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British Rail Pension Fund’S Collection of Chinese Works of Art from 1974 to 1989

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British Rail Pension Fund’S Collection of Chinese Works of Art from 1974 to 1989 Liu, Hao (2017) The purpose, operation and impacts of the art investment of the British Rail Pension Fund’s collection of Chinese works of art from 1974 to 1989. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/24912 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this PhD Thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This PhD Thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this PhD Thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the PhD Thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full PhD Thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD PhD Thesis, pagination. The purpose, operation and impacts of the art investment of the British Rail Pension Fund’s collection of Chinese works of art from 1974 to 1989 Hao Liu Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2016 Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts SOAS, University of London 1 Declaration for SOAS PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ 2 Abstract This thesis is a study of the art investment of the British Rail Pension Fund’s collection of Chinese works of art. The Chinese art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund was formed with investment intentions in 1974 in the U.K. Chinese artworks were one of the major categories and the largest non- western category of the art investment portfolio of the British Rail Pension Fund. The portfolio was established during the economic turbulence of the 1970s, to preserve the value of pensions for retired employees, and was begun in collaboration with Sotheby’s auction house in 1974. The British Rail Pension Fund terminated acquisitions in 1980 and started to actively collaborate with museums, galleries, and fairs both in the U.K. and overseas to arrange loan exhibitions to display its holdings. Thus, the art investment that was the Chinese art collection will be divided into two phases in this research: the acquisition stage from 1974 to 1980, and the exhibition stage from 1980 to 1989. Three main questions need to be answered by this thesis. What was the purpose of investing in Chinese art in 1974? How did the British Rail Pension Fund operate the art investment? And what was its impact? Literature review and research outline are stated in chapter one. Chapter two is an investigation into the purpose of forming the British Rail Pension’s Chinese art collection. Archival research into the operation of the investment in Chinese art from 1974 to 1980 is conducted in chapter three. Chapter four includes 3 an evaluation of the Chinese art collection, followed by a discussion of the various impacts of the Chinese art collection in chapter five. Chapter six provides an opportunity to summarize the arguments of the entire thesis and to conclude the challenge to the traditional view of collecting behaviour. 4 Acknowledgment The first time I heard the story of the British Rail Pension Fund was back to 2006 when I was still in college. A decade passed before finally I could contribute my thoughts on this topic under the excellent supervision of Dr. Stacey Pierson. It would have been impossible to complete this thesis without help from many people, and I would like to take the chance here to express my gratitude to them. First and foremost, to my supervisor, Dr. Stacey Pierson for her patience and constant help with this thesis. She has spent a lot of time discussing the research with me over the past four years, and her observations and suggestions have been encouraging, invaluable and inspirational to my research. I would also like to thank Professor Christine Oughton and Professor Shane McCausland, my other two PhD committee members, for their advice and assistance. I thank Mr. Giuseppe Eskenazi for his most generous support and guidance, and for taking time to correspond with me, and for information provided which I would have been unable to find otherwise. His connections have been invaluable to this thesis, providing many interview opportunities to enrich my primary resources. 5 I thank all the key figures who kindly gave their time to answer my questions over the past four years, including Mrs. Annamaria Edelstein, Mrs. Ann Maxwell, Mr. Chris Lewin, Mr. Marcus Linell, Mrs. Geraldine Norman, Mr. James Godfrey, Mr. Jeremy Eckstein, Dr. John Johnston, and Mr. Colin Sheaf. Archives in the National Archive, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Rail Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the San Antonio Museum of Art provided important primary resources to this thesis, thus, many thanks to the staff who helped me access these materials. Finally, I would like to thank my family, without whose support it would have been impossible to complete this research. 6 Table of Contents Title Page 1 Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Table of Contents 7 Table of Illustrations 10 Sub-categories Table 20 Chronological Table 21 Chapter One: Introduction 23 1 Research Question 23 2 Research in Chinese art 28 3 Chapter layout 30 4 Literature review 37 Chapter Two: What was the purpose of the investment in the collection of Chinese works of art? 55 1 General history of economic conditions in the 1970s 57 2 British Railways and the British Rail Pension Fund 67 (i) British Railways 67 (ii) British Rail Pension Fund 70 3 Sotheby’s auction house, the Chinese art market, and the Times-Sotheby’s Index 78 (i) Development of Sotheby’s 78 (ii) Sotheby’s developments in the Chinese art market 82 (iii) The Times-Sotheby’s Index 90 7 Chapter Three: How did the British Rail Pension Fund operate the art investment and the collection of Chinese works of art? 102 1 Preparation of the Board of the British Rail Pension Fund 1974 104 2 Structure of the investment 1973-1980 106 (i) The Works of Art Sub-Committee 106 (ii) The management company: Lexbourne Limited 114 (iii) Management team and its duties 122 (iv) Recruitment of the new curator in 1980 141 3 Collaboration with Sotheby’s 145 (i) Involvement of Sotheby’s from 1974 to 1980 145 (ii) Collaboration between the British Rail Pension Fund and Sotheby’s in sales in 1989 168 Chapter Four: The collection of Chinese works of art of the British Rail Pension Fund 171 1 The collection of Chinese works of art 171 2 Chinese Archaic Bronze from the pre-Qin period 174 (before 211 B.C.) (i) A bronze owl Hu 180 3 Tang and related periods (420A.D.-907A.D.) 187 (i) Metal works 190 (ii) Buddhist sculptures and carvings 192 (iii) Ceramic wares 195 4 Song to Qing periods 201 (i) Song Ceramics (960-1279) 205 (ii) Yuan porcelain (1271-1368) 213 (iii) Ming porcelain (1369-1644) 218 (iv) Qing porcelain (1644-1911) 225 5 Conclusion 231 8 Chapter Five: What was the impact of the British Rail Pension Fund’s collection of Chinese works of art? 233 1 Exhibitions 237 2 Impact of publicity 270 3 Collecting behaviour of the British Rail Pension Fund 291 4 Conclusion 309 Chapter Six: Conclusion 312 Bibliography 323 Illustrations 339 9 Table of Illustrations Figure 1 A sancai glazed pottery horse Tang dynasty (618-907) Lot 56, Sotheby’s sale of important early Chinese ceramics, archaic bronze, sculpture, silver and lacQuer from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, London, (12.12.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 2 A pair of sancai glazed Earth Spirits Tang dynasty (618-907) Lot 58, Sotheby’s sale of important early Chinese ceramics, archaic bronze, sculpture, silver and lacQuer from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, London, (12.12.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 3 An unglazed dignitary (official) Tang dynasty (618-907) Lot 53, Sotheby’s sale of important early Chinese ceramics, archaic bronze, sculpture, silver and lacQuer from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, London, (12.12.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 4 A white-glazed bowl Hongzhi mark and period (1488-1505) Lot 1, Sotheby’s sale of important Chinese porcelain, enamels and jade carvings from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Hong Kong, (16.05.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 5 A white-glazed bowl Jiangjing mark and period (1522-1566) Lot 3, Sotheby’s sale of important Chinese porcelain, enamels and jade carvings from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Hong Kong, (16.05.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s 10 Figure 6 An anhua decorated white-glazed stembowl Yongle mark and period (1403-1424) Lot 6, Sotheby’s sale of important Chinese porcelain, enamels and jade carvings from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Hong Kong, (16.05.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 7 A coral red glazed box and cover Qianlong mark and period (1736-1795) Lot 47, Sotheby’s sale of important Chinese porcelain, enamels and jade carvings from the works of art collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, Hong Kong, (16.05.1989) Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s Figure 8 An owl-headed ritual vessel, Hu Warring States, 4th century B.C.
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