RIVIÈRE, Henri.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

La céramique dans l'art d'Extrême-Orient. First and sole edition, number 106 of 300 copies, of this impressive and important monograph. This copy with a fine provenance: from the library of A. W. Bahr, internationally renowned authority on and collector of Chinese art, with his ownership stamps to volume I half-title. Abel William "Billy" Bahr (1877-1959), born in Shanghai to a German father and Chinese mother, was brought up in China, and later established himself as a coal merchant and general importer. "He was fluent in Chinese, he embraced various aspects of Chinese culture, and he had a close circle of Chinese friends - by no means a common state of affairs in the Shanghai of the period" (Pearce, p. 6). Bahr was the moving force in the groundbreaking 1908 Exhibition of Chinese Art held in Shanghai, "the first exhibition in China that was made up exclusively of art objects" (ibid., p. 21). Three years later he published Old Chinese Porcelain and Works of Art in China (London: Cassell & Co., 1911), the de facto catalogue of the exhibition. His papers are held at the Smithsonian. For the French artist and designer Henri Rivière (1864-1951) it was Japanese art that held a particular fascination and he was an avid collector of both prints and ceramics. The present monograph followed his similar study of Islamic art, La Céramique dans l'art musulman (1913), and is similarly beautifully produced, the plates printed in lavish colour. The Chinese, Korean, and Japanese ceramics

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