CHINESE PORCELAIN BLUE AND WHITE DRAGON PLATE. Diam.34cm. LOT 52 TO LOT 105 FROM SHI SIMIAN FAMILY COLLECTION IN USA. This lot is not for bidding only for showing. Please bid under each lot below. Thank you. Great grandfather Shi Simian (1869-1954), whose ancestral home was Zhejiang, China, was born during the Guangxu period of the Qing dynasty. He studies in an old-style private school when he was young, mastering eight part essays, classical Chinese poetry and loving painting. At the age of 19, he passed the country exam and became a scholar. He came to Tianjin at the age of 24 and worked as a copywriter in a school in Beiyang through the introduction of his countryman. During the period of the Republic of China, he opened Xinlongxiang store in the French concession. He was fond of collecting antiquities, including official kiln porcelains, stone classics, calligraphy and painting, printing and engraving, Duanxin inkstone, etc. In Tianjin, there were many antique shops in the entertainment park of Japanese concession, Taikang shopping mall and Quanye market of French concession, which were big buyers here. He also made friends with the survivors and warlord politicians living in the Tianjin concession, such as Puyi, Cao Rulin, Wang Yitang, Gong Xinzhan, Xu Shizhang, Lu Zongyu, Zhang Biao, Zhang Hu, etc. After out breaking the war of resistance against Japan, great grandfather deposited his antiquities collection in the warehouse of British business Beauty Art Company in the British concession, with a total of more than 80 boxes. After the victory of the Resistance against Japan War, some of the collections were "robbed" by the receiving personal of the Kuomintang, and some of the collections were inherited by Grandfather Shi Wanhe and his family. During the Cultural revolution in 1966, Grandfather entrusted his institute, the Revolutionary Committee of Tianjin Hongqiao District Coal Construction Company, to hand over their own collection items to prevent them from being damaged by the red guards. All the antiquities, calligraphy and paintings collected at home were checked and sealed up. Since April 1973, the seized property in the Cultural Revolution has been checked and returned, and the seized materials were returned in November of the same year. In 1983, Grandfather arrived in the United States from Hong Kong with this collection and settled permanently.