Page 174 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Aldrich Rockefeller, and Mr. and Mrs. Havemeyer 366 were attracted to the notion of the

“spiritual East”. All of them had a collection of Buddhist art carefully placed in a

ritualistic setting (Fig. 54). David Rockefeller wrote in his memoire of his mother Abby

Aldrich Rockefeller after her 1921 trip to Asia, “…Within a few years she had set aside

special ‘Buddha’ rooms in our New York City and Mount Desert Island, Maine, homes to

display these works of art. She kept these rooms dimly lit and burned incense in them to

enhance the East Asian atmosphere.” (Rockefeller 2006, 38)

In market terms, Loo translated the cherished notion of age and history in America into

qualities such as rarity and preciousness, which enhanced the commercial value of an

object. A sale of Loo’s collection in the 1910s, for instance, was advertised as “Early

367
Chinese Rarities.” In the offer of a pottery Lohan statue (Met 21.76), Loo emphasized
its age to entertain the antiquarian taste of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Fig. 18) In the letter,

Loo attempted to convince him that the Lohan statue was superior to Ming and Qing

pieces, “It is of the 8th or 9th Century and is as remarkable in color and glaze as that of

the Ming and Kangshai biscuit 3 color figures which you are so greatly interested in, only

this one has instead of pure porcelain body, the stone buff paste, and the color has been

366 Julia Meech noted that the Havemeyers did not collect Western religious art, yet
Buddhist paintings are prominent in their Asian collection. “There was the lure of the
exotic, as well; a Buddhist deity was palpable evidence of the unknown, mysterious, and
romantic Orient, which many nineteenth-century Westerners, disillusioned by the
industrial revolution, found appealing.” (Meech 1993,140)
367 American Art News, May 6, 1916, 5.