Page 232 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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spectacle was further illustrated by Wilma Prezzi’s paintings depicting Loo’s objects.

Prezzi was recognized as a faithful presenter of Chinese antiquities because of her

meticulous concern for surface, texture, and color, as Pearl Buck noted, “Here realism is

wanted. The objects are themselves highest art, and must be faithfully presented.” (Buck

1945, Introduction) The sharp sense of reality and immediacy in her works, however, was

deceiving. Through “her grouping of these objects” and “choice of backgrounds” (Buck

1945, Introduction), her painting becomes a theatre to stage new narratives of ancient

Chinese objects. Wilma Prezzi’s meaningful regrouping of objects from different periods

and places imbued the painting with a mysterious and ritualistic atmosphere. The New

York Times review of the 1947 exhibition of her works noticed that the special

arrangement of a group of bronzes of the Shang period from the Pillsbury collection in

the Minneapolis Institute is “centered around an anthropomorphic figure kneeling in an

attitude of worship” (Knox 1947) (Fig.80). The description of this painting in the

catalogue of her painting exhibition, however, reveals the staged nature of this ritualistic

scene (Prezzi 1947, Cat. no. 3, pl. 4). In this painting, Prezzi assembled various objects

from different periods of time. The bronze wine beaker, for example, was dated to the

Shang dynasty (fifteenth-twelfth century BCE), and the central bronze figure, fifth

century BCE.

Loo’s promotion of Prezzi’s works was an ingenious market gambit. Her painting in

oil, which fits comfortably into the Western categorization of art, appealed to a variety of

audiences. They were collected by museums, galleries as well as private collectors. For

buyers who did not collect Chinese art, it could offer a comparatively inexpensive