Visning, Bukowskis Important Spring Sale med föreläsning av Edward Luper från Bonhams

I samarbete med Bukowskis och Östasiatiska museets vänner har Oriental Ceramic Society Stockholm ordnat en föreläsning av dr Edward Luper från Bonhams London.

The Life of a Late Ming Scholar: Art, Ambition and Eccentricity through the Marsh Collection

This lecture explores the world of the late Ming scholar, tracing a life shaped by ambition, frustration, pleasure, service, and eventual withdrawal. Through a group of exceptional ceramics from the Marsh Collection, it reconstructs the intellectual and emotional landscape of the period: an age marked by political collapse, commercial expansion, and extraordinary cultural vitality.

Beginning with the turbulence of the late Ming transition, the talk examines how shifting social and economic conditions transformed artistic production, particularly porcelain. It follows the scholar’s journey through the imperial examination system, where intense competition and repeated failure shaped both identity and aspiration.

From there, we enter the pleasure quarters of Qinhuai, where scholars, courtesans, and artists moved within a shared world of refinement and performance. The lecture then considers the realities of official life; its burdens, compromises, and political tensions, before turning to retirement, where ideals of reclusion, eccentricity, and cultivated “obsession” came to define the late Ming literati spirit.

By placing ceramics alongside literary sources, paintings, and historical accounts, the lecture reveals how objects not only reflected but actively shaped the lives, values, and fantasies of the scholar class in one of China’s most fascinating periods.

Dr Edward Luper is a Chinese Art Specialist at Bonhams, London, where he focuses on Chinese ceramics and works of art, with particular expertise in the late Ming and early Qing periods. He has handled important private collections and regularly contributes to research, cataloguing, and exhibitions in the field.

He studied Chinese language, both modern and classical, at SOAS (University of London), before continuing his studies at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he completed his Master’s and DPhil. His doctoral research focused on the Ming dynasty poet and painter Xu Wei (1521-1593).

His work explores the relationship between objects and lived experience, with a particular interest in how ceramics intersect with literature, social history, and the culture of the scholar class. Alongside his work in the art market, he is also an artist, drawing inspiration from East Asian aesthetics and print traditions.

Föreläsning sker på plats hos Bukowskis på Arsenalsgatan. Efter föreläsning får vi förtur till att se auktionsvisningen med presentation av föremålen av Cecilia Nordström från Bukowskis.

Begränsat antal platser. Anmäl dig till anmalan@sthlm.orientalceramicsociety.org senast den 30/5.