The bank officer had never handled a loan for a salad bowl before.

Historian John Cox was insistent that he had to have it.

“It was an 18th-century English salad bowl,” he said. “It cost me $3,500 and it took me a year to pay off. That was 1987. It was one of the first pieces in my collection.”

He took his treasure home on his scooter in a box squeezed between his legs.

“When you’re young you don’t think about things like that,” said Mr Cox, 59.

“I had this historic home, Orange Valley, and beautiful artwork,” he said. “I wanted to soften things, although these pieces are by no means informal.”

Today his collection is worth thousands of dollars and includes pieces once owned by European royalty.

“I’m not taking anything home on the bike anymore,” he joked.

He’s going to speak about his porcelain passion tomorrow night at the Bermuda National Gallery, where some of his favourite pieces of French Sèvres porcelain are being exhibited for the first time.

“One of my favourites is a condiment dish once owned by Queen Marie Antoinette of France,” Mr Cox said. “It was made in 1784.

“Her husband, King Louis XVI commissioned a large Sèvres table service. This was all handmade and hand-painted. It took several months to complete. When it was done, the King of Sweden, Gustav III, came for a visit. King Louis didn’t know what to give him so he gave him the new table service.”

Much of the gift can now be seen at Versailles in France.

Marie Antoinette, famous for her “let them eat cake” declaration, was not pleased to see her new table set handed over to someone else.

Her husband commissioned another, this one with a condiment dish to set it apart from his gift to the King of Sweden.

“She was very pleased,” said Mr Cox.

Marie Antoinette was eventually beheaded in the French Revolution. Some of her tableware made it into private collections and into the hands of dealers.

Mr Cox now owns the special condiment dish and several other pieces from the set including two egg cups.

“The egg cups were worth quite a lot,” he said. “I have never eaten eggs off of them. I would be too nervous.”

His collection fills one room in his historic Devonshire home. Visitors are asked to sit, for the safety of his collection. He has two large dogs that he keeps a close eye on.

“Their tails wag,” he said. “That can present a danger. They aren’t allowed in that room without me.”

If there was a fire in his house he would probably try to save his 1757 pink Sèvres hollandaise, a French vase used to display tulips.

It was made for the French Duchesse de Mazarin and centuries later passed into the hands of Baron Édouard de Rothschild of Paris. During the Second World War it was stolen by the Nazis. Years after the war it was returned to the Baron’s son, Guy de Rothschild, and sold to a dealer after his death.

“I bought this piece from a very lovely dealer in New York,” Mr Cox said. “You see her by appointment only. She takes you into her drawing room and offers you champagne. I always take tea or coffee, otherwise I might really lose my head.”

He met the dealer several times and each time she brought out the pink hollandaise to flirt with him.

“She would put it somewhere prominent in the room,” he said.

“I think she really wanted me to see how beautiful it was. I don’t normally go for pink, but this was a really powerful piece despite its femininity. I gradually fell in love with it.”

Mr Cox said he does not buy pieces lightly.

“I have sometimes thought a purchase over for as much as three years,” he said.

“And I don’t want your readers to think I am just throwing money around. These pieces come to me at great sacrifice. I pay each piece off a little bit at a time.”

Mr Cox said he has never regretted a purchase.

“I have always felt it has been worth it,” he said.

After finally getting his treasure home he makes a point of taking the time to enjoy it. However, he’s a bit of an addict.

“When your heart is chasing something and you finally conquer it, then you might think, now that the chase is over, now what,” he said. “Then your heart ends up going for something else. You go on to the next thing.”

His collection will be on display until July 4. It’s part of a new series at BNG that allows a peek at private collections.

Mr Cox’s lecture begins at 6pm. Tickets, $5 for BNG members and $10 for non-members, are available at the gallery, by e-mail — RSVP director@bng.bm — or telephone, 295-9428.

For more information see www.bermudanationalgallery.com.