Date: Friday 5 May 2023
Registration: 6:15 – 6:30pm
Lecture: 6:30 – 8:00pm
Dinner: 8:00pm
Place: 1/F, Victoria Suite
The Hong Kong Club
The Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong is delighted to bring you a talk on Sir Michael Butler’s collection of seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain. Please don’t miss the opportunity to hear Teresa Canepa and Katharine Butler, the daughter of Sir Michael Butler, speak on this world-renowned collection of 17th century Chinese porcelain on Friday 5th May. There will also be an opportunity to order the recently published catalogue of the collection, Leaping the Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of 17th-century Chinese Porcelain, at the talk. You may find more details about the collection here: https://butlercollection.com/
During his lifetime, Sir Michael Butler built the largest and most renowned collection of seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain in the world. Although it was well-documented and exhibited, when he died in 2013, more than half of the 850 pieces had never been published. Katherine Butler and Dr. Teresa Canepa will talk about their book titled ‘Leaping the Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain’. The comprehensive nature of the collection allows for comparisons of manufacture, shapes, decorative styles and motifs across time. In their in-depth study, the authors have drawn together multiple sources of evidence and new research not only to better classify and understand the Butler collection but also to discuss the wider story of seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain production and consumption.
Katharine Butler is an entrepreneur and business woman. She has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh University and worked closely with her father cataloguing and researching the collection. She has been studying and collecting seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain ever since, and is co-author of the Butler Collection catalogue with Teresa Canepa. She is an OCS council member.
Teresa Canepa is an independent researcher and lecturer in Chinese and Japanese art, and a council member of the OCS and co-editor of the OCS newsletter. She completed a PhD in Art History at Leiden University, The Netherlands, and is author of Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and their trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644 (Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2016); and Jingdezhen to the World: The Lurie Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain from the Late Ming Dynasty (Ad Ilissvm, London, 2019).
There are still a few seats available for the lecture, as well as for dinner at the Hong Kong Club. Reservations for dinner will be closed a week before the event and only confirmed upon receipt of payment. Please advise us of any dietary restrictions.
We remind members to abide by the Hong Kong Club’s smart dress code for guests: Business Smart (Jeans, T-shirts, tracksuits, shorts, shoes for sports activities and flip-flops are not acceptable. No denim may be worn at any time in the Club.)
Images: A round covered famille-verte enamelled porcelain jar, and the Butler Museum, courtesy of the speakers.