On October 6^th, Pook & Pook will auction Chinese botanical watercolors from the Estate of Peter Tillou. Three pairs of watercolors, lots #344, 345, and 346, attributed to Win Achun and other artists, have provenance from Peter Tillou, “According to an early auction catalogue clipping the collection was ‘executed expressly for the Late J. Roberts, Esq. (A Director and Chairman of the East India Company) and are sold by order of his executors. It would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the taste, beauty and spirit with which the Drawings are executed, and I am assured by a very competent judge who was in China, when the Drawings were made, that their fidelity is equal to their beauty. All the Botanical Drawings were submitted by the Artist to the inspection and received the approbation of Mr. Kerr, the Botanist, who was sent from Kew to China by his Britannic Majesty.’ The collection was also listed in the auction catalogue of Wentworth Henry Canning, 2^nd Viscount Allendale.” (Also see Christies London sale 5792, lot 14, The Property of the Beaumont Family, 29 April, 1997.) A fourth entry, lot #437, is a trio of Chinese watercolors of fruit trees, showing peaches, pomelos, and possibly loquats.

Beautiful products of a collision between worlds, the watercolors and gouaches were painted by artists of the ancient academic tradition of Chinese botanical painting, first recorded in the Han Dynasty; to the detailed specifications of Western naturalists and botanists fueled by the Enlightenment, who were exploring and attempting to understand the world through science.

In the scientific awakening of the Enlightenment, a knowledge of botany was part of a well-rounded individual’s education. In 1751 Carl Linnaeus published his system of taxonomy, giving scientists a common language of classification to use. After Captain Cook’s 1768 voyage, Joseph Banks convinced King George III to turn his royal gardens at Kew into a botanical collection and research institution for the nation. The first colonial botanic garden was established in 1765 by the East Indian Company on St. Vincent in the West Indies. In the effort to break the Dutch spice monopoly, a Calcutta garden was founded in 1787. Eventually a network of gardens spanned the globe, proving vital to the British Empire, allowing crops like rubber and quinine to be collected and grown. The botanical gardens were imperial tools, intended for the reproduction of useful plants for the military, colonists, and trade. Crucial to the future expansion of the British Empire would be a supply of quinine. Economic crops like tea, tobacco, cotton, and, infamously, opium, were grown. Also centers for research, their plants, seeds, and information sailed the high seas. The gardener-botanists from Kew transported spices, breadfruit, coffee, quinine, and rubber around the globe, as well as newly discovered ornamental plants. Enlightenment thinking also transformed economics, producing growth through the application of science. Enriching trade by the introduction of new plantation crops for colonies became one of the main sources of wealth for the British Empire. Local substitutes for imports stemmed the drain of silver from the exchequer. William Bligh, captain of the HMS Bounty, was transporting breadfruit tree cuttings from Tahiti to the St. Vincent garden for Joseph Banks when his journey was so famously interrupted.

Banks appointed William Kerr to be Kew’s botanist in China, making Kerr the first western professional plant hunter. Kerr was sent to Canton with the British East India Company, which held a monopoly charter on eastern trade. Banks equipped Kerr with a set of botanically accurate watercolors.  Made in Canton in the late 1700’s by Chinese artists supervised by John Bradby Blake, an East India Company supercargo, the drawings detailed plant, flower, fruits, and seeds, and were labeled with names in both Western and Chinese characters. “He was to look out for unusual plants, or especially those that grew in China’s more northerly provinces, which would have the best chance of surviving England’s climate… the main document he entrusted to him was the Book of Chinese Drawings which, as Banks put it, ‘will Enable you to Enquire after many Plants that might not possibly have become known to you.” ^1,2

The world Kerr sailed into was governed by the Canton System (1757-1842), a Qing protectionist arrangement designed to control trade with the West. All trade and movement of westerners was confined to a small warehouse district on the Pearl River in the southern port of Canton, specifically to thirteen large buildings called hongs, or Factories, and transacted only with officially licensed Chinese merchants, the Cohongs. Foreign merchants were not permitted permanent residence at Canton. They were allowed to stay at the Factories only during the shipping season, relocating to Macao during the offseason. Kerr lived in the British hong with the other officers of the British East India Company. The Cohongs maintained elaborate gardens and introduced their clients, who were otherwise confined to the Factory compounds, to many previously unknown plant specimens. A contemporary of Kerr in Canton, the Cohong Howqua had just inherited his father’s company in 1801 and was on his way to becoming the richest man on earth. Howqua’s famous garden was an impressive space for entertaining his trading guests, with a river entrance, a nursery and potting sheds on the grounds.⁶ Henan had been a popular location for garden making since the Ming dynasty, and the availability of potted exotic plants, flowers, and dwarf trees produced in the neighboring nurseries, explains why Howqua, and other local gardeners, possessed such a wide collection of plants. In Cantonese gardens, flowerpots were arranged in ever-changing combinations.³ Aesthetic gardens with precious specimens were traditionally a hobby of Chinese scholars, who deemed commercial gardening vulgar. “The Hong merchants’ motives for collecting plants were not so different from their Western associates. Foremost was a desire to acquire a status symbol – Chinese literati at the top of the social hierarchy in China frequently kept gardens with rare flowers, and the Hong merchants wanted to attain such social circles… For the Western plant enthusiasts and collectors, finding a new species and bringing it home carried significant prestige, sometimes accompanied by substantial monetary gain.”^4,5 Foreigners had to rely on a network of Chinese contacts to gather local plants, which they then frequently grew in Macao. “Contrarily to scholar or imperial gardens the Hong merchants’ pleasure grounds and Guangzhou nurseries contained plenty of plants to buy, ready to be carried in pots.”⁴

“Kerr arrived in Canton in October 1803 and quickly settled down, growing plants in his own garden and choosing which to send to Kew, using the Book as a guide…” Facilitated by the Hong merchants, Kerr gathered specimens from the plant nurseries in Huadi.⁵ Robert Fortune later described Fa Tee Gardens, “the flowery land, as the name implies”, consisting of about a dozen small nurseries. “Potted plants were mostly placed in rows alongside narrow paved walks, with houses for gardeners at the entrance. There were stock-grounds where planting out was done and also here the first process of dwarfing their celebrated trees is put into operation… These gardens were most beautiful in spring with a brilliant display of tree peonies, camellias, roses and particularly azaleas… Every garden was one mass of bloom… and full of the scents of olea fragrans and Magnolia fuscata.” On New Year’s Day Fortune “saw boats on the river laden with branches of peach and plum blossom, camellias, cockscombs, magnolia and enkianthus brought down from the hills, and at every street corner jonquils grown in water with a few white stones were for sale. Large parties of young Chinese crowded floral boats bound for the Fa Tee Gardens.”⁶ China’s native botanical bounty included oranges, peonies, chrysanthemums, azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, magnolias, lilacs, and tea, to name a few.

John Roberts (1739-1810) was no ordinary wealthy customer ordering a set of illustrations to boost the prestige of his library, and it is no coincidence that he ordered them from William Kerr. From 1764 to 1808, John Roberts was alternately the Chairman, or a Director, of the British East India Company. “In London, the Court of Directors, with Banks’s assistance and support, had something in mind for themselves. They wanted Kerr to put together a set of drawings of Chinese plants to be displayed in the newly-founded India Museum, adjoining the Company’s headquarters. In Canton, Kerr soon found a Chinese artist to produce the drawings… The first set of drawings was a big hit in London and Kerr arranged for a second set to be made. These arrived in 1806, two years after the first set – nearly 400 drawings in total. These were the first Chinese drawings the Company commissioned.”¹ The most powerful corporation the world had ever known, the Company was at the peak of its power. Roberts became Director one year prior to the Mughal emperor relinquishing the right to collect taxes and duties to the Company, which laid it’s foundations of empire. By 1800, it ruled over millions of people and maintained a standing army of over 200,000 soldiers. It was more powerful than most countries, and Roberts and the Directors more powerful than many rulers. In the late 18^th century, high-ranking Company employees commissioned their own collections of natural history paintings.⁸ Influenced by Banks, and commissioner of botanical works on behalf of the Company, Roberts would have naturally desired a set for his own library, reminders of the Company’s, and his own, role in botanical history.

Kerr worked in Canton for eight years, discovering many plants in local Chinese gardens and nurseries. The job was both challenging and lonely. “Despite the impressive title of Royal Gardener, William Kerr had ‘no one…to associate with’ in the Factory…the small salary Kerr received from Kew Gardens also trapped him in disgrace. While the sum of £100 a year might have been a passable income for a gardener in England, in Western China, it was a pittance.”⁵ A Company contemporary in Canton, John Livingstone later reported that Kerr had been “sent… with the most carefully contrived chests and boxes, but with so small a salary as to lose respect in the eyes of his Chinese assistants.”⁷ Kerr’s situation would have also been made difficult by the Company illegally smuggling opium into the local market, which began a decades-long conflict. Afterwards Kerr moved to Ceylon as the superintendent of its colonial botanical garden and died in 1814, reportedly from opium addiction. Writing about Canton decades later, Fortune visited “the garden which at one time belonged to the East India Company and which was still in existence: ‘It is but a small plot of ground on the river side, not more than sixty paces each way’, now neglected.”⁷ Kerr’s botanic legacy has been more lasting than his garden. He sent back to Britain 238 plants new to science.

Kerr also left an artistic legacy. In the botanical watercolors produced for Kerr, “the boundary between ‘fine art’ and ‘scientific documentation’ blurred.”⁹ Prized for their practical contributions to botanical science, they are also highly regarded as a continuation of an ancient and evolved art form. Nearly a millennia after the first Han bird and flower paintings, 12^th century Sung Dynasty artists began to combine lyric poetry and flower painting, evolving a complex style as symbolic and metaphoric as it was aesthetic. Painted without background or setting, single blossoms or branches became objects of contemplation. Layers of meaning ranged from beauty, purity, scholarship, nobility, and asceticism to emotional expressions like resilience and the search for perfection on a personal level.¹⁰ Chinese artists applied their skill to the westerners’ requirements for botanic accuracy and comprehensive detail. The resulting art form of botanical illustrations are a synthesis of Chinese art and the scientific observation of the Enlightenment. In later years, “the botanical role for Cantonese artists in the 19^th century was largely that of decorative ‘export’ art as upmarket souvenirs. These included flowers and fruits produced in huge quantities painted on the smooth, brittle surface of ‘paper’ made from the pith of Broussonetia papyrifera.”⁹ Future works were usually made from templates, based on the early originals. The nearly-translucent quality of pith paper facilitated a method of creation that included tracing, and then painting over the pattern. Here are four lots of early originals, works of both beauty and historical significance, the artists working in tandem with Kerr to get every last detail perfect for posterity. They are the results of the artists and botanist combined search for perfection—their lyricism beautiful to contemplate.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Sources:

Kew Botanic Gardens

¹ Goodman, J. & Jarvis, C., The John Bradby Blake Drawings in the Natural History Museum, London: Joseph Banks Puts them to Work, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 2017, vol. 34.

² Banks to Kerr, April 18, 1803, State Library of New South Wales, Papers of Sir Joseph Banks.)

³ Richard, J.C., Uncovering the garden of the richest man on earth in 19^th c. Canton: Howqua’s garden in Honam, China, Garden History, 2015, vol. 43.

⁴ Richard, J. & Woudstra, J., “Throughly Chinese” Revealing the plants of the Hong merchants’ gardens through John Bradby Blake’s paintings, Curtis’ Botanical Magazine, 2018.

⁵ Fa-ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter, Harvard UP, 2004.

⁶ Fortune, R., Three Years Wanderings in China, 1847.

⁷ Le Rougetel, H., The Fa Tee Nurseries of South China, Garden History, 1982, vol. 10.

⁸ Archer, M., Natural History Drawings in the Indian Office Library, HMSO London, 1962.)

⁹ Williams, I. & Ching, May Bo, Created in Canton: Chinese Export Watercolors on Pith, Lingan Art Publishing, 2014.

¹⁰ Harrist, R., Ch’ien Hsuan’s “Pear Blossoms”: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yuan, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 22, 1987.

Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk (1567-1607) was an explorer. Before he captured the treasure ship Santa Caterina in the Straits of Malacca, and died defeating the Spanish fleet off Gibraltar, he was already a hero of an epic book, Nova Zembla. Published in 1598, the book was Gerrit de Veer’s first-person account of an ill-fated 1596 Arctic expedition led by van Heemskerk and navigator Willem Barents. Their objective was to find a northern passage to Asia, bypassing the Portuguese-controlled trade routes. After a harrowing journey through masses of ice, the expedition pressed on, in the mistaken belief of the time that sea water could not freeze. To the horror of the crew, at the onset of winter the ship became ice-bound in the Arctic Ocean. Hurriedly, a shelter was constructed from driftwood and what could be spare from the ship. For the next ten months of the Arctic winter, de Veer’s journal recorded harrowing details of the struggle for survival on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. The entire crew nearly expired from carbon monoxide poisoning when they burned coal indoors. The one time they dined richly on polar bear nearly killed them from hypervitaminosis A. They already had scurvy. Hauntingly, de Veer described “a natural phenomenon that is now known as the Novaya Zemlya Effect.  Two weeks before the sun was due to re-appear he and others saw it rise. De Veer describes how he tried to verify his and other’s observations by making calculations of their position. He was not to know that the sun he saw was only a mirage.” (Marja Kingma, Overwintering: the Dutch search for the Northwest Passage). When the sun returned, the crew waited in vain for the ice to release their ship. Left with no option, they set out for home in the ship’s two small open boats. Completely exposed in the extreme climate, on the inhospitable sea, four perished, including Barents. Eight weeks later, the survivors were found off the Kola Peninsula. In the 1870s the expedition’s abandoned cache of goods, including pewter candlesticks, was discovered in Novaya Zemlya. The style of candlestick became known as Heemskerk. Heemskerk also had a ship named in his honor, Barents, the sea in which he perished.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Why do we all love blue and white china? Perhaps because it is hard-wired into our system. Across history and continents, the love of blue and white Chinese porcelain has launched ships and industries.

For a thousand years, China had a complete monopoly on porcelain, which was traded along the Silk Route and the maritime trade routes of Asia. Around 1320, the kilns of Jingdezhen began using imported Persian cobalt, which was twice as expensive as gold, and blue and white china was born. In imitation, Middle Eastern potters developed a tin glazing technique to whiten their ceramics. The tin glazing technique spread to Europe via Majorca in Islamic Spain, and then to Faenza in Italy. Religious strife and the Eighty Years War pushed a wave of Protestant potters north to Delft and to England in the late 16^th century. Their early majolica was rooted in the Italian style, polychrome, and with the expensive tin glaze used only on the front. But this style was to be influenced by China again…

On the other side of the globe, the Dutch continued their struggle against allied Spain and Portugal by attacking routes of the spice trade. To finance this venture, in 1602 the Dutch created the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, selling equity shares of ownership and bonds to public investors to raise capital. The VOC became the first real public company and the first to harness the massive potential of capitalism. Investment, and the ability to use military force, made it the greatest commercial enterprise in the world. Its first venture, led by Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, was also a watershed event. In 1603 “the Portuguese carrack Santa Caterina fully laden with silk, musk and porcelain was captured near the shores of Singapore, and the cargo was sold in Amsterdam—this was the first big auction of Chinese porcelain in northern Europe.” (Thorsten Giehler, The Ceramics of the Maritime Silk Route). The 1604 auction was wildly successful, setting off a China Mania, proving the European elite were willing to pay enormous sums of money for blue and white porcelain.

Delft majolica potteries began manufacturing affordable imitations of Chinese porcelain. A refined faience was achieved for the higher end of the market, copying both the shapes and decoration of the Chinese porcelains, with white tin glazing on both sides and designs in cobalt blue. The Delft potters also created their own interpretations, melding Chinese and European design features into a new style, chinoiserie. Delft blue became famous, eventually becoming the name for all of the blue and white objects. Made in different locales, what it had in common was the white tin glaze and cobalt blue decoration. Delft tiles and pottery became fashionable and were in demand in the homes of the gentry and merchants to show prosperity. Tiles were used around chimneys, hallways, staircases, kitchens, and as lintels, and were often painted with scenes of daily life, or biblical or mythological figures.

In England, Delft production grew dramatically after 1688, when, on account of his marriage to Mary II, the Dutch William of Orange was crowned King of England. William and Mary brought designer Daniel Marot with them to their English court. Marot’s ornate Dutch style was highly influential, shaping both the design of Delftware and the way objects were used in interior design. Delftware was displayed all over the house, rather than solely inside cabinets. Rows of gleaming blue and white garnitures lined mantels, stepped chimneys, and furniture. In the words of Daniel Defoe, the new fashion, “spread to lesser mortals and increased to a strange degree afterwards, piling china up on the tops of cabinets, escritoires and every chimney-piece, to the tops of the ceilings… till it became a grievance.” Delftware was not only the tableware of choice for the middle-class clientele who could not afford Chinese porcelain, but also a prominently displayed status symbol in the homes of the elite, including Queen Mary, who commissioned Delft items in fabulous baroque forms, but also collected fine Chinese porcelains. While Mary died in 1694, the reign of Delft lasted until the creation of a European porcelain industry in the mid-18^th century.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Throughout the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Delftware was the most common type of ceramic export to the American colonies, the wide range of products doing everything from adorning elegant tables and displaying flowers to serving utilitarian purposes in apothecary shops and beneath beds (Antiques and the Arts Weekly, Delftware at Historic Deerfield, 1600-1800). By the close of the 17^th century, England controlled American colonial trade, but it was the Dutch who dominated global trade, and continued trading in the Americas long after their colonial presence. When England’s 1642 Civil War disrupted supply lines, colonists pivoted to Dutch and French traders. The desire to eliminate Dutch competition gave rise in 1651 to Britain’s Navigation Acts, mercantilist policies designed to protect colonial markets and trade routes. Only British ships were allowed to carry goods to the American colonies, cutting off trade with foreign powers. However, archaeological and archival evidence indicate that Dutch ceramics were common, if contraband. “A minute of the English Privy Council of 1662, concerning the ‘secret trade with the Dutch,’ charges that the plantations were ‘delivering tobacco at sea… carrying the same to New England… and thence shipping it in Dutch bottoms,’ and were committing other illegal practices contrary to the Navigation Acts,” (Charlotte Wilcoxen, Dutch Trade with New England). Colonial governors continued to allow Dutch, Spanish, and Venetian ships to trade in their ports, circumventing British trade policy- particularly with the Dutch. Dutch traders could provide a wide variety of goods needed by the colonists at lower prices. The Dutch were also the largest market for tobacco, colonial America’s most important cash crop. Once in Holland, the imported tobacco was stored in warehouses in Delftware jars designating origin and type, such as rappé for snuff.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Pewter is undoubtedly the crown jewel in the Herr collection. Auctioneer and appraiser James Pook discusses a highly important Lancaster, Pennsylvania pewter flagon, ca. 1770, bearing the touch of Johann Christoph Heyne (Germany, Lancaster 1715-1781), 11 1/4″ h. James explains, “This Pennsylvania German ecclesiastical pewter flagon is the highlight of the sale. Only one other is privately owned.” Describing the mainly ecclesiastical output of Heyne, Donald Herr wrote, “His splendid flagons, with their strongly Germanic elements of cherub’s head feet and body combined with a cast hollow English handle, are remarkable examples of cultural assimilation of styles” (Pewter in Pennsylvania German Churches). Most American pewterers of the time were trained in the English tradition. After working in Sweden, the German-born Heyne immigrated to American in 1742 as a member of the “First Sea Congregation” of the Moravian Church. The provenance of a canteen, ca. 1770, bearing Heyne’s touch, was a memorable find at a flea market in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Due to protectionist British trade policies, the exportation of tin, the primary component of pewter, to the American colonies was prohibited. The export of unworked pewter was heavily taxed. Finished pewter imports were thus both a consumer and, eventually, a capital good. A soft metal with a low boiling point, pewter goods had a lifespan of only about ten years. Lacking an American source of tin, colonial pewterers melted old, worn-out British pewter to recast into new wares. The best American pewter exhibits simplicity, beauty, and innovation in the ways makers used their limited molds to create finely proportioned objects. One gifted pewterer stands above the rest. William Will (Germany, Philadelphia 1742-1798), patriot, statesman, and pewterer, was the son of New York pewterer John Will, who arrived in America in 1752. Donald Herr wrote, “Without question, no Colonial American pewterer equaled the variety of forms or had greater ability to make new designs from existing molds than the Pennsylvania German pewterer William Will” (Pewter.., p. 90).  The Herrs collected the works of both father and son. Nine objects by William Will, include sugar bowls, mugs, a tulip tankard, a drum teapot, and the jewel of the collection, an important coffee pot, ca. 1780. While few examples of this form exist, it has remained one of the most iconic pieces of American pewter. Standing sixteen inches in height, its clean neoclassical lines and symmetry lend it visual impact. Tucked inside of many pieces of hollowware are Donald Herr’s handwritten notes, receipts, and other documents. A heavily lidded William Will sugar bowl contains a note that its lid “appears to be the base of a salt”. Of the works attributed to and bearing the touch of John Will (Germany, New York 1696-ca.1774), an important flagon and chalice, ca. 1760, has been traced to the Round Top Lutheran Church, Bethel, Duchess County, New York.

Pewter highlights include a New York, New York oval teapot, ca. 1745, bearing the touch Francs Bassett I, one of the rarest forms of American 18^th c. design. Francis Bassett I was active in New York from 1720 until 1758. Of the seven Philadelphia items in the collection bearing the Love touchmark, a standout is a highly rare Queen Anne teapot, late 18^th c. Only a few Love teapots are known. Of five works by Parks Boyd (Philadelphia ca.1771-1819), a pewterer who worked at various places, including Elfreth’s Alley, is a quart tankard, ca. 1805, in a style found only in the Philadelphia area, its high dome and multiple fillets exhibiting a strong Scandinavian influence. The Herrs explored connections between makers. Robert Palethorpe Jr. (Philadelphia 1797-1822) was Boyd’s neighbor, eventually purchasing his shop. The rare 3 ½ pint barrel mug, ca. 1820, is possibly the only known example by Palethorpe. Simon Edgell arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1713 or earlier, purchasing property on High (Market) Street. “Simon Edgell’s pewter is among the earliest and rarest of surviving American pewter,” with fewer than a dozen signed pieces known. (Herr, Pewter… p.131) A rare beaker, ca. 1730, bears his touch. It is likely the earliest marked American beaker and was purportedly used by the Bowmansville Mennonite Church. Of the twelve porringers featured are three with simple tab handles, a form made exclusively in Pennsylvania. There are two by Chester County makers Robert Porter, ca. 1780, and Simon or Samuel Pennock, ca. 1820, and a rare example from Yorktown maker Elisha Kirk, ca. 1785.

Furniture includes a Pennsylvania painted pine dower chest, dated 1829, with lid, front, and feet profusely decorated with stylized flowers, birds, and pinwheels on a red ground. A Johannes Baughman (Bachman) (Conestoga Township, Lancaster County (1746-1829), Lancaster County Chippendale walnut schrank, ca. 1790, is signed under a drawer and is topped with a bold stepped cornice over a case with raised arched panels centered by fluted pilasters, all resting on a base of two drawers. A Lancaster County Chippendale walnut tall case clock, ca. 1780, is signed Jacob Gorgas.

A selection of rare and important objects, The Collection of Donald and Patricia Herr exemplifies their love of Pennsylvania German decorative arts. In the words of the Herr family, “These items represent heritage, craftsmanship, scholarship, and above all, cherished moments

by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

For more information on William Will, please read our earlier blog:

William Will: Philadelphia’s Pewterer