The British Museum received a massive collection of Chinese ceramics worth over $1.2 billion – the largest gift in its history.
The collection came from the trust of late Sir Percival David, hence commonly referred to as the Percival Ceramics. The collection has some 1700 objects, including a Ming-era wine cup adorned with chicken figures. Worth over £1 billion ($1.27 billion), it is by far the most valuable collection donated to the British Museum. Expensive art donations are not so common in the UK; the last news-capturing donation at the museum was worth $156 million.
Percival David was born in 1892 in present-day Mumbai, British India. He belonged to a Jewish family with ties Persian ties. David was also a Baron by birth, as well as an heir to the lucrative textile and banking businesses setup by his father. In 1914, he moved to London – a city he would come to call home. David acquired his first Chinese art in 1913. Since then, until his death, he continued to collect Chinese artworks, particularly ceramics. After he died in 1964, the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art oversaw the collection as well as programs like education around Chinese culture.
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Since 2009, the collection had been on a long-term loan to the British Museum where it was displayed in a dedicated room. Nicholas Cullinan, director of the museum, said: “These celebrated objects add a special dimension to our own collection and together offer scholars, researchers and visitors around the world the incredible opportunity to study and enjoy the very best examples of Chinese craftsmanship anywhere in existence.”
