Page 220 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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delicacies. A committee of debutantes in Chinese costumes will assist a group of Chinese

women at the tea tables.” 423 While the Art Digest and Parnassus reviews presented

images of some of the exhibition highlights, such as the exquisite jade ring of the

Warring States period from Loo (Fig. 73), the New York Times report on the show

featured the photo of Miss Mary Beecher Budd, one of the charming debutantes in the

exhibition preview event (Fig.74). This substitution suggested that an American young

aristocratic woman working for a good cause was as Chinese jade, a symbol of beauty,

preciousness, and virtue.

It is appropriate to pair the debut of young American women with the first all-jade

public display that comprehensively traced the development of this art category in China.

The Parnassus review noted, “The objects almost without exception, have never been

shown before.” 424 The preface in the exhibition catalogue sent a tantalizing message to

the reader, “The charitable purpose helps to loosen the locks that protect the treasure of

the most discriminating collectors.” (Salmony 1939, 13) The debut of charming

American women along with rare Chinese jades invited the viewer to discover the

hidden, fresh, and beautiful. Surrounded by Chinese art objects, the American women in

Chinese costume were performing Chineseness, which was closely associated with

beauty, prestige, fashion, and philanthropy in the public consciousness in the 1930s and

1940s.

The glamorous events featuring beautiful women and artworks, however, formed a

dramatic contrast to the anti-Japanese agenda of this exhibition. Mrs. Theodore

423 New York Times, January 1, 1939.
424 Parnassus, January 1939, 21.