No . 133 The Trusty Servant
In the early 1970s he took bids at Christie ’ s Geneva , standing on an umpire ladder to see down the long ballroom of the Hôtel Richemond . He was then sent to New York to help set up a new saleroom on Park Avenue .
Even with this new international focus , du Boulay retained an interest in all aspects of Chinese art and culture . He and Judith were among the first foreigners to visit the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi ’ an , at a time when only a quarter of its terracotta warriors had been excavated .
Du Boulay left Christie ’ s in 1980 , taking his last auction at its Amsterdam saleroom that summer . Following his departure , he worked with the National Trust , valuing objects being considered for acceptance in lieu of inheritance tax . He subsequently catalogued ceramics housed across the Trust ’ s network of sites .
In later life , du Boulay settled in Dorset , where he built a house on the
water meadows near Dorchester , and set up a charitable trust which , among many other activities , supported the development of Dorset County Museum . He gave key pieces from his porcelain collection to his old school , to sit alongside the Duberly Collection in the Winchester College Treasury .
Other works from his private collection were auctioned at Bonhams in 2003 , when the Chinese government acquired one highly important blue and white plaque from the Ming dynasty . Latterly , he sold his ‘ study collection ’ at Duke ’ s Fine Art Auctioneers .
Du Boulay served on the London Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches , and was a director of the French Huguenot Hospital ( La Providence ) in Rochester , Kent . He wrote many catalogues and several books on his subject , among them Chinese Porcelain : Pleasure and Treasures ( 1963 ); Chinese Porcelain ( 1973 ) and Christie ’ s Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics ( 1984 ).
An impulsive , generous and sociable character , du Boulay was as likely to be found in the company of assorted luminaries – he struck up a friendship with Roger Moore at a dinner in Gstaad – as he was porcelain collectors . He particularly liked to recount his lunch with the Queen Mother at Clarence House , at a table decorated with the finest Chelsea porcelain .
His tendency to volatility was masterfully controlled by his wife Judith , to whom he was dedicated . She was able to transfix him with a steely glance and a laconic ‘ Really , Anthony ,’ if matters got out of hand . All who knew the couple understood that she was his greatest find of all . She predeceased him by six weeks . There were no children of the marriage .
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