On view April 17′0, the Philadelphia Antiques Show’s featured loan exhibit, “A Call to Arms: Chinese Armorial Porcelain for the British and American Markets, 1700‱850,” is a tribute to antiques dealer Elinor Gordon (1918′009), a respected authority on Chinese Export porcelain who participated in every Philadelphia Antiques Show since its inception in 1962.
This year’s exhibit will fittingly showcase custom-ordered Chinese Export porcelain decorated with coats of arms for British and American consumers. The pieces in the exhibit will chronicle more than a century of armorial porcelain, offering a glimpse into Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century life. The loan exhibit will be on display during the run of the antiques show at Philadelphia Cruise Terminal, Pier One in the Navy Yard. A gala preview on Friday, April 16, will inaugurate the exhibit, show and sale.
Ron Fuchs, curator of the Reeves Collection at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., is the exhibition curator. The Reeves Collection is one of the largest compilations of Chinese Export porcelain in the country and the collection is especially strong in armorial porcelain. The exhibit will be comprise 50 pieces. Half will be on loan from the Reeves Collection, and half will be on loan from private collectors and museums.
The exhibit will highlight the various production stages of armorial services, sharing the history behind armorial porcelain. For example, in England, The College of Heralds regulated and granted coats of arms to individuals and families.
Once granted, a clerk in The College of Heralds drew a sketch of the coat of arms and the family then placed an order for the sketch to be engraved onto fine Chinese porcelain. The images used in the coats of arms helped tell who the family was, such as small frogs being used in the Frognall family coat of arms, or a tower as a backdrop for the Tower family coat of arms.
Between 1695 and the mid-Nineteenth Century, approximately 6,000 armorial services were made in China for the British and American markets. Services varied in size from a tea service with a dozen pieces to a dinner service that could have up to 400 pieces.
Fifty pieces of Chinese porcelain will be included in the loan exhibit. Featured works include a porcelain Hong bowl, which was acquired by the Reeves family from Gordon. The bowl is painted with a scene of the bustling Chinese port of Guangzhou, the epicenter of the porcelain trade between China and the Western world.
A dish engraved with a Chinese woman painting a coat of arms onto a scroll shows the linkage of Chinese and European design and will also be including in the exhibit.
Other pieces featured include dishes from John Chapman’s armorial services, which exemplify how coats of arms were altered after a major life change. A plate from 1735 is engraved with a coat of arms that signifies Chapman as a single gentleman, while a cup from 1740 is engraved with a coat of arms that signifies Chapman as a married man and the patriarch of his family following the death of his father.
“We are pleased to be able to honor our friend Elinor Gordon, and to showcase her passion and specialty,” said Liz Cavanaugh-Kerr, Philadelphia Antiques Show chair. “The Chinese armorial porcelain in this year’s loan exhibit paints a picture of the people who used these services, offering a unique way to connect with the past.”
For general show information, www.philaantiques.com or 215-387-3500.
