Page 104 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

104

objects of the highest quality on a regular basis, but also provided guidance to newer or

less prominent museums. In terms of category, Loo’s sales to leading museums

concentrated on monumental stone sculptures, which were impressive in size, quality,

and price. Loo’s introduction of the stone sculpture collection at the MFA and UPM

offers two cases in point. Between the1920s and the 1940s, the MFA purchased from Loo

a group of important stone sculptures, including the Buddhist votive stele (MFA 23.120),

the Buddhist shrine (MFA 22.380), the stone lion (MFA 40.70), and two Tang panels

with palace ladies in relief (MFA 37.248, 37.249) (Fig. 17, 14, 7, 9). At the UPM, C. T.

Loo’s name has been notoriously associated with two relief panels depicting the chargers

of Taizong, the founding emperor of the Tang dynasty (Fig.20a,b). Being among the most

important Chinese sculpture pieces outside of China, these two panels were sold to the

museum in the late 1910s and the early 1920s for $125,000 (Zhou 2001, 44). The

outstanding collections that Loo supplied to top museums provided models for museums

of lesser stature. Stewart Culin, curator at the Brooklyn Museum, in his letter to the

museum trustee, Frank L. Babbott, referred to the UPM’s monumental stone sculpture

216
collection from Loo as a model for his museum’s future acquisition. In his letter to the

Worcester Art Museum director concerning the bronze finial with a standing figure that

the museum acquired from Loo (WAM 1941.47), Loo compared it with the famous

bronze figure holding two birds that he sold to the MFA (MFA 31.976), “It should be

classified in the same period and origine (sic) as the Standing Bronze Figure holding

sticks topped with a jade bird, actually in the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston.”

(Fig.30) 217

216 S. Culin to Frank. L. Babbott, Jan 23, 1928, BMAA, See Chapter Five, p.204.
217 C. T. Loo to C. Sawyer, November 17, 1941, WAMA.