The Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art is a collection of Chinese ceramics and related items assembled by Percival David and on permanent display in its own gallery in Room 95 at the British Museum. The Foundation's main purpose is to promote the study and teaching of Chinese art and culture. The collection consists of some 1,700 pieces of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain, as well as a painting, Scroll of Antiquities. The collection concentrates on pieces in the "Chinese taste" rather than export wares, and on Imperial porcelain, much of it Jingdezhen ware. It includes superb examples of the rare Ru and Guan wares and two important Yuan dynastyblue and white porcelain temple vases, the oldest dated blue and white porcelain pieces, from 1351. The Foundation also has a large library of Western and East Asian books related to Chinese art; this and archival material are housed in the library of SOAS, University of London. In 1950, the Collection was presented to the University of London by Sir Percival David. His collection was displayed in a house in Gordon Square and used as a focus for the teaching of Chinese art and culture at SOAS. The collection has been on display in a special room at the British Museum since 2009.
History
Percival David started collecting Chinese art some time around 1913, and he continued to do so until his death in 1964. He first visited China in 1923, and there he gained an appreciation of Chinese ceramics. In 1925 he helped finance and mount an exhibition of many of the best items of the imperial collection in the Forbidden City in Beijing. In 1927, he acquired some items that were originally from the Forbidden City when they came onto the market; Empress Dowager Cixi was said to have used these items as collateral for loans from the Yuin Yeh Bank in 1901. David managed to buy some forty pieces one way or the other and export them to the United Kingdom. In 1930, he again returned to China and helped with various exhibitions and produced a series of catalogues of the pieces. He also acquired more items through various dealers, auctions and other collectors. The Yuan dynasty 'David Vases' in the collection were acquired from two separate sources. Many pieces were once owned by the Qing dynasty emperors, and several pieces have inscriptions added by the orders of the Qianlong Emperor. David focused his collection on ceramics from the 10th to the 18th centuries, and he collected an unusual number of the very rare Ru ware. The pieces assembled by Percival David form the most important single collection of Chinese ceramics outside of China and Taiwan. In 1931, David's collection was displayed in the Dorchester Hotel in London. It remained there until it was evacuated to the countryside during World War II. David also created a Chair in Chinese Art and Architecture with the Courtauld Institute of Art, which is part of the University of London. Towards the end of his life, he was determined to keep the collection together, and to this end entered negotiations with the University of London. An agreement was reached to keep the collection and the library together in a foundation attached to SOAS. The chair that David had created was also moved to SOAS. Previous holders of the chair, called the Percival David Professor of Chinese and East Asian Art, include William Watson, Roderick Whitfield and Craig Clunas. The current incumbent is Shane McCausland. Just before the opening of the collection, the foundation was also given a small collection of porcelain belonging to Mountstuart Elphinstone. The collection was opened to the public on 10 June 1952 in a house in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. |thumb|right The Foundation has lent many of its pieces to other countries. It lent many items of Yuan dynasty porcelain to Venice's 700th-anniversary celebration of Marco Polo's expedition. It has also sent other items to places as far away as Japan and the United States. The Library collection was a working library and as such was open to researchers from around the world.
Relocation
Due to a funding crisis, the Gordon Square building housing the Foundation's collection closed at the end of 2007. The ceramics collection has been loaned on a long-term basis to the British Museum, where the whole collection, about 1,700 objects, is on permanent public display in a specially designed new gallery opened in April 2009, thanks to the generosity of Sir Joseph Hotung. The public gallery is part of the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies, which includes facilities to use the collection for teaching. Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection, by Regina Krahl and Jessica Harrison-Hall, was published in April 2009 by the British Museum Press to coincide with the opening of the new display.
