The Meiyintang Collection is a privately owned assembly of

Chinese ceramics Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...

, porcelain and bronzes, the majority of which are presently on loan to the Swiss

Rietberg Museum The Rietberg Museum is a museum in Zürich, Switzerland, displaying Asian, African, American and Oceanian art. It is the largest art museum focusing on non-European art and design in Switzerland, the third-largest museum in Zürich, and the large ...

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, which has been hailed as one of the finest private collections of Chinese porcelain in the Western world. Meiyintang 玫茵堂, "Hall among Rosebeds", is the adopted Chinese studio name of the collection.''Meiyintang marvels: The finest private collection of Chinese porcelain in the West is about to be sold''.
The Economist, March 17, 2011, p. 92f.

History

The brothers Stephen Zuellig (1917–2017) and Gilbert Zuellig (1918–2009), both born in Manila, developed manifold interests in Asian art and culture throughout their life and business activities in the Far East. In the late 1950s, they began to build up a systematic collection of Chinese art. Gilbert Zuellig specialized in early

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

stoneware Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire ...

and

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

, spanning five millennia from the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period to the Han, Tang and

Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

dynasties, while his brother Stephen collected the porcelains of the later Yuan,

Ming The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, t ...

and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

dynasties as well as archaic bronzes of the

Shang The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dyn ...

, Zhou and

Warring States The Warring States period in Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and struggles for gre ...

period. Early on in their career as expert collectors, the Zuellig brothers were encouraged and guided by the connoisseur and dealer Edward T. Chow. As of 1994, following the publication of the scholarly collection catalogues written by the researcher Regina Krahl, the term “Meiyintang” gained international recognition among specialists of Chinese art. Exhibitions dedicated to objects from the Meiyintang Collection were held at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in London (1994), the Sporting d’Hiver in Monte Carlo (1996), the

Asia Society The Asia Society is a 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle) and around the world (Hong Ko ...

(1995) and the

China Institute China Institute in America is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution based in New York City. Its work is focused on promoting Chinese culture and history through talks, business initiatives, language immersion programs, and gallery exh ...

(2001) in New York, the

Musée Cernuschi The Musée Cernuschi (; 'Cernuschi Museum'), officially also the ('Asian Arts Museum of the City of Paris'), is an Asian art museum located at 7 avenue Vélasquez, near Parc Monceau, in Paris, France. Its Asian art collection is second in Par ...

in Paris (1999), the

Musée du Président Jacques Chirac The musée du Président Jacques Chirac (''President Jacques Chirac museum''), commonly known as musée du Septennat,''Septennat'' means in French a seven-year period, which was the French presidential term from 1873 until 2002. The name ''musée ...

in Sarran, Corrèze (2009) and the

Musée Guimet The Guimet Museum (full name in ; ''MNAAG''; ) is a Parisian art museum with one of the largest collections of Asian art outside of Asia that includes items from Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Tibet, India, and Nepal, among other countries. Foun ...

in Paris (2013). In 2001, President

Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris ...

of France acknowledged the Zuellig brothers for their role in promoting the cultural understanding between East and West by awarding them the rank of Chevaliers of the Ordre National de la

Légion d’honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. In 2011 and 2012, a substantial portion of the Yuan, Ming and Qing pieces of the Meiyintang Collection was sold in a series of auctions by Sotheby's in Hong Kong, among them the famed Chenghua “chicken cup.” Shortly thereafter, selected pieces of Gilbert Zuellig's collection were placed on permanent loan with the

Museum Rietberg The Rietberg Museum is a museum in Zürich, Switzerland, displaying Asian, African, American and Oceanian art. It is the largest art museum focusing on non-European art and design in Switzerland, the third-largest museum in Zürich, and the large ...

in Zurich.

Permanent exhibit at the Rietberg Museum

As Gilbert Zuellig and his family wished to preserve his collection as an ensemble and to make it accessible to the general public, the majority of the pieces were transferred to a foundation, the Meiyintang Stiftung. In 2012, the foundation placed six hundred objects with the

in Zurich under a long-term loan agreement and enabled the museum to refurbish the exhibition space of its department of Chinese arts, including the installation of an innovative lighting system to provide optimal conditions for the display of the collection.

Bibliography

* ''Evolution vers la perfection, Céramiques de Chine de la Collection Meiyintang,'' Sporting d’Hiver, Monte Carlo 1996 (exhibition catalogue). * Regina Krahl: ''Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection,'' (Volumes I, II, III, IV), London 1994–2010. * Regina Krahl: ''L’âge d’or de la céramique chinoise, VIe – XIVe siècles, Collection Meiyintang,'' Musée Cernuschi, Paris 1999 (exhibition catalogue). * Regina Krahl, Willow Hai Chang, China Institute Gallery: ''Dawn of the Yellow Earth – Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection,'' New York 2000 (exhibition catalogue). * Regina Krahl: ''Trésors de la collection Meiyintang, Céramique chinoise ancienne, exposition,'' Sarran, Musée du Président Jacques Chirac, 2009 (exhibition catalogue). * Sotheby's: ''The Meiyintang Collection, Part I-V,'' Hong Kong 2011–2013. * Wang Tao, ''Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection'' (London, 2009) * Christian Deydier, ''Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection'' (2 vols) (Hong Kong, 2013) * Alexandra von Przychowski, ''Chinese Ceramics – The Meiyintang Collection in the Museum Rietberg'' (Zurich, 2018) ISBN 978-3-907077-59-7

Gallery

File:Zhou Deckeltopf Museum Rietberg.jpg File:Han Tonmodell eines Wachturms Museum Rietberg.jpg File:Han Tonmodell Ziehbrunnen Museum Rietberg.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Bird head ewer.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Bowl for washing brushes.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Two horses.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Jar with lid.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Large basin.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Long-necked bottle.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Meiping.jpg File:Museum Rietberg Meiyintang Collection – Watchtower.jpg

References

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External links

Rietberg Museum: Collection
Chinese porcelain Chinese art Private collections in Asia Private collections in Switzerland Chinese artifacts held abroad