GENESEO, N.Y. — A rare Chinese Ming-style blue and white ewer, mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795), towered over its estimate of $50/80,000 to finish at $283,000, including buyer’s premium, at Cottone’s auction of fine art and antiques on September 23. The hand-painted porcelain, 10½ inches high, was photographed circa 1900 in the United States legation drawing room in Beijing. It descended in the family of the Honorable Edwin H. Conger (1843-1907), American envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to China, and his wife Sarah (Pike) Conger. As described in letters by Sarah Conger, the ewer was a gift of Dowager Empress Cixi (1835-1908), and her letters also describe her growing friendship with the empress dowager, the flight of the imperial court to Xian to avoid capture by Western forces and Cixi’s return to Beijing on January 7 or 8 of 1902.

As the catalog notes, Mrs Conger was one of the few westerners who believed in making efforts to get to know the empress and members of the court to discover common ground with the Chinese, so that with greater familiarity and understanding, the Chinese may once again take their place among the nations of the world. Conger also clearly understood the indignities and challenges the Chinese had faced, as well as foreign fear and discrimination based on ignorance.

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