Response and Responsibility

16 collection was transferred to Nanjing as war with Japan became inevitable. Ye claimed to have begun enameling around 1924 but could not have begun studying at the museum until late the following year. He said it then took him three years of repeated visits to build up his repertoire, so he is unlikely to have been producing convincing copies until perhaps late in 1928. I began to check provenances on all the bottles Ye claimed as his and on those of the same type; sure enough, there were several from the Ko Collection which had been bought prior to that date, some of which were even among those he had claimed from photographs as his work. Figure 9 was bought in Beijing, reputedly from the Imperial Collection, in 1921 or 1922 at the latest (Christie ’ s, London, 12 June 1972, lot 77). Figure 10 , on a yellow glass ground and now in the Grimberg Collection, was bought in Beijing in 1924 (Christie ’ s, London, 14 June 1971, lot 43). Figure 11 was bought in Beijing in 1922 (Christie ’ s, London, 18 June 1973, lot 97); figure 12 , Beijing, 1922 (Christie ’ s, London, 9 October 1974, lot 57), and figure 13 , Beijing, 1922 (Christie ’ s, London, 8 November 1976, lot 100). All of these are of a type attributed to Ye Fig. 10. Yellow ground enamel. Fig. 9. Lot 77. Fig. 11. Ko Collection enamel, lot 97. Fig. 12. Ko Collection, lot 57. Fig. 13. Ko Collection, lot 100. Fig. 14. Group of bottles from the Imperial Collection.