The Bullivant Collection of Armorial Porcelain offered by direction of the Exectors of the late Cecil H. Bullivant

English text; Hardcover (with dust jacket. Gilt lettering on front cover and spine of the cloth.); 21.5 x 26 cm; 0.7 Kg; 126 pages with 386 lots some with colour illustrations. Includes loose index of families and relevant lots.; Used with minor signs of wear, except some minor wear signs on the dust jacket front cover, spine and back cover. Interior in very good condition.; Auction catalogue for the sale 27,082 held at Phillips, Son & Neale, London on Tuesday 22 March 1998.; Cecil Henry Bullivant F.S.A. (1882-1981): author, traveller, lecturer, antique dealer and collector. Cecil Bullivant, who was responsible for this important collection of Chinese armorial porcelain, was born at Linslade, Bedfordshire. His early career in magazine journalism was interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1914, when he served in the Royal Navy. In 1919 he turned to freelance writing and wrote many novels, sometimes using pen names such as Francis Everard and Henry Turvile. He travelled abroad extensively with his wife, the former Miss Nelie Copson, whom he had married in 1904. In 1925 he entered the world of antiques, taking over Century House Galleries in Knigtsbridge, London, from Sir Albernon Tudor-Craig, a notable collector of Chinese armorial porcelain, and a business was opened in Cromer, Norfolk, by Mrs Bullivant. In 1945, Mr Bullivant, now retired moved to Minehead in Somerset. Sadly, his wife died shortly after their arrival. A year later he married Miss Muriel Hudson, of Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire. Together they started to form the magnificent Bullivant collection of Chinese armorial porcelain, which has come on the market following the death, last year, of Mrs Muriel Bullivant. Under her will, hospital, children's and animal charities will benefit from the sale. Chinese armorial porcelain was commissioned by British families and institutions in large quantities between 1695 and 1820, much of it being shipped through the port of Canton. David Sanctuary Howard dedicated his definitive work, "Chinese Armorial Porcelain" (1974) to Cecil Bullivant and drew heavily on the Bullivant collection for references and illustrations. In the book, Mr. Howard quoted an anonymous writer on the subject: "If you are a person of imagination (.) buy yourself a cabinet and fill it with pieces of old armorial porcelain (.) and the china will turn novelist (.) A world of ballad and of lost hopes is in it; ideals of the West intermingled with the glamour of the East; in one delicate piece the tale of an English peer and a Chinese mandarin. The sun never sets over this porcelain.".…