ABSTRACT
As the exhibitions discussed in Chapter 2 demonstrate, many members of the BFAC shared an interest in non-Western arts, an interest that was also shared among a surprisingly large number of art collectors and artists in London in the second half of the nineteenth century and the rst quarter of the twentieth. As will be demonstrated, the members’ interest in global objects also tended to centre upon the decorative arts, rather than the ne arts. With few exceptions, members collected paintings and prints from Europe and Britain, not those of other countries. The exceptions reect what was available in Britain at the time, such as Japanese prints, Indian miniatures, and some Chinese paintings. Members who collected these areas of prints and painting tended to do so after 1900, when they became more available on the market. Percival David (1892-1964, a Club member), for example, purchased his most famous Chinese painting, Han Gan’s Night Shining White (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) while he was in Shanghai in the 1930s and members of the imperial family were liquidating their collections.1 The decorative arts of these regions were collected from an early date, however, as demonstrated in an exhibition staged by the Club in 1885. The ‘Exhibition of Persian and Arab Art’ opened on 18 March 1885 and was the rst temporary, dedicated exhibition of what was called specically ‘Persian art’ in Britain. As noted in Blair and Bloom,]’[it] gathered for the rst time objects belonging to a large number of private collectors in Britain’.2 Like all Club exhibitions, it was organized by a committee of members (called here a ‘committee of arrangement’) and was open to the public by invitation. Some 4,198 visitors viewed the show, not counting members, a successful exhibition by Club standards.3 The exhibition committee included two key members who would be important for several exhibitions in this chapter: Henry
Wallis (1830-1916) and C. D. E. Fortnum (aka Charles Drury, 1820-99). As noted in the General Committee minutes, it was Fortnum who proposed the exhibition:
4.12.1884 VII The Committee considered a letter from Mr Fortnum suggesting an
Exhibition of Damascus Rhodian Persian and other kindred wares, as also a suggestion that Mr Pullen’s [sic] collection of photographs of excavations in Asia Minor should be exhibited at the same time on the walls of the gallery, and it was agreed to adopt these suggestions … and the following gentlemen were appointed a Subcommittee to make the necessary arrangements vis: … Tebbs; Vaughan, and Fortnum, with power to add to their number.4
