San Francisco Ceramic Circle
October 29th Meeting
"Creatures in Clay"
18th and 19th century Ceramic Animals
Letitia Roberts, Sotheby's, New York
The October meeting of the San Francisco Ceramic Circle will
be held on Thursday, 29th October beginning at 7.30pm in the Florence
Gould Theater at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln
Park, San Francisco. Entrance is from the West terrace. The lecture
will start at 8.00pm.
Our speaker will be Letitia Roberts, Senior Vice President
and Senior International Specialist, European Ceramics and Chinese
Export Porcelain at Sotheby's, New York. Her lecture is entitled
"Creatures in Clay: 18th and 19th century Ceramic Animals".
The mini-exhibit will be of Ceramic Animals. Set up is at
7.30pm
About the lecture:
From early times ceramic artists have modelled animals in
clay. Ms. Roberts' talk will cover how, throughout the history
of ceramics, animals have been an evocation of the human condition.
From Chinese tomb figures to the works of contemporary sculptors,
animals in pottery and porcelain have perhaps best reflected the
aesthetics, philosophy and psychology of a culture at a given
time. The talk will concentrate on the porcelain and earthenware
animals made during the 18th and 19th centuries as a cultural
reflection of a period when the golden age of ceramic art coincided
with the Age of Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and Charles
Darwin
About our speaker:
Letitia Roberts joined Sotheby Parke Burnet in 1968 worked
in the Old Master Paintings, Appraisals, American Furniture and
Decorative Arts departments before bringing her energy and enthusiam
to the field of European Ceramics in 1973. In 1978 she was appointed
to the position of Director and held that post until appointed
Senior International Specialist earlier this year.
For over two decades Ms. Roberts has been closely involved
with important pottery and porcelain sales in America including
among them the Henry Ford II, Nelson Rockefeller, Garbisch, Mottahedeh
and Van Slyke collections. Ms. Roberts is renowned for her encyclopaedic
knowledge and the scholarship and detail of her Ceramics Catalogs
for Sotheby's which have become reference sources for many collectors.
She has lectured frequently, taught adult education classes,
written articles for various publications and introductions to
the Zorensky and the Weldon collections, and has participated
in a video "Caring for Antiques" and the Chubb Antiques
Road Show on TV.
Ms. Roberts is a member of the English Ceramic Circle, former
Secratary of the American Ceramic Circle and serves in the administrations
of the Wedgwood Society of New York and the French Porcelain Society
(America). Last, but not least, she is also a member of the San
Francisco Ceramic Circle.
Future S.F.C.C. programs:
11/12/98 Robert Copeland "Spode-Copeland 1733-1983"
11/19/98 Carolyn Sargentson "Sèvres China Furniture:
a 19th century English taste for furniture decorated with porcelain
plaques"
1/22-23/99 "On Table, Sideboard and Mantel: decorative
figures and tablewares 1730 - 1830" San Francisco Ceramic
Circle's biennial seminar. A program of six lectures with speakers
Anthony du Boulay, Patricia Halfpenny and William Sargent.
2/18/99 John Whitehead "Painted decoration on Sèvres
Porcelain"