HAVILAND Charles (EN)

An atypical entrepreneur

Charles Haviland (1839–1921) was born in New York on 7 Janvier 1839 into a family of merchants who were Quakers based in Manhattan and were holders, amongst others, of an import licence for English crockery.

His father, David Haviland (1814–1879), was entrusted by his associates with finding a new product. As French hard porcelain seemed to be the answer, but was practically unknown in the United States at the time, he decided to move to France. He arrived in Limoges in the spring of 1842, accompanied by his wife, Mary Miller, and his three-year old son Charles.  

The growing success of his products on the American market enabled him to rapidly shift from the status of a freight forwarder to that of decorator, and at the end of the 1860s he was at the head of one of the city’s largest porcelain manufactories, the company Haviland & Compagnie. As a result, the production in Limoges underwent exceptional development and the city became an internationally famous porcelain production centre.

Charles Haviland became the Director of the company at the end of the Civil War (1861–1865). Due to various revolutionary events, the commercial context changed, and the clientele and demand evolved. This was also true in France, after the 1870 war and the Paris Commune. A pragmatic manufacturer and a tenacious and indefatigable worker, Charles Haviland was well aware that he needed to produce less expensive wares and, above all, create innovative designs. He adopted avant-garde techniques in the workshops: coal firing, plate calibration, and the replacement of hand-painted decorations by chromolithography. This was considered highly unconventional, but as a foreigner who had recently arrived in France, he was ready to overturn certain traditions that were paralysing the profession. Given the sclerotic state of the decorative techniques in Limoges, he hired a Parisian artist rather than a local decorator. On 1 July 1872, Félix Bracquemond (1833–1914) was appointed, for a period of ten years, as the manager of the ‘artistic direction’ of an ‘Atelier’ located at 122 Rue Michel-Ange in the district of Auteuil in Paris, known as the Atelier d’Auteuil. The aim was to design, draw, and print new decorative elements which would be sent to the Limoges manufactory and applied to the porcelain wares. Here, he developed the technique of chromolithography and adapted revolutionary ideas to the porcelain: suppression of the borders and the free distribution of the decorative elements, developed for his Rousseau service: ‘… a revolution … tracings taken from Japanese objects applied to Creil porcelain …’ (Goncourt, E., 1989, T 2, p. 773; d’Albis, L., 2019). Under his direction, hundreds of radically new decorative schemes were created; their commercial success placed the company Haviland & Co at the avant-garde of the profession for many years. In the Atelier other decorative objects were made, inspired by contemporary artistic movements. Thanks to the influence of Bracquemond and Charles Haviland’s unbridled enthusiasm, French porcelain manufacture experienced one of the most brilliant episodes in its history between 1874 and 1884.  

Did the collection assembled by Charles Haviland influence the products manufactured by the Haviland company? It seems that it did not. Indeed, the collection only took off in 1880, when, to keep up with changing tastes, Charles instructed his draughtsmen to abandon any Japanese influences. In fact, only three of the hundreds of decorative schemes created between 1872 and 1880 used subject matter based on Japanese prints. All three were the work of Bracquemond, who no doubt used the albums in his own collection as a source of inspiration. There are, however, some rare exceptions that can be dated from the 1880s, including a dish adorned with flowers, whose form and decorations are those of a lacquered object. The natural subject matter of the ‘Impressionist’ vases manufactured in Auteuil and, above all, the rustic themes and the simplified decorations of the stoneware of 1884, would probably not have been acceptable without the knowledge acquired though the art of Japanese prints. There is, however, one case where this influence is certain. In a letter dated 2 May 1883 (AD Haute-Vienne, 23J), Charles wrote of his intention to ‘try and reproduce the different types of Chinese porcelain in my collection’. This led to the discovery of the technique of copper-red glazes on hard-paste porcelain in the Haviland workshop, directed at the time by Ernest Chaplet (1835–1909).

It would be tempting to conclude that it was his own production of porcelain that inspired him to build up a collection. Indeed, in 1872, persuaded to do so by Felix Bracquemond, Charles Haviland took the considerable commercial risk of radically changing the style of his products, which, for more than ten years, were influenced by Japanese art. His encounter with Philippe Burty (1830–1890) and other contemporary collectors was decisive. As a highly competitive person, Charles discovered that he too could form a collection. He stayed in Paris more and more often, and from that point onwards he gave free rein to his new passion.

The collection

Charles Haviland’s passion was not limited to Japanese objects. The contents of the eighteen auction catalogues of the Haviland Collection illustrate its diversity  and his judiciousness and sureness in selecting the objects, which ranged from terracotta and marble pieces from ancient Egypt to Impressionist paintings (he commissioned Renoir to paint a portrait of his son), Italian bronzes from the Renaissance, and eighteenth-century drawings, not forgetting the incunables in his library. Charles Haviland’s diverse collection—like most of the collections of Japanese art of the Grand Epoch—was considered at the time as one of the most significant and finest ever assembled.

An insatiable collector

Involved from the outset in running the manufactory, Charles had little contact with the artistic movements of his era and none at all with Japanese art. So, it appears that at that time he had not started his collection. Everything changed with the arrival of Félix Bracquemond. The correspondence attests to the fact that he wrote at length about the Japanese sources of the ‘Rousseau Service’. Mention is made, in December 1872 (APR, letter no. B15), of the presence in the Limoges factory of Japanese albums that seem to have been borrowed from Bracquemond.

The Atelier’s productions obliged Charles to leave his provincial life and meet various figures, and frequent stores. One of his very first acquisitions of Japanese objects dates from the middle of 1874. He bought—no doubt from a store—‘4 lacquered plateaux, 4 plates, and a small bronze vase’, which he described as ‘nothing much to speak of’ (APR, Letter no. B34).

Having become a widower, he married Philippe Burty’s daughter on 27 July 1877. The witnesses at the wedding were Léon Gambetta (1838–1882), Félix Bracquemond, and Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), who recounted that the father-in-law left the reception early to ‘look at Japanese objects in Bing’s shop’ (Goncourt, E., 1989, T 2, p. 745). The sources do not reveal whether Charles had begun to visit this dealer’s store. Given his industrial and familial responsibilities and the time required to acquire enough knowledge, it is reasonable to assume that it was only in the mid 1880s that he began to collect seriously. His correspondence with Hayashi Tadamsa (1853–1906) provides many details about his passion for the Japanese arts and his methods of collecting. The first letter, dating from 15 September 1884, is related to the acquisition of two <i>kakemono</i> (Koyama-Richard, B., et al., 2011, letter no. 1). It suggested no particularly close involvement with the supplier. Apparently, nothing occurred until 1891, the year he acquired the albums, prints, and a screen described as ‘the Kōrin depicting the Kaki [persimmon] tree’, for more than twenty-nine thousand francs (Koyama-Richard, B., et al., 2011, letter no. 44). In the meantime, he had met the seller because he expressed his wish to ‘replace proofs with better ones …. and [to] complete the series’ (Koyama-Richard, B., et al., 2011, letter no. 41). He sent back certain objects and even advised Hayashi on how to convince his clients that they were the first people to see the objects. From 1892 to 1894, he paid twelve thousand francs for acquisitions, which, amongst other items, included netsuke (‘toggles’) and sabre guards, amongst other items; he solicited Hayashi’s help with compiling his catalogue of sabre guards. In 1895, he continued to ask advice, alluding to the acquisition of a médailler (cabinet) for the sabre guards, but he deplored the rampant inflation—at almost 100%—of their prices. He also noted that he had paid, between December and March, an additional twenty-nine thousand francs and owed the same sum again. This added up to a total of around eighty thousand francs, minus the returns, for all his purchases made since 1891. He wrote, ‘I have found this quite exhausting’ and ‘I really do need to control my extravagances’ (Koyama-Richard, B., et al., 2011, letter no. 148); the last known letter from Charles Haviland dates from January 1896. It announced the return of more than four hundred prints worth 7,170 francs and mentioned several others.

A letter dated 1 June 1896, signed by J. L. Bowen, (Koyama-Richard, B., et al., 2011, letter no. 211) asked Hayashi to introduce him to Charles Haviland and Louis Gonse so that he could see their collections of lacquered objects. Hence, Charles was clearly acknowledged as a leading collector of Japanese art.

A considerable collection

It required twelve of the eighteen auctions of the entire collection (which also comprised books, objets d’art, pictures, etc.) between 27 November 1922 and 21 June 1927, to sell all 9,173 items; that is, taking into account the lots, almost 10,000 Japanese objects, collected over a period of forty years by Charles Haviland between 1880 and his death in 1929. The collection was sold by Messrs F. Lair-Dubreuil and H. Baudoin, and the experts were Messrs Charles Vignier (1863–1934) and André Portier (died in 1963).

At the time, the collection consisted of:

• 6,338 prints, including, according to the auction expert, 1,500 exceptional prints. These included 445 Utamaro, 532 Hokusai, and 632 Hiroshige works.

In addition, there were 566 books of prints and 72 paintings.

• 1,060 guards (tsuba) and sabre decorations (kozuka (‘handles’), fushi-kashira (‘collars’ and ‘pommel caps’), and menuki, (‘hilt ornaments’).
• 700 lacquered objects, including 202 inro (box-like seal holders attached to a cloth sash), and 439 diverse boxes (kobako (a box containing incense), suzuribako (‘writing boxes’).
•  544 netsuke (‘toggles’).
• 448 sculptures, (including 192 in bronze, 43 in iron, and 102 in wood), and 111 masks.
•  639 Japanese ceramic objects, including 102 porcelain items and 24 faience pieces.
• 100 diverse objects: weapons, hardstone objects, and cloisonné enamels.
•  175 Chinese porcelain pieces.

The collection was dispersed in French (his family, Georges, his oldest son, and the expert André Portier) and European collections, as well as amongst various American collectors and museums. Objects from the collection regularly appear on the art market. Charles Haviland acquired many pieces from Hayashi. Paris, thanks, in particular, to the universal exhibitions of 1867 and 1878, was the hub of the art market at the time. It is certain that he frequented all the dealers, especially Bing; there is also proof of an acquisition in London. Also, in the Haviland catalogues are several rare mentions of auction acquisitions (Gillot, Burty, and Goncourt), but they were very few of these. The collector seems to have omitted this provenance in in his own catalogue (for which he solicited the help of Hayashi and which has never been found). Some of the prints bear the Hayashi stamp. This means that they were bought directly from him or in an auction, although the first hypothesis is the most likely.

One of the finest collections

Only the collection of Charles Gillot (1853–1903) was considered superior in quality to that of Charles. The preface written by Charles Vignier in the first Haviland catalogue provides us with clues about his method of acquiring prints: he took nobody else’s advice and relied solely on his own eye. A compulsive perfectionist, he did not hesitate when it came to buying prints to buy a second, even third proof, to be sure he owned the best. However, unlike Louis Gonse (1846–1921), for example, he only very rarely exhibited his treasures. As pointed out, somewhat maliciously, by Vignier, most of the prints represented women; but this is hardly surprising, as they were the main source of inspiration for the ukiyoye artists; but, according to the descriptions his collection does not seem to have included erotic prints (shunga), which were much sought after at the time, unless they disappeared in one way or another before the auction.

The objects in the Haviland collection are all of high quality and the mention of ‘ancienne collection Charles Haviland’ (‘formerly in the Charles Havilland Collection’) always adds a certain added value to any objects that are still sold in auction houses. So what is the reason for the exceptionally high quality of his collection? This is probably attributable to Charles’s exceptional taste, as at the time no scientific work existed either in Europe or even in Japan, where there was little interest in such matters, that enabled him to date or identify the provenance of the objects. The first volumes were published as late as 1890 and it is certain that Charles owned them all, whether they were written in French, English, or translated from Japanese. That said, due to their rudimentary nature, as they focused on an area that had never been explored, but above all due to the absence of colour illustrations, they were of very little practical use to anyone wishing to compile a collection. In contrast, because the sales catalogues of other collectors  (those of the Burty auction in 1891 and the Goncourt auction in 1893) contained better descriptions, they were more useful when it came to determining the origin and quality of an object, and that is why, with their sumptuous bindings, they constituted the most important part of his collection of Japanese books. We should note that the reason this does not feature either in the twelve auction catalogues or in the two in his library, is because it has been kept to the present day by the family.

Hence, it was through direct contact with the objects that Charles, like other collectors at the time, became familiar with Japanese art: initially, of course, he worked with his father-in-law Philippe Burty, the pioneer who cultivated japonisme, then with the major contemporary dealers. At the time, the only specialists were Siegfried Bing (1838–1905) and, above all, Hayashi Tadamasa, who is known to have readily made up responses when his knowledge was lacking. And there was interchange amongst collectors, organised by the dealers. But when it came to the purchase, the collector was alone, and it was on his own initiative, with a practised and expert eye, that Charles assembled his collection.

The scholarly knowledge of the experts involved with the Haviland sale, in particular with regard to the prints and the lacquered objects, still arouses great admiration today. Of course, some errors were made from the viewpoint of contemporary expertise, and these mistakes were shared by the collectors at the time: hence, it was noted with regard to the tsubas (‘guards’) and the stoneware, that a good number of them were generously described as being one or even two centuries older than their real age. The explanation behind this curious phenomenon is probably the following; the first collectors focused on contemporary objects, before quickly realising their mistake, as it was fashionable in France to look back on the eighteenth century as a golden age, so Hayashi imitated his contemporaries and readily predated these objects. Also worthy of note is that—although abundantly copied since the seventeenth century—the stoneware created by Ogata Kenzan (尾形 乾山, 1663–1743) and Ninsei (仁清), the two most famous Japanese potters, can be definitively attributed to the masters. Incidentally, many of the ‘Korean-type’ ceramic wares, described at the time as originating from the south of Japan, have now been reattributed to Korea. As a last observation, one might be surprised by the low number of Japanese porcelain wares (15%) amongst the ceramics, but this is probably due to the fact that porcelain items, imported to the West since the seventeenth century (Arita, Nabeshima, Kakiemon, and Kutani wares), were of very limited interest to nineteenth-century collectors, who were looking for novelty.