A Chinese Export Blue and White 'Mythological Subject' Hexagonal Coffee Pot and Cover, Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period | 清康熙 青花西洋人物故事圖六方執壺

Anthony Gray, London, 1991

Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2011-17 (on loan).

Shirley Mueller, Inside the Head of a Collector: Neuropsychological Forces at Play, Seattle, 2019, p. 140

The present pot is from a small group of similarly decorated pieces of the same form, which closely copy Dutch Delft originals, the octagonal shape of the pot originally derived from a silver form. The decorations is also closely allied to that found on a small group of blue and white tulip vases / obelisks of the same date. The Chinese Export pieces were presumably copied direct from Dutch Delft examples sent to China. An example of the coffee pot was in the Collection of Mildred Y. and Rafi Mottahedeh, sold in these rooms, October 19, 2000, lot 92, where the note cites other published examples. Another example, formerly in the Wolf Family Collection, sold in these rooms, April 21, 2023, lot 708. More recently a pair of the tulip vases was in the Collection of Mario Buatta, sold in these rooms, January 24, 2020, lot 473.

Shirley M. Mueller, M.D., is a prominent collector and scholar of Chinese porcelain and a physician board-certified in neurology and psychiatry. Combining the disciplines, she authored Inside the Head of a Collector: Neuropsychological Forces at Play (2019) to help explain collectors' often mysterious and little-understood behavior. 

Dr. Mueller has held multiple prominent positions in important institutions, including serving on the board of Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art), Indianapolis, and the American Ceramic Circle. In 2017, she guest-curated an exhibition for the Indianapolis Museum of Art: Elegance from the East: New Insights into Old Porcelain. Her preeminent tea and coffee ware collection was also exhibited at the Museum in The Luxury of Tea and Coffee: Chinese Export Porcelain from The Shirley M. Mueller Collection from 2011 to 2017.