Discovering Chinese Art in Wroclaw—Insights from the Neisser and Nowicki Collections
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a fashion for Chinese and Japanese culture as well as for chinoiserie and japonaiserie appeared in European applied art. Remarkable collections of Chinese art that have yet to be studied in depth emerged in both German and Polish regions. This article will discuss two prominent collections of Chinese art in Wrocław (known as Breslau before 1945)—the Neissers and Nowicki collections. They are, respectively, representative collections of Chinese art in Central Europe at the turn of the 20th century and the second half of the 20th century.
Following German unification in 1871, the colonial expansion of the German Empire allowed for the trade of Reich-produced goods overseas. Concurrently, German aristocracy and rich merchants turned their attention to the new possibilities of the art trade, facilitated by the German presence in China. Following the end of WWII, Breslau, the central European city in the historical region of Silesia, passed from German to Polish hands and was renamed Wrocław. The city’s turbulent history, location, and historical significance allow us to observe an interest in Chinese art in the context of two different nationalities within a single city, underscoring a common pan-European taste for East Asia.
In the years before WWII, Chinese art was particularly admired in the German city by the Jewish couple Albert and Toni Neisser. Professor Albert Neisser (1855–1916) was a pioneer in dermatology and received several Nobel Prize nominations. His wife, Toni, daughter of a wealthy industrialist, invested her financial resources in the promotion of art by supporting artists and museums. Her good taste and knowledge of art history inspired Albert, who soon began sharing her interests. Aside from Asian art, the Neissers were also devoted to contemporary art, literature, and music.
After WWII, as Polish boundaries were annexed or expanded, Breslau became the Polish city of Wrocław. In earlier Poland, interest in Chinese culture was partly related to the activities of Polish Jesuits, who had disseminated knowledge about Asian civilization since the 17th century. Jan III Sobieski (1629–96), for example, created a collection of East Asian artworks in the Wilanów Palace close to Warsaw. Moreover, August II and August III of the Saxon Wettin dynasty extended their interest in Asia from Germany to Poland. However, Polish rulers and magnates treated objects of Chinese origin as peculiarities rather than works of art. A breakthrough came with the book by Stanisław Kostka Potocki, On the Art of the Ancients, or the Polish Winckelmann, published in 1815. The innovative fourth chapter, ‘On the Art of the Chinese’, was the first of its kind in Europe to recognize Chinese art as an indispensable element in our understanding of the development of art in general. However, it did not align with the timeline on which Potocki and his contemporaries based their work—from the ancient civilizations of the Middle East to the peak achievements of classical Greece and Rome. Although Potocki made efforts to systematize and evaluate knowledge about Chinese art and, to some extent, Chinese civilization, he did not consider it to be a part of the mainstream progression of art history. Instead he emphasized the unchanging and indisputable durability of Chinese civilization, presenting Chinese art as a ‘living antiquity’ arrested in development and a useful didactic tool allowing one to imagine early studies into human evolution. In the imitative skills of Chinese artists, Potocki identified the possibility of advancement through the assimilation of European, classicist forms and aesthetic values. Such an approach was quite innovatory in the period of early 19th century Classicism, helping to transfer Chinese art from the domain of exotic curiosities into the common cultural heritage.
This shift in perception caused Polish artists of the 19th and 20th centuries to eagerly travel to China and other Asian countries. Poles, including exiles after the uprisings of 1831 and 1863 and the revolution of 1905, were acquainted with the peoples of East Asia, including the Chinese and their culture. Despite this, there was little development in research on Chinese art in Poland in the 19th century. The attention of art historians usually did not extend beyond the culture of their own country (or Europe at most) as a means of maintaining national identity— an attitude that continued into the 20th century. Nonetheless, the influence of Chinese art on Polish painting remains noticeable in the works by painters of the Young Poland period at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The interest in collecting Chinese art continued in Wrocław in the second half of the 20th century. A particularly keen collector, Romuald Nowicki (1931–2010), professor at the Wrocław University of Technology, and his wife, Danuta Kohlberger- Nowicka (1943–2002), created a collection of ancient Chinese and East Asian artefacts comprising over five hundred objects.
Magdalena Kozar is Conservator, Restorer, and Art Historian specializing in ceramics, glass, and Japanese lacquer. She is currently undertaking projects at the Porzellansammlung Dresden (Dresden Porcelain Collection) and Porzellanklinik Dresden.
The full article can be found in Orientations July/August 2021, pp 37-45
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