were also produced by imperial workshops for the Qing dynasty court and the elite to store precious items, such as trinkets or red seal paste, used for stamping documents.

A pair of blue-and-white sugar sifters

This is an unusual pair of silver-mounted sugar sifters, purchased from Spink & Son in London in February 1930. They were made during the Kangxi period (1662-1722) and are decorated in a Chinese blue-and-white design, which shows scholars in a landscape.

Their form, however, is based on a European style that blended English, Dutch and French influences and was popular during the reign of William III and Mary II of England (1689-1702).

They represent a wonderful coming together of Eastern and Western styles, produced in China for the export market. I haven’t seen anything quite like them before.

Art of Asia Including the Palmer Family Collection — Online is live for bidding until 12 November 2025. It will be on view at Christie’s in London from 31 October to 11 November, coinciding with Asian Art in London, 27 October to 6 November.

On 2 November, the launch of The Significance of Jade, in China’s Culture, History and Art will be held at Christie’s in London. The volume, produced in collaboration with Christie’s, includes essays from six leading international museum curators and academics. It will be accompanied by a non-selling exhibition of 20 masterpieces from the Woolf Collection of Chinese Jades