My brother, David Hyatt King, who has died aged 70, was well-known as a collector of Japanese porcelain.
Born in Hampstead, north London, and educated at Highgate school, David absorbed early knowledge of music bibliography from our father, Alexander Hyatt King, and of art history from our mother, Eve (nee Davies). At the age of 16, he decided to become a collector.
He began with 19th-century Japanese porcelain. This was partly because of his admiration for the designs of the Japanese masters of this period; partly because it was simply too expensive to acquire Chinese porcelain. As a family, we became accustomed to his very early departure each week for Portobello and Bermondsey markets. In these first years, while he lived in Hampstead, he would proudly come home and display the latest acquisition. By the early 1970s, he had a collection of several hundred pieces.
In 1976, he married Annela Meindok; they separated in 1984. In the decades that followed, while David pursued a career as an administrator with the Post Office, and subsequently British Telecom, he widened and deepened his collecting knowledge. He traded pieces as his tastes changed and matured. His eye for a fine item developed acutely. He was very much in the British tradition of amateur collecting; his connoisseurship brought him recognition. For many years, he was a member of the Oriental Ceramic Society. Each autumn, attendance at the Asian Art week in London was a must.
In the last 17 years, he made his home in Suffolk. He married Anne Bradley in 2009, and they enjoyed a happy marriage. He was visited quite frequently by Japanese scholars. David made a number of gifts to national museums – including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. In 2014-15, he and Anne gifted, via the Art Fund, a large group to National Museums Scotland – 342 Japanese ceramics, seven Japanese paintings and 74 Chinese ceramics. Latterly gifts have been made to the Durham University Oriental Museum.
Collecting dominated David’s life; his dedication and his energy were rarely matched by others. He possessed photographic recall of what he had learned, on all subjects. His knowledge of Japanese porcelain history was profound, and it was imparted freely.
He is survived by Anne, by his son, Seth, and granddaughter, Lydia, and by me.
