Published:
R.L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection. Catalogue of the Chinese, Corean, and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, vol. 3, London, 1927, p. 33, no. C236, pl. 38.
Sotheby & Co., The Eumorfopoulos Collections. Catalogue of the celebrated collection of Chinese ceramics, bronzes, gold ornaments, lacquer, jade, glass, and works of art, formed by the late George Eumorfopoulos, Esq., London, 1940, p. 39, no. 118.

China, 960-1279. Modeled standing atop a rock base, dressed in a long flowing robe, a ruyi scepter cradled in his right arm, the face with a contemplative expression, downcast eyes below gently arched eyebrows, a long beard, and pendulous earlobes, all below the majestically towering forehead. Covered overall in an ivory-white glaze save for the base which is partly covered in a brown wash.

Provenance:
The distinguished collection of George Eumorfopoulos (1863-1939), London.
Sotheby’s London, 28-31 May 1940, lot 118.
The collection of Queen Maria of Yugoslavia (1900-1961), acquired from the above (according to label).
A private collection in Cambridge, United Kingdom, acquired from the above.

The base with an old label ‘Shoulao 14^th C Kiangsu ware. H.M. Queen Marie of Jugoslavia Col. Eumo Collection Cat 236’, and two old labels to the back, ‘[X] 51 4496 [X] 0A1-1- 14^th Cent’ and ‘Eumo. CAT. C.236 H.M.Q of Yugoslavia’.

George Eumorfopoulos (1863-1939), popularly known as ‘Eumo’, was a well-known London based collector of Chinese antiquities of all kinds but with a particular interest in Chinese ceramics. He was the co-founder and first president (1921-1939) of the Oriental Ceramic Society, a member of the Burlington Fine Arts Club and the Royal Asiatic Society, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a benefactor of the Egypt Exploration Society. He was a successful Greek tycoon working for the firm of Ralli Brothers. He started collecting in 1891, initially focusing on European and Japanese art, but soon included Qing porcelain and then Han, Tang, and Song ceramics. His extensive collection was added to with bronzes, jades, and many other materials, and later, Korean and Near Eastern material was also included. Eumorfopoulos’ collection was published in six folio volumes by R. L. Hobson, with a further two volumes by W. P. Yetts and another one by Laurence Binyon. He contributed many objects to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1935-1936. Eumo also gave a substantial number of ceramics to the Benaki Museum in Athens. Part of his collection was sold to the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, and after his death his collection was sold at Sotheby’s in May and June 1940. After the death of his widow Julia Eumorfopoulos, R.L. Hobson wrote an eleven-volume catalogue on his collections, entitled 'The George Eumorfopoulos Collection' (London, 1925-32).

Queen Maria of Yugoslavia (1900-1961) ruled as Queen of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes from 1922 to 1929 and Queen of Yugoslavia from 1929 to 1934 as the wife of King Alexander I, until his assassination in 1934. She was the mother of the last reigning Yugoslavian monarch, Peter II. Maria was a popular queen who did a lot for charity during her reign. In 1939, she moved to England, living on her farm in Gransden in Bedfordshire north of London. She was a keen collector of Oriental art, including jades and ceramics. After World War II, she increasingly engaged in the Yugoslav community in London, as well as her interest in art, and studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art and participated in several exhibitions with her artworks.

Condition: Very good condition with expected old wear and firing irregularities including firing cracks, few small hairlines to the right arm with minor associated glaze flakes.

Weight: 906.1 g
Dimensions: Height 27.1 cm

This exceedingly rare white porcelain figure can be attributed to the Ding kilns. Ranking among the Five Great Wares of the Song dynasty (960-1279), the Ding kilns are world famous for their various types of white porcelain vessels. Although they are also known for some sculptural items such as pillows in form of a boy or a lady, examples of which are preserved in the Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei, Ding potters made very few figures.

It is extremely rare, however, to find a figural subject with white glaze from any of the northern kilns, since most known figures from the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties are covered with either a qingbai (‘bluish-white’) or a celadon glaze and to derive from the Jingdezhen kilns in Jiangxi or the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang province, respectively, both in south China. This might explain R. L. Hobson’s description of the present lot as “Kiangsu ware” in his catalogue of the George Eumorfopoulos Collection, repeated by Sotheby’s in their 1940 catalogue.

Literature comparison:
Compare a Ding figure of Guanyin sold by Sotheby’s London, 5 July 1977, lot 146, and again on 9 June 1992, lot 111. See also a Ding fragment of a seated figure, dated Northern Song dynasty, at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 April 2016, lot 2802, which along with a fragment of an arhat head, discovered at the Ding kilns during excavations carried out jointly by the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University and Hebei archaeologists, demonstrates that Buddhist figures were made at the Ding kilns. The head is very comparable to a white porcelain arhat in the collection of the Tongliao Municipal Museum, Inner Mongolia, probably also made at the Ding kilns. The two pieces are illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Ding Ware: The World of White Elegance, Recent Archaeological Findings, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 2013, cat. no. 23, and accompanying reference illustration.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Related
Auction: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 October 2019, lot 3003
Price: HKD 3,750,000 or approx. EUR 478,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An extremely rare Dingyao 'boy' pillow northern Song – Jin dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the figural subject and glaze. Note the smaller size (19.2 cm)