Monday NOVEMBER 10, 2025
2:00pm - 3:30pm
The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive
Greenwich, CT 06830
Bonus lecture courtesy of the CT Ceramics Circle
Image courtesy of Becky Mac Guire. Chinese porcelain jar with Franciscan emblem, hard paste porcelain, Qianlong period, circa 1740, H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm). Albuquerque Foundation, Sintra, Portugal.
speaker : BECKY mACgUIRE
Becky MacGuire retired from Christie’s after a 30-year career as the firm’s senior specialist in Chinese export art. A senior vice president of the firm, Becky was also Director of the New York Exceptional Sale. After graduation from the University of California at Berkeley with honors in art history, Becky completed the program of the Study Centre for the Fine and Decorative Arts at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She was an original appraiser on the American Antiques Roadshow and among the earliest members of The Chinese Porcelain Company staff. Author of Four Centuries of Blue and White: The Frelinghuysen Collection of Chinese & Japanese Export Porcelain (Ad Illisum 2023), MacGuire has most recently been guest curator for the inaugural exhibition of the Albuquerque Foundation in Portugal. Her forthcoming book will cover the much overlooked and intriguing Chinese export enameled wares made in the first decades of the 19th century, the sunset years of the classic export trade.
The Albuquerque Foundation opened its doors in late February 2025 with an exhibition celebrating the stories of cross-cultural encounter that are reflected in its magnificent collection. Known to many from its publication in six large volumes (The RA Collection, vols. I-VI, by M.A. de Matos et al, 2011-2022), the collection formed by Renato de Albuquerque over six decades focuses on Chinese ceramics, but also includes Japanese ceramics, paintings and lacquer; Chinese painted enamel, carvings and bronzes; China trade painting and works of Anglo-Portuguese art.
In this talk Connections guest curator Becky MacGuire will discuss how she drew from the more than 2500 diverse works of art in the collection for this inaugural exhibition. Aiming to introduce the collection to visitors both new to the field and experienced, the exhibition explores the many ways in which these objects speak to us of networks of influence – and of human commonality – in the early modern world.
A virtual tour of the exhibition will include views of the Foundation's home in Sintra, Portugal, where it is housed in an historic quinta with expansive gardens, now joined by state-of-the-art galleries and storage.
The talk will also make note of the contemporary ceramics program, which is an integral part of the Foundation's mission. Housed in a stand-alone gallery on the Foundation grounds, its opening exhibition is The Ever-Present Hand by Theaster Gates, in which the artist has incorporated a small number of pieces from the historic collection.
Admission is free. Register at: www.cceramicsc.org