The British Museum announced Wednesday that it will receive 1,700 internationally renowned Chinese ceramics worth about 1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion) in the largest donation in nearly 300 years. history of the institution.
The collection, which has been on loan to the British Museum since 2009, was donated by the Percival David Foundation, informs
Among the pieces of this collection are the “David vases”, blue and white ceramic from 1351; a small 15th-century porcelain wine goblet known as chenghua, one of the most sought-after artifacts in Chinese art, as well as Ru ware, artifacts dating from the 11th century .
”It is the largest donation to the British Museum in our long history,” said George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum. “It’s really a vote of confidence in our future.”
Thanks to this donation, the British Museum said it will hold one of the most important collections of Chinese ceramics in a public institution outside the Chinese-speaking world, a collection of 10,000 objects.
Born in 1892, Percival David was a British businessman whose passion for China inspired him to study the language and collect ceramics – mainly imperial quality or traditional Chinese artefacts – to build his private collection.
The British arts minister, Chris Bryant, said that this collection “will educate and enlighten future generations for many years to come”.
The British Museum said it would lend some of the ceramics to the Shanghai Museum in China and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to support exhibitions there.
Porcelain was first produced in China around 600 CE and is by far the most advanced in the world. Ceramic artefacts were made for the imperial court, for the domestic market or for export.
