Spencer (third from right) and other British delegates visited Qi Baishi during their staying in Beijing in this file photo.[Provided by Sotheby's Hong Kong to China Daily]

Stanley Spencer's painting The Ming Tombs. [Provided by Sotheby's Hong Kong to China Daily]

Sotheby’s Hong Kong will display a rare work by renowned British artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) that was painted in response to the emotional impact of the Royal Mausoleum of Ming in Beijing at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center from April 1-6, during the auction house’s spring sales.

The painting, Ming Tombs, estimated at HK$ 1-1.5 million, forms part of The Evill/Frost Collection, a magnificent collection of the 20th century British art ever come to the market.

It sheds enthralling lights on a little-known trip to China by a British cultural delegation in 1954, 18 years before the momentous visit by Richard Nixon and his entourage. The delegation set off for Beijing upon Premier Zhou Enlai’s invitation to come and see the New China.

“The picture was painted by Spencer during this visit. For an artist who had spent most of his life in the small British town of Cookham (Spencer’s birth place), coming to China must have been extraordinary at the time. Meanwhile, his painting symbolizes an incredibly early moment in the New China’s relationship with the West,” Patti Wong, chairperson of Sotheby’s Asia, says.

British writer Patrick Wright uncovers the interesting stories of Spencer and other three delegates that made this journey in his book Passport to Peking: A Very British Mission to Mao’s China, published in October, 2010 by Oxford University Press.

The book says that Spencer was welcomed by his Chinese hosts, who came to regard him as an English equivalent of Qi Baishi, the Chinese painting maestro.

“The comparison no doubt pleased Spencer, who had visited the Chinese master and had come away full of admiration. So great, in fact, was Spencer’s admiration, that while the other delegates on the trip went out shopping for silk and other souvenirs, Spencer spent his Chinese money on three paintings by Qi Baishi and had them sent back to his home in Cookham.” (An excerption from the book)

The delegation spent much of the first week upon their arrival in Beijing sightseeing, the book says. One day they were driven to the valley of the Ming Tombs after visiting the Great Wall. Spencer later declared in his letters to friends that “the great thing of yesterday was the Ming Tombs,” and that he became “personally acquainted with that lovely double row of animals. Oh they are wonderful,” according to Wright’s book.

The trip also included a notorious visit to the residence of Zhou Enlai, who invited delegates to share their impressions of China and their views about how to build up a new Sino-UK cultural exchange.

“The ensuing silence was broken by Stanley Spencer, and there are various versions of what Spencer said. According to his brother, Spencer stepped in and responded warmly to Chou En-lai’s declaration that the Chinese were a ‘home-loving people’ by stating ‘So am I... it took China to get me away from Cookham’. And responding to Chou En-lai’s comment about ‘New China’ Spencer responded ‘Yes... we ought to know the New China better. And the New ‘China ought to know Cookham better. I feel at home in China because I feel that Cookham is somewhere near,’” the book says.

The painting and other works from the The Evill/Frost Collection will later on be exhibited in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City and the last leg, London, where they will go under the hammer on an evening sale by Sotheby’s London.