BOURÉE Albert (EN)
Biographical Article
Frédéric Albert Bourée (1838-1914) was the son of Nicolas Prosper Bourée (1811-1886), a diplomat, and Marguerite-Sara Godeau d'Ablou (1804-1865) (Bensacq-Tixier N., 2003, p. 82- 87). Until the 1860s, he followed his father to the various countries where he was posted as consul and, like him, went on to choose a diplomatic career. He married Sophie Epstein (born in 1844), with whom he had three children: Hélène Andrée (1867-1946), Henri (1873-1940), and Marguerite.
Several archival funds make it possible to trace his diplomatic career. The period in which he was stationed in China as envoyé extraordinaire and plenipotentiary minister at the Beijing Legation between June 1880 and May 1883 has been well studied, in particular by Nicole Bensacq-Tixier (2003). This period was marked by the threats of a Franco-Chinese conflict around the question of Tonkin. The Victor Collin de Plancy photographic collection (Archives diplomatiques, ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, fonds photographique, Collin de Plancy, A000076) (1853-1922) offers a rare view of the Bourée family gathered in 1881 in Beijing, alongside the Legation staff.
During this stay in China (in Shanghai occasionally but more commonly in Beijing), Albert Bourée likley brought together most of the Chinese objects forming a collection that can be partially reconstructed thanks to photographs, archival documents, and sales catalogues.
Collecting Chinese objects was a documented practice for many French diplomats stationed in China from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Albert Bourée, Charles de Montigny (1805-1868), Ernest Frandon (1842-1904), and Robert de Semallé (1839-1946) all brought many Chinese objects back to France. This practice is also known in the case of other personnel linked to embassy activities, such as interpreters (Victor Collin de Plancy) as well as representatives of the Catholic clergy (Alphonse Favier), to cite just a few examples documented in the collections of the state or local authorities.
The Collection
Albert Bourée's collection, today scattered across various locations, can only be known from lists of objects published in sales catalogues, a few archival documents, and a photograph of the Chinese ceramics he deposited at the Union centrale des arts décoratifs (UCAD). This information does not provide an exhaustive account of the entire collection, but it allows us to highlight the wide variety of objects he assembled, both European and Asian, as well as their unequal quality. They also highlight Bourée's close contacts with some of the great collectors of his time as well as with French museums. The conditions of their acquisition, however, remain completely unknown.
Today, his Chinese porcelain remains best known, as they appear in a photograph of the permanent exhibition of UCAD at the Palais de l'Industrie in Paris, dated 1895-1896. The main display case in this image contains approximately 115 ceramics which are part of the diplomat's collection (bibliothèque du MAD, Archives de l’UCAD, D1/10). Like many collectors of his generation, Albert Bourée began depositing his Chinese porcelain at UCAD in 1886 (MAD library, UCAD Archives, B2/20). The exact conditions of this process are still little known, but the action was by no means isolated; many Parisian collectors lent collections of all kinds to UCAD during the same period.
On October 24, 1896, Bourée wrote to the UCAD curator Paul Gasnault (1828-1898) that, due to lack of permanent exhibition spaces to showcase the collections he had deposited there, he wished his porcelains to be handed over to the dealer Laurent Héliot (1848-1909) in his absence – he was then posted in Athens.
Through this same dealer, several Chinese porcelains went on to join the collection of Ernest Grandidier (1833-1912) at the musée du Louvre. Several records attest this enlargement of the Louvre exposition, including the minutes of the consulting committee of the national museums dated December 24, 1896 as well as the minutes of a letter dated January 19, 1897 addressed by the directorate of the national museums to Ernest Grandidier, thanking him for the donation of pieces from the Bourée collection (AN 20144787; Chopard L., Déléry C. and Gardellin R., 2020). The comparison of the data provided by the photograph from 1895-1896, Ernest Grandidier's notebooks, and the pieces from his collection now kept at the musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet makes it possible to precisely identify around fifty ceramics from China and at least one from Japan that passed from the Bourée collection to the Louvre. Bourée and Grandidier already knew each other in 1896, as the latter had before 1894 bought a Chinese porcelain libation cup that the diplomat had imported (inv. G 1302, Chopard L., 2021, vol. III, p. 134). They remained in contact thereafter, as shown by the additional purchase in 1900 of a large red copper vase (inv. G 4864, Chopard L., 2021, vol. III, p. 490).
The circle of collectors with whom he was in contact was not limited to Paris, as shown by the sale of a bronze jug from his collection to the American Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) in 1909 (Washington, Freer Gallery of Art, inventory F1909.254a-b).
The exhibition of Chinese porcelain by Albert Bourée at the Palais de l'Industrie seems to have aroused the interest of other dealers and collectors, as evidenced by the catalog of the sale of the collection of Ahmed Bey Ben Aïad in 1900 where seven entries correspond to pieces formerly in the Bourée collection (Lugt 58131, cat. 2, 3, 4, 11, 14, 56, 82). Among them can be noted a large vase (cat. 2) reported as coming from the Summer Palace, the former residence of the Chinese emperors that was sacked by the French and English armies in 1860. Two bronzes reputed to be of similar provenance are present in the catalogue of Albert Bourée's posthumous sale in 1914 (Lugt 74555, cat. 158).
This sale dispersed much of the diplomat's collection after his death. His catalogue includes 38 entries relating to Chinese porcelain, 67 "snuff bottles" in hard stones, ivory, lacquer, bronze, cloisonné enamels or glass and three objects in cloisonné enamel, including a production from the Beijing workshops of the late of the 19th century. The sale also featured around thirty Chinese "bronzes" (statuettes representing deities, animal figurines, small vases, incense burners, planters, water pipes, etc.), a few reputable Japanese and Tibetan bronzes, and around twenty various Chinese and Japanese objects (Chinese jade, Japanese ivories, etc.). These objects are followed by some furniture, including a pair of Indian armchairs and pieces purchased in Tonkin and eighteen lots of Chinese textiles (dresses, altar fronts, etc.), some of which had previously been published in the collection Étoffes de la Chine, tissus et broderies (undated) prefaced by Henri d’Ardenne de Tizac (1877-1932) [pl. 2, 4-10, 15b]. Some of these fabrics can be seen in a photograph of the 1895-1896 exhibition at the Palais de l'Industrie (MAD Library, UCAD Archives, D1/10) without being able to affirm that they already belonged to Albert Bourée . The small number of photographs in the catalogue makes it impossible to precisely characterise or date the works sold in 1914.
The family probably kept part of the collection after the death of Albert Bourée, as shown by some pieces recently sold in France (vente Rouillac, Vendôme, 26 January 2014, lots 17, 28; Rouillac sale, Tours, 24 March 2014, lots 97, 129-131).
