Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection

The collection is on permanent display in the Reeves Center at Washington and Lee University, Virginia and includes over 1,800 pieces of export porcelain given to the University by Mr and Mrs Euchlin D. Reeves of Providence, Rhode Island in 1967. The 288-page hardback publication features more than 280 examples and detailed descriptions of some of the finest pieces of Chinese export porcelain made for the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, English and American markets - including services owned by, or associated with George Washington and Robert E. Lee. The collection spans three centuries of the China trade, from the early 17th to the early 19th. The volume also contains chapter introductions, a chronology of dynasties and reigns, a bibliography and an index.

About the Author :
The publication's author, Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr., Director of the Reeves Center for the Research and Exhibition of Porcelain and Paintings, was assisted in the compilation of the catalogue by Ann T. Bailey, Associate Director of the Reeves Center.

Review :
David S. Howard, one of the world's leading ceramic experts writes in the Preface: The Reeves Center is a rich resource for "all those who value the history, commercial acumen, painstaking art, and sheer romance of Chinese Export porcelain". In her review of the publication, Letitia Roberts, former Senior Vice President & Director of European Ceramics and Chinese Export Porcelain, Sotheby's, New York, said: "This is the book that Chinese Export porcelain collectors and admirers have been anticipating eagerly, ever since the extraordinary Reeves Collection came to their attention thirty years ago, and it has proved itself well worth the wait. Beautifully photographed and clearly designed, with the objects sensitively illustrated in proper scale, this book provides for the novice an excellent primer and for the well-read and committed collector or scholar, a well-organised compilation of often familiar and favourite landmark pieces newly described and serving to remind us of the versatility and eclecticism of Chinese Export porcelain from the late sixteenth through the nineteenth century. Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection promises to be the 'must have' collection catalogue of 2003 and should remain a source of pride both for the authors and for Washington and Lee University, which has had the vision to encourage and support this significant contribution to literature in the ceramics field."