# The David Vases > Unidentified Jingdezhen-region kilns, Yuan dynasty - 1351 CE (11th year of the Zhizheng reign, Yuan dynasty) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/jingdezhen-yuan-kilns/david-vases-british-museum/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-18 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unidentified Jingdezhen-region kilns, Yuan dynasty - **Date:** 1351 CE (11th year of the Zhizheng reign, Yuan dynasty) - **Medium:** Porcelain, painted in underglaze cobalt blue - **Dimensions:** Each vase approximately 63.5 cm high, 20.5 cm wide at the broadest point (published figures vary slightly by source, between 63.5 and 63.8 cm high and 19.6 and 20.5 cm wide; the British Museum's own figures have not been independently confirmed in the sources consulted for this record) - **Object type:** Ceramic - **Period:** Yuan dynasty (Mongol China), mid-14th century - **Current location:** British Museum, London, Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies, Room 95 (the Sir Percival David Collection gallery) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A matched pair of blue-and-white porcelain temple vases, each about 63.5 centimetres tall, made at the Jingdezhen kilns and inscribed with a dedication naming a donor, Zhang Wenjin, and a date equivalent to 1351. Sir Percival David bought them separately, from different dealers, years apart, and recognised from their inscriptions that they belonged together; reunited in his hands in 1935, they became the first securely dated example of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain known in the West and rewrote the chronology of the whole class of ware.They are the centrepiece of the Percival David Collection, which David gave to the University of London in 1950, which moved to the British Museum on long-term loan in 2009 after a funding crisis closed its Bloomsbury home, and which the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art formally gave outright to the British Museum in April 2025 in what the museum describes as the largest gift in its history.Neither vase carries a maker's mark. The identity of the donor is itself disputed: the crude calligraphy set against the imperial dragon-and-phoenix imagery has led scholars to wonder whether "Zhang Wenjin" conceals the rebel leader Zhang Shicheng, active in the same region two years later. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1351** Xingyuan temple of Generalissimo Hu Jingyi (Daoist), near present-day Wuyuan County, Jiangxi `[documented]` (commission and dedication) Commissioned by Zhang Wenjin of Yushan County as a pair of altar vases together with an incense burner (not surviving/not identified), dedicated per the vases' own inscriptions on a propitious day in the fourth month of the eleventh year of the Zhizheng era (1351). - **1351-c. 1920** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, location, or event is documented for approximately 570 years. Neither vase's route out of China, nor the date either left, is recorded in any source consulted. - **c. 1920-1927** Mountstuart William Elphinstone (1871-1957) `[documented]` (import to England / private ownership) Elphinstone is recorded as having brought this vase (later PDF,B.614) to England around 1920. How or from whom he acquired it in China is not documented in the sources consulted. - **unknown-1935** Charles Ernest Russell, said via the dealer Wu Laixi from a priest of the Zhilun temple, Beijing `[disputed]` (private ownership, prior chain unverified) Russell's account of his vase's origin (later PDF,B.613), relaying a claim that it came from a Beijing temple priest via the dealer Wu Laixi, could not be verified when first reported and has not since been corroborated. Russell's own ownership by the time of the 1935 sale is documented; the chain before that is not. - **1927-1964** Sir Percival David (1892-1964) `[documented]` (purchase and reunification) David purchased the Elphinstone vase in 1927. He purchased the second vase at the Sotheby's, London, sale of the Charles E. Russell collection in June 1935, for 360 pounds, having recognised from the matching inscriptions that the two vases were a dedicated pair. This reunited the pair in single ownership for the first time since 1351, so far as is documented. - **1950-2007** Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art (University of London / SOAS), 53 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury `[documented]` (gift and public display) David gave his full collection, including the vase pair, to the University of London in 1950, establishing the Foundation. Public gallery opened at 53 Gordon Square on 10 June 1952; the Foundation also functioned as a teaching resource for SOAS's Chinese art programme. The Gordon Square premises closed at the end of 2007 after a funding cut of more than two-thirds to the Foundation's annual budget in 2006. - **2009-2025** Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art (owner), on long-term loan to the British Museum, London `[documented]` (long-term loan and public redisplay) Long-term loan agreed after the 2007 closure; Room 95, the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies, opened 23 April 2009, sponsored by Sir Joseph Hotung, displaying close to the full collection with the David vases positioned near the gallery entrance. Ownership remained with the Foundation throughout this period; the British Museum was borrower and exhibitor, not owner. - **2025-present** British Museum, London (outright ownership) `[documented]` (gift completed) The Foundation's trustees announced intent to gift the entire collection outright in November 2024; the Charity Commission approved the necessary amendment to the Foundation's governing document in March 2025; ownership transferred on 2 April 2025. Widely reported as the most valuable single gift in the British Museum's history, valued at approximately one billion pounds for the collection as a whole (no separate valuation for the vase pair alone has been published in the sources consulted). The vases remain on display in Room 95; selected other pieces from the wider collection were separately arranged for loan to the Shanghai Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1935-06** Sotheby's, - Estimate: Not documented in the sources consulted. - Hammer: GBP 360 - With premium: Not separately documented in the sources consulted; a buyer's premium in the modern sense was not standard London auction-house practice in 1935, so the hammer figure and the total price paid are likely the same or very close, but this record does not assert that as fact absent a source stating it explicitly. - Sale of the Charles E. Russell collection, London, June 1935. Percival David purchased the second of the two vases (later catalogued PDF,B.613) at this sale, reuniting the pair. No lot number, sale catalogue title, or estimate has been recovered from the sources consulted for this record; the figure of GBP 360 for the hammer price is reported in secondary literature and has not been cross-checked against a Sotheby's sale record directly. ## Open questions - Where were the two vases between their dedication in 1351 and their documented appearance in English collections in the 1920s? No owner, inventory, or location is recorded for roughly 570 years. - Who was Zhang Wenjin? The mismatch between the vases' elite imagery and the inscription's uneven, unofficial calligraphy has never been resolved, and the proposal that the name conceals the rebel leader Zhang Shicheng remains speculative and unconfirmed by any independent record. - Where is the incense burner named in both inscriptions as part of the original three-piece altar offering? It has never been located or identified. - Is the claimed chain of custody for the Russell vase, from a priest at the Zhilun temple in Beijing through the dealer Wu Laixi to Charles Russell, accurate? It could not be verified when first recorded and remains uncorroborated. - Were the vases made at the Hengfeng Zhen kilns near the Xingyuan temple, or at Jingdezhen's main kiln complex and transported? The Hengfeng Zhen attribution is a proposal in the literature, not an established finding. - What, if anything, is documented about the Xingyuan temple itself and the cult of Generalissimo Hu Jingyi, beyond what the vases' own inscriptions state? No source consulted for this record supplies an independent temple history. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'David Vases' (full article text and wikitext, including bibliography citing Krahl and Harrison-Hall 2009 and the British Museum's own object page). Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the British Museum catalogue entry and Krahl/Harrison-Hall 2009 directly. - [2] China Online Museum, 'Yuan: The David Vases', descriptive and provenance summary including the Elphinstone and Charles Russell acquisition chain. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Percival David', biographical summary of Sir Percival David including his collecting history, the 1927 and 1935 acquisitions, and the Oriental Ceramic Society and Ko Ku Yao Lun details. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art', history of the Foundation, the 1950 gift, the 2007 Gordon Square closure and funding crisis, the 2009 loan to the British Museum, and the 2025 outright gift. - [5] Antiques Trade Gazette, 'Percival David collection moves to British Museum' (2007), on the funding crisis and loan terms. Retrieved via search summary; direct page fetch returned HTTP 403 and could not be independently re-verified in full; flagged for a follow-up direct check. - [6] Museums + Heritage Advisor, 'British Museum to receive historic GBP 1bn collection gift', on the 2024-2025 gift announcement, Charity Commission approval, Room 95/Hotung sponsorship, and the Colin Sheaf quotation. - [7] Krahl, Regina, and Jessica Harrison-Hall. Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection. London: British Museum Press, 2009. ISBN 9780714124544. The Museum's own catalogue of the collection, cited here via its Wikipedia bibliography entry; not directly consulted in full text. Flagged for direct consultation. Not directly consulted; cited here via its appearance in Wikipedia's own bibliography (source 1), which is the URL given here pending direct verification of the original 2009 catalogue. - [8] Gerritsen, Anne. The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World. Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN 9781108499958. Consulted via publisher's book description and chapter abstracts for the Jingdezhen cobalt-sourcing and Yuan-to-Ming production context; full monograph text not directly consulted. Flagged for direct consultation of the relevant chapters. - [9] Wikimedia Commons file page, File:The David Vases.jpg, for image licence (public domain, released by photographer Szilas) and description. - [10] Wikimedia Commons file page, File:Room 95 David Vases 6747.JPG, for image licence (CC BY-SA 3.0, photographer Patche99z, dated 4 May 2009) and description. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.