The J.F. Lovell Collection of Chinese Export Silver

This collection of antique to near antique Chinese export silver pieces came from the estate of Supt. James Franklin Lovell (1892-1964), who served in the Shanghai Municipal Police Force from 1914 to 1939. His remarkable life and career spanned the tumultuous years of post-Republic China and the Warlord Period, experiencing the heady decadence of the roaring 20s in Shanghai as well as the threat of Japanese aggression, Communist sentiment on the rise and the seething underbelly of Shanghai society. In particular from 1935 to 1939, Supt. Lovell was in charge of the Reserve Unit, the world’s first modern SWAT team. 

He oversaw incidents such as numerous strikes in Japanese owned cotton mills in Shanghai (1936), the  Kung Yik Cotton Mill Riot (1937) and several terrorist attacks/assassination attempts by various secret societies, such as that by the Yellow Way Society in 1938. All this on top of the usual state of affairs in 1930s Shanghai- the ongoing civil war, struggles against the deeply entrenched triads, secret societies as well as foreign espionage. All this and more will be explored in-depth in our ongoing Scandalous Silver editorial in the Antiques to Vintage Magazine.

Asides from police work, Mr. Lovell’s hobbies included pigeon racing, which enjoys a long history in China. Whilst pigeon fancying was a hobby amongst Chinese literati dating to the Ming Dynasty, the first racing pigeon club was built by Westerners in Shanghai, 1929- the Shanghai Homing Pigeon Club, which Mr. Lovell was a member of. Some of the best Chinese pigeon breeds at the time, including the Shanghai Sion, was bred by pigeon enthusiasts at the club. A handsome set of Chinese export silver fish servers, presented to Supt. Lovell upon his retirement by members of the club, is also within this collection.


Shanghai Municipal Police Force archive:

https://archive.org/details/ShanghaiMunicipalPoliceRecords?tab=collection&query=Lovell&sin=TXT


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