Prized Porcelain From The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller

[Music] I think clutching porcelain is more intimate than other media because it's something that is so tactile everything is very meaningful one of the things I think that is so wonderful about Peggy and David Rockefellers collection there are things that they really lived with they weren't things that were only brought out for special occasions they were used every day no matter what the meal was breakfast lunch or dinner you were eating off an appropriate porcelain service before the week began they would sit down and figure out what days you could be home or people coming for dinner the porcelain collection tells you a number of things about about the rock floors that they appreciated beauty that they wanted it very very prominently in their lives and that they wanted to share it with other people David and Peggy took their role as host and hostess looks very very seriously so the same kind of thought and concern about the comfort and pleasure of their guests was part of the decision-making that went into the selection of the porcelain services the silver that we have flanking plates were a wedding present to them in 1940 and they have their initials on yes hopefully his father John Key Rockefeller jr. started collecting this pattern in the 1920s and shortly after he passed away the first real tome about Chinese export art came out and it had photos from some of his pieces and since then at they call it the Rockefeller pattern what's incredible is there were 50 or so dishes and none of the scenes on the center repeat they're all easy and Kozik and here we have a set of Marley Rouge service delivered to Napoleon in 1809 to Fontainebleau this is actually the biggest compliment of it that has ever come up for sale Fontainebleau only has seven pieces and they had only recently acquired those and besides the plate we have there's no fantastic sugar bowl that we have here with eagle head handles the Napoleon symbol and eaglet coming out on top as a finial there are a lot of really beautiful pieces in the collection but the ones that I tend to find myself gravitating towards tend to be the porkier pieces for example I was going through the show cher blue dinner service and I found these fantastic scenes of cupids torturing nuns or Cupid's being shot out of cannons I just like to know that you can have the same humor as somebody did 200 years ago I think that the way that Peggy and Rockefeller lived with their porcelain collection should really be an inspiration to us all people should take their grandmother's China out of the cabinet and use it every day and enjoy it you have to give these things life [Music]

Channel: Christie's

Views: 114,154

Keywords: john d. rockefeller, Rockefellers, Porcelain

Id: auVABGUl6vg

Length: 3min 37sec (217 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 12 2018