Roderick Wright Collection 

Production place: Japan, China, Persia, Southeast Asia and Europe

Date range: 17th century to the modern day 

Size of collection: over 1,400 pieces 

This important new collection arrived at the Oriental Museum during Spring 2025.  Its significance lies firstly in the owner’s interest in cross-cultural influence.  Mr Wright has deliberately sought to collect porcelain that shows the influence of Islamic, Chinese and Japanese artists on each other and how all of these combine to influence European ceramic production.  He has looked at how motifs, shapes and designs move between countries, and how these motifs evolve with time as they move. 

The second key area of importance for Durham is the significant group of Chinese export porcelain.  When Rt Hon Malcolm MacDonald split his collection in 1955, the portion that came to Durham comprised mainly the imperial and domestic wares, the export pieces were given to National University of Singapore/Universiti Malaya.  The export porcelains in this collection therefore fill a significant gap in the OM’s current Chinese collections.   

Mr Wright’s other key area of interest focuses on the development of Japanese porcelain, domestically and for export, in the 17th and 18th century which complements the Hyatt King Collection of Japanese porcelain donated in 2016.  The Hyatt King collection focuses on the 19th century and 20th centuries.  Brought together, the two collections would give the Oriental Museum a world class collection of Japanese porcelain from its origins in the early 1600s to the modern day.  

Finally, the collection includes a number of very rare and significant individual pieces.  For example a VOC (Dutch East India Company) bottle decorated with a Star of David made to order for the VOC in Japan.  Only three such pieces are currently known to exist worldwide.  

Current work on this collection

As the most recently acquired ceramic collection at the Oriental Museum, the priority is to undertake cataloguing and digitisation to make the collection available for research and teaching.  Fundraising for this project is underway.  At the same time, the collection has aroused significant interest from a range of artists and other creative practitioners.  Several exhibition projects are also under discussion with partners in Asia.