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(b London, June 11, 1914; d Pembury, Kent, July 31, 1983).

English diplomat, collector and art historian. In 1947, as a member of the British Diplomatic Service, he was posted to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, then the capital of the Nationalist Chinese government. He became interested in Chinese art and history and began a collection of porcelain, furniture and textiles at a time of political and economic uncertainty, when Chinese collectors were forced to sell. When he moved to the British embassy in Beijing in 1954 he continued his research into Chinese ceramic history with the help of specialists from the Palace Museum. In 1963 he became British ambassador to the Philippines and was largely responsible for organizing the Manila Trade Pottery Seminar (1968), to which he also contributed five of the nine discussion monographs. From 1972 to 1974, as British ambassador to China, he played an important part in promoting the Chinese archaeological exhibition The Genius of China, held in London at the Royal Academy in ...

Set of financial methods, instruments, and business models that are used in the Art market. Important developments since the 1960s include the spreading availability and use of art price information and price indexes (see Art index), the emergence of loans collateralized by artworks, repeated efforts to create art investment structures, and a strong growth in art market advisory services provided by wealth managers and new entrepreneurs (see also Investment).

The first major development has been the spread of art price information and art price indexes over the last half-century. After a few difficult decades, art price levels and public interest in the art market were going up again in the 1950s and 1960s. A number of books on the history of the art market and on art investment that were published around that time—Le Vie Etrange des Objets (1959) by Maurice Rheims, Art as an Investment...

Shogunal dynasty that ruled Japan during the Muromachi period (1333–1568). According to the anonymous Taiheiki (‘Chronicle of great peace’; ?1370–71), Ashikaga, the name of a town in Shimotsuke Province (now Tochigi Prefect.), was taken as a family name by a branch of the military Minamoto family. The Ashikaga came to power when the first Ashikaga shogun, Takauji (1305–58), overthrew the Hōjō regents in Kamakura and installed the ambitious Emperor GoDaigo (reg 1318–39) in Kyoto. When GoDaigo refused to name Takauji as shogun, the latter deposed him and replaced him by his own candidate. GoDaigo fled to Yoshino (Nara Prefect.), where he set up a rival court. The schism continued during the early Muromachi period, which is also known as the Nanbokuchō (‘Northern and Southern Courts’; 1336–92) period. Takauji and his son, the second shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira (1330–67), paid respect to the old aristocracy in Kyoto, but the third shogun, ...

(Noel)

(b London, Dec 25, 1881; d Wendover, Bucks, Feb 28, 1968).

English civil servant and collector of Islamic and Chinese art. The eldest son of Sir Thomas Barlow, royal physician and president of the Royal College of Physicians, he was educated at Marlborough and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1906 he was appointed to a clerkship in the House of Commons, by 1933 he was principal private secretary to the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and from 1934 to 1948 he served at the Treasury. He began collecting Oriental ceramics in 1900 and started acquiring Islamic pottery five years later, amassing a comprehensive collection with a special emphasis on Ottoman and Iranian items within 20 years. He built up his collection of Chinese art in the early 1920s, when several British collectors led by George Eumorfopoulos acquired objects excavated in China. Barlow preferred early austere Chinese pottery with little polychrome decoration. During the 1920s and 1930s he also continued to acquire Islamic items, and some of his pieces were shown in ...

(b Cincinnati, OH, Dec 3, 1927; d Long Island City, New York, March 29, 1998).

American art dealer, gallery owner, artist advocate, and famed promoter of 1960s avant-garde art. An only child, Bellamy’s Chinese mother instilled in her son a love of music and literature, which he credited with helping to shape his early conceptions of art and beauty. Upon completing his first semester at the University of Ohio, Cincinnati, Bellamy dropped out and moved east to explore the collegial arts community of Provincetown, MA. After working a string of seasonal jobs, Bellamy uprooted himself yet again and relocated to New York City, where he began a remarkable career in the gallery world. By the early 1950s, Bellamy began an affiliation with the Hansa Gallery arts cooperative, where he soon took on the position of director, overseeing such artists as Wolf Kahn, Allan Kaprow, Jan Muller, George Segal, Richard Stankiewicz, and Robert Whitman.

When the Hansa Gallery closed its doors in 1959, Bellamy secured funding from arts supporter and financier Robert Scull to open the now legendary Green Gallery. From ...

(b Hamburg, Feb 26, 1838; d Vaucresson, nr Paris, Sept 6, 1905).

French art dealer, critic and patron, of German birth. Often misnamed Samuel, he was a major promoter of Japanese art and Art Nouveau. From a wealthy, entrepreneurial Hamburg family, he trained as an industrial decorator for ceramics under the guidance of his father and independently in Paris during the Second Empire (1852–70). After the Franco-Prussian War (which he spent in Belgium) Bing established a thriving Oriental trading business, primarily of Japanese arts, the success of which permitted the opening of his Oriental crafts shop in Paris in the late 1870s. Following a trip to Japan, he expanded the business in the 1880s, selling both contemporary and ancient Japanese objects, to meet the demand for Oriental merchandise. At the end of the 1880s, as Japonisme developed, Bing founded a monthly periodical, Le Japon artistique (pubd simultaneously in Eng., Fr. and Ger., 1888–91), and organized a series of exhibitions of rare Japanese art, featuring ceramics and ...

Chinese dynasty that ruled in southern China between 557 and 589 ce. It was the last of the so-called Six Dynasties (222–589), who were the “legitimate” successors to the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) and made Jiankang (now Nanjing) their capital.

In 557 Chen Baxian (later Emperor Wudi; reg 557–559) deposed the Liang (502–557) emperor and established the Chen dynasty. The government attempted to resuscitate the economy but the area under its rule was the smallest of the southern dynasties, with fewer territories than its predecessors and a northern border reaching only to the southern bank of the Yangzi River. The Chen government was strong enough initially to resist incursions by the Northern Qi (550–577) and Northern Zhou (557–581) but was not in a position to take advantage of the divisions in the north.

Jiankang continued to be a cultural and political center to which merchants and Buddhist missionaries came from Southeast Asia and India, and it became one of the world’s greatest cities. The capital was also a major Buddhist center; several Buddhist temples, many of them caves or niches, had been constructed in the preceding Liang period. To the northeast of the city lay an imperial burial ground, notable for its carved tomb guardians in the form of chimeras (...

[Yi]

Korean dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 to 1910. The founder of the dynasty, Yi Sŏng-gye, posthumously known as King T’aejo (reg 1392–8), established Neo-Confucianism as the official ideology, encouraging a modest and practical lifestyle. Thus the patronage of extravagant art was discouraged, and the status of the artist was reduced. Buddhism was often zealously suppressed but remained the private religion of the palace women, the common people and even some kings. T’aejo, for example, built Sŏgwang Temple in north-eastern Korea, the area of his origin; King Sejo (reg 1455–68) built the marble pagoda of the Wŏngak Temple in Seoul in 1466; and the Dowager Queen Munjŏng patronized painters (see Korea, §IV, 2, (i), (d)) and supported temple constructions during the reign of King Myŏngjong (reg 1545–67).

With the establishment of the capital at Hanyang (now Seoul), T’aejo built the Kyŏngbok and Ch’angdŏk palaces and city walls in ...

(b Beijing, Nov 29, 1835; d Beijing, Nov 15, 1908).

Chinese ruler, art patron, calligrapher, and painter. She was born into the Manchu Yehenara clan and became an imperial consort in 1852. Her five-year-old son (and the only male imperial heir), Zaichun, ascended the throne as Emperor Tongzhi (1856–1875) in 1861 in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion in the south and the Second Opium War in the north. During this tumultuous time Empress Dowager Cixi embarked on her regency and ruled the Qing Empire for forty-eight years. China recovered from economic and political woes and saw the twilight of modernization in the first decades of her regency. When Tongzhi died heirless in 1875, Cixi seized unchallengeable control of the court by appointing her toddler nephew, Emperor Guangxu (1871–1908). However, after Guangxu began personal rule in 1888, his radical and wide-ranging modernization policies clashed with the gradual and limited approaches Cixi had endorsed, resulting in the eradication of his short-lived Hundred Days Reform (...

(b New York, June 25, 1877; d Williamstown, MA, Dec 29, 1956).

American collector. Clark was educated at Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, and served in the US Army from 1899 to 1905. He led an expedition to northern China in 1908–9 and published an account of it, Through Shen Kan, with Arthur Sowerby in 1912. He settled in Paris in 1912 and married Francine Clary in 1919. After 1920 the couple lived mainly in New York, with residences in Cooperstown, NY (until 1933), Upperville, VA, and Paris. Using Clark’s inherited fortune, they founded and endowed the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (opened 1955) in Williamstown, MA, to house Clark’s collection.

Clark purchased art between 1912 and 1954, principally from the firms of Colnaghi, Knoedler and Durand-Ruel. He began primarily with the Old Masters, acquiring paintings by Piero della Francesca, Hans Memling, Jan Gossart and Claude Lorrain, but after 1920 he concentrated on 19th-century French painting. He had several favourites: ...

(b New York, Dec 11, 1848; d New York, Jan 18, 1931).

American businessman, collector, patron and dealer. He began collecting art in 1869 with paintings by American Hudson River school artists and conventional European works, Chinese porcelain, antique pottery and 17th- and 18th-century English furniture. By 1883 his taste had focused entirely on American works, especially on paintings by George Inness and Winslow Homer. By dealing in such works and by giving frequent exhibitions, Clarke enhanced the popularity of these artists, while also realizing large profits for himself. His founding of Art House, New York, in 1890 confirms the profit motive behind his collecting practices. The most notable sale of his paintings took place in 1899, when he sold at auction 373 contemporary American works at a profit of between 60 and 70%. Four landscapes by Inness—Grey, Lowery Day (c. 1876–7; untraced), Delaware Valley (1865; New York, Met.), Clouded Sun (1891; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mus. A.) and Wood Gatherers: Autumn Afternoon...

[Wu Ta-ch’engming Dashunzi Zhijing, Qingqinghao Hengxian, Kezhai]

(b Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Jun 6, 1835; d Mar 6, 1902).

Chinese calligrapher, epigrapher, and collector. Born into a rich and cultured merchant family, he entered the district school at 16 and at 17 began to study seal script (zhuanshu) under Chen Huan (1786–1863). He received his jinshi degree in 1868 and became a scholar at the Hanlin Academy in Beijing, followed by two years at the Suzhou Provincial Printing Office. In succeeding years, he distinguished himself as an army officer, diplomat, and civil servant. He became Governor of Guangdong Province in 1887 and of Hunan in 1892, interrupted by a period as director-general of the conservancy of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal and followed by his directorship of the Longmen Academy in Shanghai in 1898.

Wu amassed a large collection of antiquities. He became renowned as an interpreter of written characters used before the Qin period (221–206 bce) and completed a dictionary of seal characters, the ...

[Chang Ta-ch’ienChang Dai–chienzhaihao Dafengtang]

(b Neijiang, Sichuan Province, May 10, 1899; d Taipei, Apr 2, 1983).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, collector, and accomplished forger. Born Zhang Zhengquan, he was from an artistic family and began to paint under the tutelage of his mother, Zeng Youzhen (1860–1936). In 1917, after passing through Shanghai, he joined his elder brother Zhang Shanzi (1882–1940) in Kyoto, where he learned textile dyeing and weaving.

In 1919 Zhang returned to Shanghai and studied with the calligrapher Zeng Xi (1861–1930), who gave him the name Zhang Yuan, as well as with the painter Li Ruiqing (1867–1920), a specialist in Shitao-style landscapes (1642–1707). Both are credited with cultivating Zhang’s distinctive calligraphic hand. Zhang’s intentionally splayed characters, combined with awkward elements such as leans in unexpected directions, have origins in antiquarian studies (jinshi xue), an element central to Zeng and Li’s practice. Li deployed a seal script (zhuanshu) based on bronzes and stone stele. In December ...

(b Bombay, July 21, 1892; d London Oct 9, 1964).

English businessman, collector and connoisseur of Chinese art. He was educated at Elphinstone College, Bombay, and at the universities of Bombay and London. During several years in East Asia he studied the cultures and languages of China and Japan. From 1928 to 1929 he was honorary adviser to the Palace Museum, Beijing. He developed at an early date a knowledge of the imperial collections in Beijing unique in the West, and by the early 1930s he had formed an extremely important collection of Chinese ceramics, with a high number of dated and inscribed pieces, many of which are of historical value. From 1933 to 1938, and again from 1953 onwards, he was active as a member of the Council of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London, of which he became Honorary Vice-President in 1961. In 1935 he served as Director of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art held in London (...

[Tuan-fangzi Wuqiaohao Taozhai][Tuan-fangzi Wuqiaohao Taozhai]

(b Fengrun, Hebei Province, Apr 20, 1861; d Zizhou [modern Zizhong], Sichuan Province, Nov 27, 1911).

Chinese official and collector of art and antiquities. Duanfang was reportedly of Han Chinese ethnicity, but his ancestors migrated to Manchuria during the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and joined the Manchu Plain White Banner. After the establishment of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), members of Duanfang’s family became high imperial officials. Duanfang’s career begin in the mid-1890s. He rose to high positions in a period of rapid political, educational, and economic reform. In alliance with other progressive officials, he supported the establishment of modern schools and furthered the cause of women’s education. After touring the United States and Europe in 1905–1906, he co-authored a report to the throne advocating constitutional government. While serving as governor-general of the Liang-Jiang region and grand minister of trade for the southern ports, he sponsored the 1910 Encouraging Industry Exposition in Nanjing, which showcased technology, arts, and commercial products. By 1911 Duanfang was appointed to supervise the building of a new railway linking Chengdu in Sichuan to Guangdong. In order to suppress local opposition to the railway, he was made acting governor-general of Sichuan, and after the onset of national revolution in ...

(b Liverpool, April 18, 1863; d London, Dec 19, 1939).

English collector. The eldest son of a Greek merchant, Eumorfopoulos worked for the merchant firm of Ralli Brothers. He initially collected European porcelains and Japanese tea bowls but then turned to Chinese objects, which became his largest collection, emphasizing pottery and porcelains. His second interest was metalwork, and he formed a fine collection of Chinese bronzes; he was also interested in other media, such as jade. He chose items based on his aesthetic response rather than archaeological or rarity value, and he thus placed himself at the forefront of Western taste for Chinese art. From 1924 he also began to acquire Islamic art and formed a separate Chinese collection for the Benaki Museum, Athens, so that the museum eventually had nearly 800 examples of Chinese pottery and porcelain. Eumorfopoulos was elected the first president of the Oriental Ceramic Society in 1921 and retained this position until his death, his house becoming central to the activities of the society. In ...

[Kao Feng-han; hao Nanfu Shanren]

(b Jiaozhou (modern Jiao xian), Shandong Province, 1683; d ?Shandong Province, 1748–9).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, seal-carver, collector and poet. The son of a minor official in charge of local education, Gao developed an interest in poetry, painting and seal-carving in his early youth, when he also began to collect old seals and inkstones. The great poet Wang Shizhen took a liking to him and left instructions before his death that Gao be admitted into the ranks of his disciples. A relative of the poet, Wang Qilei, also provided Gao with some formal instruction in the art of painting, beyond what he could learn from his father, an amateur painter of orchids and bamboo. Gao’s official career did not begin until 1729, when he took up an appointment as assistant magistrate of She xian, Anhui Province. In 1734 a new assignment took him to Taizhou, east of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. In 1736, having become entangled in a legal dispute involving a chief commissioner of the salt gabelle, he was briefly imprisoned; this and his deteriorating health, which resulted in the paralysis of his right hand, inevitably led to his resignation from officialdom....

[Tei shin; Kanō Yeitan Masanobu]

(b Salem, MA, Feb 18, 1853; d London, Sept 21, 1908).

American curator, scholar, collector, and educator. Fenollosa played a unique role in enhancing the appreciation of Japanese art in both its native country and within the USA. Educated at Harvard, after graduation he studied philosophy and divinity at Cambridge University, followed by a year at the newly founded art school at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He also formed important friendships with the collectors Edward Sylvester Morse, Charles Goddard Weld (1857–1911), and William Sturgis Bigelow (1850–1926).

In 1878, with an introduction from Morse, Fenollosa travelled to Japan for the first time, accompanied by his new wife, Lizzie Goodhue Millett, to teach political economy and philosophy at Tokyo’s Imperial University. Embracing Japanese art and culture, he became an active advocate for preserving the country’s art treasures and, with the Japanese artists Kanō Hōgai (see Kanō family §(16)) and Hashimoto Gahō, helped to revive the ...

[Kao Shih-ch’i]

(b Pinghu County, Zhejiang Province, 1645; d Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 1703). Chinese collector, connoisseur, painter and government official. He grew up in Hangzhou and in 1665 moved to Beijing, where he studied at the imperial academy. In 1687 he attained the highest of his civil-service posts, that of Supervisor of Interpretation in the Hanlin Academy. He was also court painter to the Kangxi emperor (reg 1662–1722). Despite his relatively low rank he was a favourite of the emperor, a position he perhaps exploited to build a finer collection of paintings than would have been possible on his official salary alone. Implicated in a bribery case in 1688, he was dismissed from his official position and retreated to Hangzhou, where he lived in semi-retirement for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he retained the affection of the emperor, with whom he continued to travel until his own death....

(b Bianliang [modern Kaifeng], Henan Province, 1107; reg 1127–1162; d Lin’an, now Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 1187).

Chinese calligrapher, art patron, and founding emperor of the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). He was the ninth son of the Song artist–emperor Huizong and inherited his father’s artistic talent. He played an important role in encouraging the arts, reviving imperial patronage, and setting a standard for his royal successors. Gaozong received a thorough classical education, and his artistic interests were not discouraged, for he was not expected ever to rule. When his oldest brother, the Emperor Qinzong (reg 1126–1127), was captured by the Jürchen nomads, founders of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in the north, Gaozong took the throne in order to perpetuate the Song dynasty in the south. He rallied support among the literati and the military by bestowing his calligraphic transcriptions of carefully selected texts on specific individuals. His calligraphy enjoyed widespread familiarity and influence after he started distributing rubbings of his works to successful ...