When Doris Duke bought this early Chinese jar in 1955, she expressed a shared passion with her parents for Asian ceramics, but at the same time signaled a departure from their narrowly focused interest in later eighteenth-century export ware. As a result, Rough Point is filled with a wonderful range of Chinese pottery from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The distinct monochrome floral decoration of this jar was achieved by cutting away a layer of dark brown glaze to create a contrasting lighter background from the unglazed stoneware body. This is a technique associated with workshops in Northern China from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries named for Cizhou (now called Ci County or Cixian), a prefecture in southern Hebei, which was one of the main centers of production.

This portrait originally hung in Batsford Park, the ancestral home of Thomas Freeman, Jr., Esq. (d. 1788), a member of British Parliament from Steyning in West Sussex. The artist, Prince Hoare, is not a household name by any means, partly because he left painting early on to pursue a career in literature and theatre criticism. He was, however, an accomplished painter and a good friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds who painted the Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Freeman, Jr. (1758-1782), which originally hung alongside the Rough Point painting. The pair were separated when the contents of Batsford Park were sold at auction in 1919. Doris Duke's father, James Buchanan Duke, bought the portrait from the dealer Knoedler & Co. in New York in November 1924.

James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925) was the father of Doris Duke and benefactor of Duke University. His fortune derived largely from electric power and tobacco, a connection discreetly referenced by the cigar in the sitter's right hand. There is a near twin to this portrait hanging in the Duke University Libraries alongside a posthumous portrait of Washington Duke, James B. Duke's father. The Duke University portraits date to 1924, as does the Rough Point portrait, and were likely commissioned to commemorate a $40 million donation made by James B. Duke to the Duke Endowment that same year. The Duke Endowment supported several North Carolina colleges, including Trinity College in Durham, which would later be renamed Duke University after Washington Duke.

Made by Tiffany in 1874 and exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, the silver swan was a latecomer to the collection of Doris Duke. She bought it at auction in 1988, and was so fond of it that she kept it with her on her annual cycle of journeys to homes in Honolulu, Beverly Hills, Newport, New York, and Hillsborough, New Jersey. Given that this might suggest a late-in-life turn to the eccentric, it is worth noting that in the same year, Doris acquired her two Bactrian camels, Princess and Baby.