Page 145 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Guan were admired for their uprightness and longevity by their contemporaries and

descendents. The inscription also provided important evidence to date the painting. Kwen

observed, “ The picture was painted by an artist of the Sung dynasty, for it is in the style

of that period; and the inscriptions in prose and poetry, written on it are by men of the

Sung 宋, Ming 明 and Ts’ing 清 dynasties. It should therefore be highly valued.” (Kwen

1916, Cat. no. 60) 300

The significance of the inscription, however, was lost in the West because many early

Western scholars and collectors either neglected inscriptions or were unable to read them.

While the naturalistic and life-like images in this album attracted American collectors,

the section that bears inscription was not well received. According to Loo’s associate

Chang-Foo Yau, when this album was brought to the United States for sale in the 1910s,

no client was interested in the inscription section without images. It was sent back to

Shanghai.

Compared to paintings, Chinese bronzes arrived in America as even more unfamiliar

objects. According to Loo, the beginning of the Western collection of Chinese ancient

bronzes was marked by his introduction of a bronze vessel yu to the Eumorfopoulos

collection in 1910 (Loo 1940). The paucity of knowledge about Chinese bronzes in

America was noted by the Art News review of Loo’s 1924 exhibition, “…criticism of it

300
Here the “song ren” (people of the Song dynasty) in the Chinese version of Kwen’s
text was translated as “an artist of the Sung dynasty” in the English version. The idea of
“artist” was a Western concept.