The British Museum has been gifted one of the world’s most prodigious collections of Chinese ceramics, worth £1 billion ($1.27 billion), in what is likely the highest-value donation of art ever received by a UK museum.
The 1,700-piece collection—including a wine cup painted with chickens from the Ming Dynasty—was donated by the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation and has been on long-term loan to the London museum in a dedicated gallery since 2009. Such a high-value donation of art is uncommon in the UK; the last headline-making gift received by the British Museum was a bequest from a late trustee worth £123 million, or $156 million.
Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, called the Percival ceramics an “incomparable private collection.”
He added: “These celebrated objects add a special dimension to our own collection and together offer scholars, researchers and visitors around the world the incredible opportunity to study and enjoy the very best examples of Chinese craftsmanship anywhere in existence.”
Percival David was born in 1892 in Bombay (present-day Mumbai) into a wealthy Jewish family with ties to Iran. He was a baron by way of inheritance, as well as the owner of his family’s lucrative textile and banking business. In 1914, at age 22, he moved to London and after a first purchase of three Chinese ceramics became a passionate collector of Chinese art and literature.
He acquired works during his travels in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and China, with a key stop in Beijing in 1924, where he viewed the Imperial collection. Discovering most of its in boxes, he paid for the restoration of a building to exhibit the prized art and artifacts. In 1927, he officially became an adviser to China’s National Palace Museums.
According to the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation, before his death in 1964, he said he wished to share his collection with the public.
George Osborne, the British Museum’s chairman, said in a statement that the gift was “a real vote of confidence” in the museum’s future as it embarks on its “most significant cultural redevelopment” ever undertaken.
The British Museum is still working to recover from a widely publicized controversy over 1,500 works from its collection that were identified as lost or stolen in 2023. Some of the objects have since been brought back to the museum. In March, the museum sued a former curator it has accused of stealing the artifacts from a storeroom over a 30-year period.
