Beyond the Borders: Asian Ceramics in the National Trust for Scotland
In the absence of a luxury ceramic industry, Scotland’s gentry relied heavily on imported Asian ceramics for use and display in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From a Baroque-style China Closet at Newhailes House in East Lothian, completed in 1821, to the cherished treasures of the Dukes of Hamilton at Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran, the Asian ceramics collections of the National Trust for Scotland have much to reveal about their place in British ceramic collecting histories. Through East India Company connections, Scotland’s sons chose armorial services as a mark of their achievements. Following generations, benefitting from dynastic industrial wealth or artistic success, acquired Chinese and Japanese ceramics, in emulation of the wares of the leading London dealers, as at Hill of Tarvit, in Fife, or as the material culture of Southeast Asia, as at Broughton House, in Dumfries and Galloway, home of one of the ‘Glasgow Boys’, E.A. Hornel. This lecture presents the results of a survey of the Asian ceramics collections commissioned by the National Trust for Scotland in 2021-2022.
This lecture is kindly sponsored by Shirley Mueller
Speaker
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Patricia F. FergusonPatricia Ferguson is a ceramic specialist with an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. She has worked in London at the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, and as Honorary Adviser on Ceramics to the National Trust (England, Wales and Northern Ireland). She published Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces in 2016.
