'What we need is coffee and doughnuts.'
It was the autumn of 1976. Jim Callaghan had just replaced Harold Wilson as Labour Prime Minister amid presentiments of economic gloom, and the ailing pound was weakening against the dollar. But inflation had dropped to 18.9%, the Post Office ended Sunday collections, Southampton had won the FA Cup defeating Manchester United, and the Sports Minister Denis Howell was created 'Minister for Drought'.
However, I was in a different world, enjoying my first visit to America. I was staying with Joe and Liz Handley in California at their dramatic cliff-top home, encompassed by suede-brown hills sloping down to the measureless Pacific vistas of the Big Sur Peninsular.
Joe, affable, approachable, warm-hearted and always full of curiosity for people and places, knew all the porcelain collectors in Monterey County and its surrounding areas. And it was not long before I did so too. Today we were visiting Pacific Grove, a small town set about with white painted clapboard houses, evoking a sense of Hopper and New England rather than my perception of Northern California.
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Figure 7. (Left) A pair of Mennecy toilet pots, c.1745. (Right) A Chantilly creamboat and leaf-moulded stand, c.1740.
As we approached Bonnie Risden's neatly appointed
bungalow, armed with coffee and doughnuts, I enquired what she collected. A mischievous smile slowly passed across Joe's benign features, 'It will surprise you, my boy.' It did.
Bonnie Risden was a delightfully talkative elderly lady, intelligent, well travelled and appreciative both of our company and of the doughnuts. But of porcelain, there was no sign.
The conversation passed agreeably from travel in China during the 1940s, to 19th century literature and on to Republican politics. Were it not for the gleam in Joe's eyes, she might have been unacquainted with any aspect of ceramics. Without warning, Joe cut to the chase, remarking enigmatically, 'Why Bonnie, Simon is eager to peek under your bed.' Apparently undisconcerted at this startling proposal, Bonnie led me to a spare bedroom, piled high with discarded furniture, books, catalogues and cardboard boxes. Prompted by Joe, I obediently burrowed under a sagging bed, emerging dustily after several moments with two battered suitcases.
From these, amidst a flurry of newspaper, plastic cups and half-eaten doughnuts, we systematically unwrapped the treasures of 30 years of porcelain collecting, a novel experience for me ...though evidently not for Joe.
Smiling Fujian 'Pagods', solemn Chinese goddesses and oval libation cups revealed themselves, jostling alongside early Meissen beakers, St Cloud and Mennecy teapots and jugs and Bow 'sprigged' egg cups and shell-encrusted salts. Everything was what Bonnie called 'blanc de Chine', although strictly speaking some of this glorious array of white porcelain was informed by English silver models rather than Chinese porcelain.
Bonnie had been inspired to collect white porcelain from her travels in China and later from reading T.J. Donnelly's seminal volume, Blanc de Chine. From the purely Chinese porcelain, she widened her passion to the German, French and English counterparts which were influenced by blanc de Chine models and moulded decoration. Joe Handley's collecting tastes, or rather one aspect of his multi-faceted approach, was informed by his friendship with Bonnie Risden. Yet with his innovative and instinctive flair for display, Joe not only presented his collection in a more accessible manner than Bonnie, but he also interposed an additional element into this aspect of comparative collecting by interspersing white figures, especially Bow, amongst his more functional wares, adding a sculptural dimension to his display. The effect of a spectacle of gleaming white porcelain ranging across five countries, at least nine factories, numerous different artefacts and a span of almost 100 years, is both exhilarating and informative, yet also strongly relaxing and calming to the senses.
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