San Francisco Ceramic Circle

Illustrated Lecture

"Cargo and Adventure: Rhode Island and the China Trade, 1720 - 1920"

by

Thomas Michie

Curator of Decorative Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

10.00 AM Sunday, 25th March 2007

Florence Gould Theater, Palace of the Legion of Honor

Lincoln Park, San Francisco

About the Lecture: Well before Rhode Island merchants arrived in China, in 1787, they were active in West Indian trade, the source of numerous examples of Chinese export porcelain for the Dutch market that have descended in Rhode Island families. By means of porcelain, furniture, portraits, and houses, this illustrated lecture will review the evidence of pre-Revolution trade between Newport and Surinam, trace the rise of Providence as a major New England entrepot in the 18th century, and examine the legacy of the China Trade in the 19th. By the 1840s, nostalgia for a bygone, pre-industrial era inspired ceramic collectors, notably Anne Allen Ives (1810-1884), whose unusually well-documented collection will be described in detail.

About our speaker :  Thomas Michie joined the staff of LACMA in January 2005. Previously Curator of Decorative Arts at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), he is co-author of collection catalogs published by RISD, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the U. S. Department of State. A graduate of Williams College, he holds an M. Phil. degree in History of Art from Yale University. He is past president of the Decorative Arts Society and has served on the boards of the American Ceramic Circle, the Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, RI, and the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities.

Next meeting: Thursday, 19th April 2007. "Porcelain and the Evolution of Dining in 18th Century Europe". An illustrated lecture by Jeffrey Munger, Associate Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Art, Metropolitan Museum, NYC.