Professor Nick Pearce
April 21, 2027 @ 10.30am
On 16th June 1939, a collection of Chinese Blue and White porcelain was put up for sale by Sotheby’s in London. The vendor was Major L. F. Hay of Bath, and the lots – all forty-two of them – were billed as ‘The Well-Known Collection of Rare Early Ming Blue and White Porcelain’. Yet Major Hay was not a familiar name in Chinese ceramic collecting circles, nor was the collection necessarily well-known. It had been formed over the previous fifteen months largely through purchases on the London art market and through the liquidation of collections in China in the wake of civil war and conflict with Japan. It consisted of some of the finest 15th and 16th century Chinese porcelains then in a British collection outside China.
The collector was Major Lindsay Fitzgerald Hay (1891-1946), then the tallest man in the British army and author of a series of spy-thrillers and this is the story of his colourful life and career and attempts to explain what made his collection so remarkable.
Professor Nick Pearce
Nick Pearce is Emeritus Professor in the History of Art, former Richmond Chair of Fine Art at the University of Glasgow and curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Burrell Collection and Durham Oriental Museum. He joined the University of Glasgow in 1998 where he has been Head of History of Art and Head of the School of Culture & Creative Arts. He is also a Smithsonian Research Associate, trustee of the Sir William Burrell Trust and former trustee of the National Galleries Scotland. His research interests include photographers and photography in late-19th century China and aspects of the collecting of Chinese art in the West during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.