What would we do without collectors?

In a beautifully crafted piece that combines literature and art, Helen Robinson writes: Having a bit more time on my hands lately has allowed me to make progress through my rather ambitious “to be read” list of books. I can now mark off Utz,  Bruce Chatwin’s novel of 1988 that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that same year. This best selling novel traces the somewhat enigmatic life of the unconventional Kaspar Utz during Cold War Czechoslovakia, as it was known in the 1960s.

Utz’s life centres around his precious collection of Meissen porcelain, numbering thousands of pieces. Some might say that he is trapped by his collection. While he is free to leave his country each year to pursue his passion for Meissen, and each time considers how he might defect, he is unable to face living without his collection, so returns each time to live surrounded by his precious pieces.  Is he a prisoner of his own making, or of the Czech Communist State?

Chatwin was known for his spare and highly polished writing style and the slim volume of Utz is clear – no word is wasted and the sentences are as beautifully crafted as a Meissen figurine.

As well as following our unconventional hero, and his devotion to his collecting, the book gives some very interesting insights into the history of porcelain, the production of the Meissen factory and the art of collecting.  Augustus the Strong features of course as both patron and collector. In the National Gallery of Victoria’s Meissen piece we see him dressed as a Roman Emperor standing on a plinth. The book does reveal a little more about what might be underneath those imperial robes according to courtesans of the Saxon Court.

Chatwin did work for a time at Sotheby’s in London. Shortly before his death in 1989, Chatwin recalled meeting with a collector in Prague, during the 1960s. This is believed to be the inspiration for the book. “He had shrunk his horizons down to those of his best friends, who were all porcelain figures seven inches high,” Chatwin said. “He lived like a monk.”

The NGV’s collection includes 58 pieces of Meissen. Several of these are similar to ones mentioned in the book  – The tinker, Scaramouche and Columbine, Cupid bound.  Some excellent pieces coming into the collection through the Felton Bequest in the early 1900s.  The collection of Meissen has continued to grow to include more recently the gorgeous centrepiece The judgement of Paris . No wonder collectors are so driven by Meissen works.

Now I need to track down the 1992 BBC film of the novel….