Image: Nicholas Cullinan, Director British Museum & Colin Sheaf, Chair Sir Percival David Foundation
More than a thousand Chinese ceramics will make a permanent home at the museum, many of which are already on display
A private collection of 1,700 Chinese ceramics estimated to be worth a collective £1bn has been gifted to the British Museum, marking the largest gift in its history.
The collection has been given to the museum by The Sir Percival David Foundation. Sir David was a British businessman whose collection was built from ceramics collected in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and China.
The collection has been on loan to the British Museum since 2009 in the specially designed bilingual Room 95.
The British Museum describes it as “one of the most important collections of Chinese ceramics of any public institution outside the Chinese speaking world numbering 10,000 objects.”
Director of the British Museum, Dr Nicholas Cullinan thanked the Trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation, adding he was “humbled by the generosity”, while Chair of the British Museum, George Osborne said the decision was a “real vote of confidence in our future”.
The £1bn is markedly more than the British Museum has received in recent history. In 2022, the museum called a bequest by the late Sir Joseph Hotung, valued at approximately £123m, one of the most significant in its history.
Bequest to British Museum ‘among most significant in its history’
Chair of The Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art and The Sir Percival David Foundation Academic and Research Fund Colin Sheaf FSA explained: “It’s exactly 100 years since Sir Percival David made his first visit to China.
“It’s entirely fitting therefore that, in this Centenary year, the Trustees of his Foundation should resolve that the most suitable permanent home for his Collection is the British Museum, where – on loan for fifteen years – it has attracted millions of visitors every year, accomplishing all the charitable purposes of the Foundation.”
Highlight examples from the Sir Percival David collection include the ‘David vases’ from 1351. Their discovery revolutionised the dating for blue and white ceramics. The collection also includes a “Chicken cup” used to serve wine for the Chenghua emperor (1465-87) and Ru wares made for the Northern Song dynasty court around 1086.
Ceramics from The Sir Percival David collection will be lent to the Shanghai Museum in China and Metropolitan Museum in New York. The museum said engagement with scholars to advance studies of the collection will continue, including a recent partnership with forensic scientists at Cranfield which discovered the identity of another Ru ware.
The final transfer of ownership to the British Museum will be subject to the Charity Commission’s consent, as needed.