ASIA WEEK NEW YORK 2026 LECTURES
Vase Japon, Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, French, 1774, hard-paste porcelain with silver-gilt mount, H. 10 1/2 in. (26.7 cm), diam. 8 in. (20.3 cm). Purchase in Honor of Anne L. Poulet, 2011
Sèvres Manufactory’s Vase Japon: An Extraordinary Exchange between France and China
Monday, March 23, 2026, 6:30–8:30pm
Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium
RSVP required (Limited tickets for AWNY guests)
Join us for an exclusive presentation in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium on the Vase Japon, a captivating eighteenth-century porcelain vessel of royal French patronage with Chinese imperial origins. In a lively conversation, Marie- Laure Buku Pongo, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts, and Yifu Liu, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow, will reveal new insights into this fascinating decorative object created by the Sèvres manufactory.
We will explore how French Jesuits at the Qing court mediated this diplomatic and artistic exchange between Louis XVI and the Qianlong emperor. The speakers will also introduce other porcelains in The Frick Collection that touch on the same themes. A book on Vase Japon, co-authored by Buku Pongo and artist Arlene Shechet, from the Frick Diptych series, will also be on sale.
Limited tickets for AWNY guests. RSVPs will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
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PAST LECTURE
(From left to right): Vase, probably 19th century, Famille noire porcelain, 27 x 10 1/2 in., Henry Clay Frick Bequest @ The Frick Collection; Dragon Jars with Cover (Pair), Qing Dynasty (1644−1911), Kangxi Period (1662−1722), Hard-paste porcelain with underglaze blue, 3 3/8 x 3 9/16 in. Bequest of Childs Frick in memory of Frances Dixon Frick, 1965 @ The Frick Collection; Vase, Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong Period (1735-1796), Hard-paste porcelain with polychrome overglaze and underglaze blue, 21 x 10 1/2″ @The Frick Pittsburgh
Looking East from Fifth Avenue: Chinese Porcelain at The Frick Collection
Friday, March 20, 2026 from 6–7pm
Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium
Free with registration
Join Yifu Liu, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow, for an illuminating lecture tracing the evolution of Chinese porcelain at The Frick Collection—from Henry Clay Frick’s earliest acquisitions to the museum’s most recent additions. Alongside the famille noire vases, polychrome enameled jars, and mounted wares that Frick cherished, the lecture will introduce lesser-known yet highly valuable imperial porcelain from the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns; blue-and-white wares from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century; and Kangxi export dishes produced for European markets. Liu will examine the historical circumstances surrounding the formation of Frick’s porcelain collection, reevaluate its cultural relevance today, and explore its relationship with the European art for which the museum is best known.
Speaker bio:
Yifu Liu is the 2024–26 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection and a PhD candidate in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. His research explores cultural exchange and the hybridization of artistic practices between Europe and China in the eighteenth century. At the Frick, he is organizing an exhibition on eighteenth-century French fashion plates, Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette, opening April 1, 2026. He is also conducting research on Chinese porcelain in the Frick’s permanent collection. Independently, Liu has curated shows in contemporary art galleries with a focus on Chinese art in a global context.
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UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette
April 1 – August 3, 2026
Organized in conjunction with Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture, this Cabinet installation presents twenty-four hand-colored engravings that depict French fashion in the late eighteenth century. These plates are selected from Gallerie des modes et costumes français (1778–87), the largest and most influential series of its day. No complete set of Gallerie des modes survives today. Many were discarded when fashions changed, and others could have been destroyed during the French Revolution. The Frick Art Research Library has an impressive collection of three hundred and seventy original prints, a selection of which will be on view at the Frick for the first time.
Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette is organized by Yifu Liu, the Frick’s 2024–26 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow, and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.
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PERMANENT COLLECTION
Two Figures of Ladies on Stands, Chinese, Qing Dynasty (1644−1911), Kangxi Period (1662−1722), hard-paste porcelain with polychrome overglaze, 38 × 10 1/4 × 10 1/4 in. (96.5 × 26 × 26 cm)
Two Figures of Ladies on Stands
On View
First Floor, Room 10, Living Hall
A particularly fruitful and innovative period of production, the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the development of new techniques and styles of ornamentation. One of the most important contributions was the invention of overglaze enamel palettes, known as famille vert because they are dominated by translucent green glazes. This porcelain figure of an elegant lady on a stand, and its pair, 1918.8.39, are decorated with a colorful mix of green, red, yellow, aubergine, and blue glazes in a pattern of naturalistic motifs including chrysanthemums, rose blossoms, and flying storks combined with abstract elements like the large wan—a swastika-shaped Buddhist symbol for good fortune—that is repeated on the porcelain bases. The women represent ideal female beauty, as defined by the seventeenth-century writer and aesthetician Li Yu (1611–1680): egg-shaped rather than round faces, eyebrows lightly curved like the leaves of a willow tree, lips resembling cherries, and slim, supple, curved bodies also resembling willow trees. Their delicate hands seem to be offering a fruit or a flower, in China the sign of a good wish extended from a woman to a man. These two figural ceramics were probably made for export to the West; however, their large size made them particularly fragile to ship, and only a few ever reached Europe.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
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