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Lot Essay
CHARLES STIRLING OF KEIR
The Stirlings of Keir, descended from the ancient Scottish families of Keir and Cadder (Cawdor), were by the 18th century very large landholders in the lowlands of Scotland, owning at one time a large portion of what is now Glasgow. In the 1740s the family acquired sugar plantations in Jamaica, which enhanced the family fortunes for the following hundred years. With several other Scottish families they were known as the 'Sugar Aristocracy'.
Charles Stirling inherited an interest in the Jamaican properties and went to work for the family's West Indies trading firm, eventually forming a partnership with John Gordon of Aikenhead, Stirling, Gordon & Co., which became a leading Glasgow firm. Both men were members of the very exclusive 'Pig Club', where sumptuous private dinners were accompanied by rum punch. In 1806 Charles, a fourth son, acquired the Kenmure land adjoining the family's estates at Keir, near Dunblane, Perthshire, and commissioned architect David Hamilton, student of Robert Adam and 'father of Glasgow architecture', to build a house. Charles lived at Kenmure for a decade before selling it £40,000 to his brother, Archibald and moving to the adjoining Cadder. A man who clearly had a taste for fine design and cared about his surroundings, Charles commissioned a new wing at Cadder, again using David Hamilton, and made extensive improvements to the gardens, including diverting the course of the river Kelvin. Like his nephew Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet, a 19th century art collector of some fame, Charles traveled to the Continent and bought pictures. Charles was an active man of business and, in fact, the last West India merchant of the family. At his death he left an estate of £77,640.
When in 1977 Charles Stirling's descendant, Colonel William Stirling, sold the 'Rockefeller' pattern dinner service at Christie's, it was understood to have been in the family since the early 19th century. The service was likely made just as Charles Stirling was planning and furnishing Kenmure, and though there is no extant documentation, it seems very likely that Charles acquired the service new as furnishing for his new house. The Scottish China Trade flourished in the period; William Jardine made his first voyage East in 1802. And of course Charles Stirling would have been a social and business peer of the leading Glasgow China trade merchants and easily able to transmit an order or acquire porcelain on its arrival.
Colonel William Stirling sold not just the Chinese dinner service but also, in 1975, Keir itself and 15,000 acres that had been in the family 570 years. In May 1995 Christie's sold contents of Keir House, which survives as an A-listed building with nationally-registered gardens. Kenmure House, occupied by successive brothers of Charles Stirling and then their descendants, was demolished in 1955.
DECORATION OF THE SERVICE
The lavishly enameled pattern of this service, along with several closely related variant patterns, are sometimes known collectively as 'palace ware', due both to their depictions of noble men and women as well as to the belief that something this fine must have been produced in imperial kilns. The 'palace ware' patterns seem to be an outgrowth of the 'Mandarin palette' decoration featuring Chinese lakeside garden scenes on patterned grounds in gilt or colors that was so fashionable in the 1780s, and a precursor to the richly enameled 'Canton famille rose' porcelains of the 19th century. In 1964 J.A. Lloyd called 'palace ware' "Sumptuously decorated", (Oriental Lowestoft/Chinese Export Porcelain/Porcelaine de la Cie. des Indes, p. 56); M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre wrote in 1987, "The quality of the decoration and the range of colours suggest that [it] was made in the great imperial factory at Jingdezhen". (Qing Porcelain, p. 170). In 2005 R.W. Fuchs points out that large-scale commercial porcelain trade had ceased by the time of the 'palace ware' patterns, writing that "...extremely high quality porcelain like this palace ware tureen continued to be commissioned by Private Traders..." (Made in China, p. 99.)
THE 'ROCKEFELLER' PATTERN
Since at least 1979, 'palace ware' with the sepia inner border, as in the present service, has been referred to as 'Rockefeller pattern', due to its close associations with the famous Rockefeller family of New York. John D. Rockefeller, Jr (1874-1960), son and heir of the dynasty's founder, owned at least a dessert service in the pattern, published by J.A. Lloyd Hyde in 1964 (op. cit., pp. 56-7). Although the 1977 Christie's catalogue that offered the present dinner service did not use this terminology, two years later a Christie's London catalogue included a pair of shaped square dishes "of the Rockefeller pattern" (12 November 1979 lot 43). This association was cemented in 1980 when 43 pieces in the pattern from the estate of Nelson Rockefeller were sold by Sotheby's New York (19-22 November 1980, lots 565-582), entitled 'THE ROCKEFELLER SERVICE'. Interestingly, the 43 pieces owned by Nelson Rockefeller were also from the Stirlings of Keir dinner service. The Antique Porcelain Co. of New York, dealers to the Rockefellers among many other leading collectors, had acquired the 322-piece service at the 1977 Christie’s auction and sold a small part to Mr. Rockefeller, while the better part was sold to an antecedent of the present owner.
David Rockefeller, like Nelson a son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., also owned Chinese export in the ‘Rockefeller’ pattern, sold Sotheby’s New York, 14 October 1993 (lots 79-90). The tureens in this group, however, differ in shape from the Stirling service. They match a second ‘Rockefeller’ dinner service, a service that, like the present service, descended from the time of its manufacture in a British trading family. It had been ordered by John Roberts (1739-1810), a Director of the British East India Company, likely around 1805. A descendant of his sold 88 pieces of the Roberts service at Sotheby’s New York, 26 January 1984 (lots 126-137, when it was, again, entitled ‘THE ROCKEFELLER SERVICE’.
Another large ‘Rockefeller’ service (210 pieces) with the flattened urn-form tureens of the David Rockefeller and the Roberts service (rather than the bombé shapes of the Stirling service), is illustrated by M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre (op. cit., p. 171). It is entirely possible that these 210 pieces published in 1987 were the greater part of the Roberts service sold, in part, at Sotheby's in 1984.
In fact, it seems likely that only a very small number of large, ‘sumptuous’ dinner services in the pattern now known as ‘Rockefeller’ were made at the start of the 19th century – possibly even just two. The gradual dissemination of these services through inheritance and sale would account for the individual pieces on the market today. A related and equally high quality service (137 pieces), with puce instead of sepia inner borders, sold William Doyle Galleries, New York (17 October 2001, lots 547-567). But the large service illustrated by Beurdeley and Raindre and the very large Stirlings of Keir service seem to be the only near-complete dinner services in the classic ‘Rockefeller’ pattern recorded.
The Stirlings of Keir, descended from the ancient Scottish families of Keir and Cadder (Cawdor), were by the 18th century very large landholders in the lowlands of Scotland, owning at one time a large portion of what is now Glasgow. In the 1740s the family acquired sugar plantations in Jamaica, which enhanced the family fortunes for the following hundred years. With several other Scottish families they were known as the 'Sugar Aristocracy'.
Charles Stirling inherited an interest in the Jamaican properties and went to work for the family's West Indies trading firm, eventually forming a partnership with John Gordon of Aikenhead, Stirling, Gordon & Co., which became a leading Glasgow firm. Both men were members of the very exclusive 'Pig Club', where sumptuous private dinners were accompanied by rum punch. In 1806 Charles, a fourth son, acquired the Kenmure land adjoining the family's estates at Keir, near Dunblane, Perthshire, and commissioned architect David Hamilton, student of Robert Adam and 'father of Glasgow architecture', to build a house. Charles lived at Kenmure for a decade before selling it £40,000 to his brother, Archibald and moving to the adjoining Cadder. A man who clearly had a taste for fine design and cared about his surroundings, Charles commissioned a new wing at Cadder, again using David Hamilton, and made extensive improvements to the gardens, including diverting the course of the river Kelvin. Like his nephew Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet, a 19th century art collector of some fame, Charles traveled to the Continent and bought pictures. Charles was an active man of business and, in fact, the last West India merchant of the family. At his death he left an estate of £77,640.
When in 1977 Charles Stirling's descendant, Colonel William Stirling, sold the 'Rockefeller' pattern dinner service at Christie's, it was understood to have been in the family since the early 19th century. The service was likely made just as Charles Stirling was planning and furnishing Kenmure, and though there is no extant documentation, it seems very likely that Charles acquired the service new as furnishing for his new house. The Scottish China Trade flourished in the period; William Jardine made his first voyage East in 1802. And of course Charles Stirling would have been a social and business peer of the leading Glasgow China trade merchants and easily able to transmit an order or acquire porcelain on its arrival.
Colonel William Stirling sold not just the Chinese dinner service but also, in 1975, Keir itself and 15,000 acres that had been in the family 570 years. In May 1995 Christie's sold contents of Keir House, which survives as an A-listed building with nationally-registered gardens. Kenmure House, occupied by successive brothers of Charles Stirling and then their descendants, was demolished in 1955.
DECORATION OF THE SERVICE
The lavishly enameled pattern of this service, along with several closely related variant patterns, are sometimes known collectively as 'palace ware', due both to their depictions of noble men and women as well as to the belief that something this fine must have been produced in imperial kilns. The 'palace ware' patterns seem to be an outgrowth of the 'Mandarin palette' decoration featuring Chinese lakeside garden scenes on patterned grounds in gilt or colors that was so fashionable in the 1780s, and a precursor to the richly enameled 'Canton famille rose' porcelains of the 19th century. In 1964 J.A. Lloyd called 'palace ware' "Sumptuously decorated", (Oriental Lowestoft/Chinese Export Porcelain/Porcelaine de la Cie. des Indes, p. 56); M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre wrote in 1987, "The quality of the decoration and the range of colours suggest that [it] was made in the great imperial factory at Jingdezhen". (Qing Porcelain, p. 170). In 2005 R.W. Fuchs points out that large-scale commercial porcelain trade had ceased by the time of the 'palace ware' patterns, writing that "...extremely high quality porcelain like this palace ware tureen continued to be commissioned by Private Traders..." (Made in China, p. 99.)
THE 'ROCKEFELLER' PATTERN
Since at least 1979, 'palace ware' with the sepia inner border, as in the present service, has been referred to as 'Rockefeller pattern', due to its close associations with the famous Rockefeller family of New York. John D. Rockefeller, Jr (1874-1960), son and heir of the dynasty's founder, owned at least a dessert service in the pattern, published by J.A. Lloyd Hyde in 1964 (op. cit., pp. 56-7). Although the 1977 Christie's catalogue that offered the present dinner service did not use this terminology, two years later a Christie's London catalogue included a pair of shaped square dishes "of the Rockefeller pattern" (12 November 1979 lot 43). This association was cemented in 1980 when 43 pieces in the pattern from the estate of Nelson Rockefeller were sold by Sotheby's New York (19-22 November 1980, lots 565-582), entitled 'THE ROCKEFELLER SERVICE'. Interestingly, the 43 pieces owned by Nelson Rockefeller were also from the Stirlings of Keir dinner service. The Antique Porcelain Co. of New York, dealers to the Rockefellers among many other leading collectors, had acquired the 322-piece service at the 1977 Christie’s auction and sold a small part to Mr. Rockefeller, while the better part was sold to an antecedent of the present owner.
David Rockefeller, like Nelson a son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., also owned Chinese export in the ‘Rockefeller’ pattern, sold Sotheby’s New York, 14 October 1993 (lots 79-90). The tureens in this group, however, differ in shape from the Stirling service. They match a second ‘Rockefeller’ dinner service, a service that, like the present service, descended from the time of its manufacture in a British trading family. It had been ordered by John Roberts (1739-1810), a Director of the British East India Company, likely around 1805. A descendant of his sold 88 pieces of the Roberts service at Sotheby’s New York, 26 January 1984 (lots 126-137, when it was, again, entitled ‘THE ROCKEFELLER SERVICE’.
Another large ‘Rockefeller’ service (210 pieces) with the flattened urn-form tureens of the David Rockefeller and the Roberts service (rather than the bombé shapes of the Stirling service), is illustrated by M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre (op. cit., p. 171). It is entirely possible that these 210 pieces published in 1987 were the greater part of the Roberts service sold, in part, at Sotheby's in 1984.
In fact, it seems likely that only a very small number of large, ‘sumptuous’ dinner services in the pattern now known as ‘Rockefeller’ were made at the start of the 19th century – possibly even just two. The gradual dissemination of these services through inheritance and sale would account for the individual pieces on the market today. A related and equally high quality service (137 pieces), with puce instead of sepia inner borders, sold William Doyle Galleries, New York (17 October 2001, lots 547-567). But the large service illustrated by Beurdeley and Raindre and the very large Stirlings of Keir service seem to be the only near-complete dinner services in the classic ‘Rockefeller’ pattern recorded.