Collecting China
Subtitle: Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807), collections and Chinese studies
By: Jan van Campen
Contributors: Rijksmuseum (Netherlands); Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden, Netherlands)
Publisher: Verloren
Published: 2021
Place of publication: Hilversum
Language: eng
Number of pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9789087049355
Copyright date: 2021
Subjects: Art collections; Chinese Art objects; Private collections; Chinese Art; Collectors and collecting; Antiquarians; History; Antiquities; Study and teaching; Art
Other titles: Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) :
Description: During a relatively short period, from around 1765 to 1780, the Dutch lawyer Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) was intensely engaged in the study of Chinese culture. Befriended VOC officials and their Chinese relations in Canton collected Chinese objects for him and helped him with his greatest ambition: the composition of a Chinese dictionary. The objects were given a home in his museum on the Herengracht in The Hague. Better than travel journals, they gave a picture of life in China in Royer's time. Because the selection was largely made by modest Chinese traders, the collection does not so much give a picture of the material culture of the Chinese elite, but rather that of the ambitious, upwardly-mobile world of small traders and craftsmen. These are mostly ephemeral objects that have rarely been preserved, but they came to The Hague, thanks to Royer and his Chinese contacts. A bequest from his widow then ensured that the collection ended up in two Dutch museums: Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where the objects are still present today.
Notes: "This is a slightly edited and translated version of my thesis De Haagse jurist Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) en zijn verzameling Chinese voorwerpen (2000)" -- Preface

Includes bibliographical references (pages 286-296)
Table of contents: title: I.; title: Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) -- -- II.; title: Royer's Chinese studies -- -- III.; title: Royer's museum -- -- IV.; title: European China collectors and China scholars of the 1770s.