PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF WILLIAM B. GRUBER (LOTS 1438-1446) A native of the Bavarian city of Munich, William Biller Gruber (1903-1965) is best-known for his iconic stereoscopic photographic viewing device known as the View-Master. His education as a builder and tuner of Steinway pianos and Chorallon organs was augmented by courses in acoustics at university in Freiberg, Germany. His understanding of the complex workings of pianos and organs, coupled with his love of the then new idea of stereoscopic sound and passion for photography, led him to invent the instantly popular View-Master, which made its debut at the New York's 1939 World Fair. In addition to his skills as an inventor, Gruber had a true love of the arts and started collecting fine Chinese and other Asian works of art in the early 1950s. By the time of his death, he had amassed one of the largest independent collections of Chinese pottery and porcelain in the United States. He traveled extensively to the homes of private collectors, museums and auctions in search of the finest objects and along the way became close friends with some of the world's foremost authorities on Asian art, including Sir Harry Garner, Margaret Medley and Patrick Donnelly. He is noted for his independent personal projects for the View-Master, including Alpine Flowers of the Western United States, Mushrooms in their Natural Habitats, A Stereoscopic Atlas of the Human Anatomy, and his last work, Chinese Art in Three Dimensional Colour, on which he partnered with Medley and Garner; it was published posthumously by the Asia Society in 1969. All of these projects reflected Gruber's passionate love of nature, beauty and fine art, and have become themselves rare and precious in their own right.

A RARE PAIR OF GREYISH-GREEN-GLAZED STONEWARE LAMPS

SUI/TANG DYNASTY, 6TH-7TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE PAIR OF GREYISH-GREEN-GLAZED STONEWARE LAMPS
SUI/TANG DYNASTY, 6TH-7TH CENTURY
Each is modeled with a large lower drip pan supporting a domed formation of overlapping lotus petals below a smaller upper drip pan surmounted by a cylindrical, horizontally grooved candle holder. Both lamps are covered overall in a finely crackled transparent glaze of greyish olive-green color.
6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

William B. Gruber Collection, acquired between 1957-1965.

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Lot Essay

Celadon-glazed stoneware lamps of this type appear to be quite rare. A related lamp, dated to late 6th century, with a kneeling figure forming the central section rather than the domed rows of lotus petals of the present lamp, from the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, was sold at Sotheby's London, 12 December 1989, lot 50.
Hin-cheung Lovell in her article, "Some Northern Chinese Ceramic Wares of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries", Oriental Art", Winter 1975, illustrates a stoneware censer with a green glaze excavated from a tomb dated to 595, that has a similar lower drip pan, p. 334, fig. 15. Also illustrated are two green-glazed stoneware jars dated to the 560s and 570s, which have applied lotus petal decoration similar to that on the present lamp, p. 330, figs. 3 and 4, and p. 331, fig. 6.
Related white ware lamps covered with a clear glaze and dated to the Sui and Tang periods have also been published. One with a taller ribbed column rising from a lotus petal band is illustrated in Zui To no Bijutsu, The Osaka Municipal Museum of Fine Art, 1976, p. 19, no. 1-162. Another, also with a taller ribbed column, and with similar drip pans, is illustrated in The Charles B. Hoyt Collection, Memorial Exhibition, 13 February - 30 March 1952, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, p. 35, no. 137.

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