LONDON: The British Museum in London on November 13 revealed that it is the recipient of a major collection of Chinese ceramics valued at £1 billion (about $1.3 billion). The trove of 1,700 objects was donated by the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation, which had until now loaned them to the institution. The gift is the highest-value donation ever bestowed on a UK museum and increases the British Museum’s holdings of Chinese ceramics to 10,000 pieces, making it one of the most important such collections outside the Chinese-speaking world.
“I am thrilled by this blockbuster decision by the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation,” said British Museum chair George Osborne in a statement. “This is the largest bequest to the British Museum in our long history. It’s a real vote of confidence in our future, and comes at a highly significant moment for us—as we embark on the most significant cultural redevelopment of the Museum ever undertaken.” Osborne’s statement referred both to the recent tarnishing of the museum’s reputation following the revelation that a longtime staffer had been stealing and selling the institution’s treasures online, and to the museum’s controversial BP-funded refurbishment.
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An heir to the Sassoon fortune, Sir Percival was born in 1892 in what is now Mumbai. He moved to England in 1913, becoming a devoted collector of Chinese ceramics. While on a trip to Beijing, he discovered that much of the Imperial collection was kept in boxes and subsequently funded the restoration of a building dedicated to their display.
Colin Sheaf, chair of the Sir Percival David Foundation, in a statement noted that the donation would have pleased the philanthropist. “In every respect, this gift achieves the three objectives which most preoccupied Sir Percival as he planned for the collection’s future: to preserve intact his unique collection; to keep every single piece on public display together in perpetuity in a dedicated gallery; and to ensure that the collection would remain not only a visual display of surpassing beauty, but also an inspiration and education for future generations of academics, students and non-specialists alike, attracted to the Imperial arts of Asia’s greatest and longest civilization.”
