ABSTRACT
In the 1910s Koryŏ celadon ceramics were acquired by private collectors and museum institutions in growing numbers. They were included in exhibitions in Japan, America, and Britain, and detailed scholarship of them was published. In 1914, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, opened a special exhibition of Chinese and Korean ceramics that were lent by prominent local businessmen. Among them was Desmond Fitzgerald, who by then had formed a substantial collection of Koryŏ ceramics. As interest in the wares expanded, collectors began to augment their collections with bronze items and other artefacts from the Koryŏ kingdom in the belief that they could offer further insights into Koryŏ artistic traditions. In the 1910s, some collectors obtained ceramics directly in Korea, among them the Englishman Aubrey Le Blond, who acquired around 150 Koryŏ ceramics when visiting Seoul in 1913. The following year he lent his objects to the V&A Museum in London, resulting in the first major exhibition of Korean ceramics in the UK. When Le Blond donated the collection to the museum a few years later, it was believed to be the largest and most important collection of Korean ceramics in Europe.
