Chinese Art for Western Interiors

On Thursday Colin Sheaf spoke at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 'Chinese Art for Western Interiors'. This was the second lecture in our occasional series of art talks focusing on aspects of Chinese Art; a series which is a joint initiative with our Chinese Congregations.

Linking Asian craftsmanship with evolving Western tastes in interior decoration and passion for Chinoiserie, the ‘China Trade’ facilitated the arrival in London of principally Chinese artefacts and traditions like tea-drinking, which greatly enriched English polite society between about 1600-1850. Colin's lecture explored this exotic yet fundamentally commercial maritime relationship, illustrating some of the fine lacquers, ‘Export-taste’ ceramics, silks and wallpapers which the ‘Honourable East India Company’ regularly imported.

Colin Sheaf has been Head of Asian Art at Bonhams since 2001. He has had a distinguished 37-year career in the auction industry after reading Modern History at Worcester College Oxford. A world authority on Asian ceramics and Chinese Art he directs Asian Art specialist teams on four continents, holding sales in London, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He is also Chairman of the Sir Percival David Foundation, the world's finest private collection of Imperial Chinese porcelain.

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Ding Yi Music Company - Moonlit River In Spring.

Silks from Imperial China: Ming and Qing dynasty costumes and textiles 1368-1911

Jacqueline Simcox gave a wonderful talk on Silks from Imperial China: Ming and Qing dynasty costumes and textiles 1368-1911 at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Monday. The event was jointly organised with our Chinese Congregations and was greatly appreciated by those who came.

Jacqueline spoke about some of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) textiles and some of the imperial costumes and festivals and showed how they changed when the Machu from the north took over the country from 1644-1911 (Qing dynasty).

We received lots of appreciative comments about the amount that people had learnt and also the opportunity to see actual silks. People were fascinated about how the embroidery work was done. The quality of the professional embroidery work is stunning. Those from our Chinese congregations also appreciated the stories linked to designs that Jacqueline shared, with several commenting that she had reminded them of stories they had been told but had forgotten. 

Jacqueline Simcox has written numerous articles on Chinese textiles, catalogued private collections and contributed essays to museum exhibition catalogues, such as ‘Celestial Silks’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, in 2004. More recently she has co-authored, with John Vollmer, a book on the imperial Chinese textiles in the Mactaggart Art Collection, University of Alberta, in Canada. ‘Emblems of Empire’was published in 2010.

The talk was sponsored by Bonhams Chinese Department.

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Beijing Central Music Academy - Music of the Zhihua Temple.