The RA Collection of Chinese Enamelled Copper. A Collector’s Vision (Volume V)

Author: Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, Ana Moás, Ching-fei Shih

Publisher: Jorge Welsh Research and Publishing

USD $385.00

The fifth volume of The RA Collection is the first in the series to depart from ceramic to other fields of cross-cultural art. The RA Collection of Chinese Enamelled Copper. A Collector’s Vision focuses on pieces made of enamelled copper which were produced in parallel with Chinese porcelain during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As its predecessors, this book illustrates highlights from the collection, works of art representative of the meeting of Eastern and Western cultures in the modern era. Each piece has been carefully selected by the collector, Renato de Albuquerque, ensuring that the overall collection can serve as a source for the study and furthering of knowledge in the field.

Following in the tradition of the previous volumes of The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics. A Collector’s Vision, the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2016, Global by Design Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection, loans to other temporary exhibitions and conferences based on the collection, this volume is the result of Renato de Albuquerque’s quest to continue to share his collection and the research undertaken on it with the wider public. Comprising a selection of 55 pieces or groups of pieces, this boxed, hardcover book brings to light new research on the inter-cultural connections that are central to the collection. The book draws on the combined expertise of Maria Antonia Pinto de Matos, Ana Moas and Ching-Fei Shih, to shed light on the collector’s choices and the complex intersections between enamelled copper and porcelain production in 18th century China.

Published in a limited edition of 400 numbered copies, this work is a further supplement to what has been described as ‘the best work yet written on Chinese export porcelain’ (The Economist, November/December 2011).

Hardcover in slipcase, English text, 256 pages, colour, 26 x 35.5 cm, published in 2021

ISBN: 9781838216313

Description

The RA Collection
Renato de Albuquerque started collecting at a young age, gradually building an eclectic group of works of art. In the 1980’s he started to focus on cross-cultural works of art, including Chinese porcelain, having so far assembled over 2000 pieces, especially those made for export. Gradually his collection expanded to other fields, such as Chinese enamelled copper, as well as works of art from Africa, India, Sri Lanka and Japan, with a particular relevance for the global world of the 15th to the 18th centuries.

The collector is not only passionate about cross-cultural works of art but has also become a serious connoisseur in this field, continuously reassessing the collection as how to improve and expand it. With so few world class collections of enamel on copper in existence—exceptions include those of museums such as the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Forbidden City in Beijing and the National Palace in Taipei—Renato de Albuquerque’s collection has now become one of the references in a field that is crucial to the understanding of the overall production of Chinese export wares.

 

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Book Review of The RA Collection of Chinese Enamelled Copper in Arts of Asia

 

SUMMER 2022   |   MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

THIS SUMPTUOUS publication is Volume 5 in a series of works that aims to catalogue the large and many-faceted collection of Renato de Albuquerque, the noted Brazilian collector. The previous four volumes have detailed Chinese export porcelain pieces in exhaustive detail, all authored by Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos. This book concerns itself with Chinese painted enamels on copper, a more problematic and less well-researched area, for which reason the talents of the authors, Ana Moás and Ching-Fei Shih, have also been called upon…

 

By Rose Kerr

 

Click here to access Arts of Asia‘s Summer 2022 issue for the full article.