Bowl
Emperors, Scholars and Temples: Tastemakers of China’s Ming and Qing Dynasties, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, August 12, 2016 – July 9, 2017.
Acquired in Shanghai by Zhang Naiji (1899-1948) for Oriental Fine Arts, Inc., New York, 1947-1949 [1];
Arthur B. Rothwell (1906-1994), New York, Panama, Dallas, TX and Houston, TX, 1949-1968 [2];
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1968.
NOTES:
[1] A typed history of the bowl, presumably written by Arthur B. Rothwell (see note 2) and now found in the Nelson-Atkins files, describes its provenance as given here. Zhang Naiji (also known as Nai Chi Chang and N. C. Chang) was a collector and dealer who owned Tonying & Company, an antiquities shop in Paris. He emigrated to New York in 1939, where he continued to collect. Zhang worked for C. T. Loo & Company in New York, and later Oriental Fine Arts, which was owned by Rothwell.
[2] Arthur B. Rothwell was born in Oldham, England in 1906 and worked as an import manager for Yangtze Trading Company during his early career. He spent several years in New York as president of Oriental Fine Arts, Inc., until 1949, when he closed the gallery and moved to Panama. By 1959, he lived in Dallas, Texas, where he was involved in the oil industry with the Cheyenne Oil Corporation.
