Page 164 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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as well as early Chinese sculpture, frescoes and paintings.” (Fuller 1958, 8) Loo was

also noted for his knowledge about Chinese history. Loo’s client Edward von der Heydt

wrote, “I was at once surprised to find not the usual dealer who just sells and buys works

of art, but somebody with great taste in art and a real understanding of the old Chinese

philosophy and the history of this wonderful country.” (Heydt 1957, 186)

The manipulation of the temporal element was crucial to Loo’s dealing. The inclusion

of a chronology table in Loo’s sale/exhibition catalogues indicates Loo’s heavy reliance

on the construction of a temporal-cultural framework in which Chinese art objects could

be evaluated, studied, organized, and displayed. In Loo’s dealing, time in Chinese art was

directed to the past as well as to the present and the future to adapt to the changing

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situations in America and China in first half of the twentieth century.
America’s Fascination with Chinese Antiquities

America’s involvement with Chinese antiquities answered its deep socio-political and

psychological needs. In Europe, collecting and displaying antiquities for centuries had

been instrumental to the articulation of national identity and control over distant lands

and peoples. The United States was no exception. Its ascension to the leading world

power in the twentieth century went hand in hand with the formation of major American

342
collections of antiquities from China and other ancient civilizations. America’s

fascination with ancient Chinese art was part of its ideology of nationalism and cultural

internationalism. Okakura Kakuzo, the early twentieth-century curator of Chinese and

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Johannes Fabian observed that in anthropological context, the Other was tied to the
past.
342 The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston conducted
expeditions to Egypt.