Page 49 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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supplies him with first-rate antiquities. According to Loo, the wall paintings included in

his 1949 catalogue, Chinese Frescos of Northern Sung, were found by his traveling buyer

(Fig.10). Loo wrote, “During my second visit to China after the First World War in 1923,

our Peking office offered me a dinner, with all the members of our firm. Among those

present, was one of our traveling buyers, who mentioned to me that somewhere near the

Honan-Shansi border, there was a ruined temple in which still remained some fragments

of wall paintings that we may have the chance to secure...” (Loo 1949, Introduction) Loo

mentioned that in the late 1920s an expert buyer stationed by his firm secured nearly

everything that came out from the tombs in Jincun village (Loo 1950, Preface).

It is also worth noting that Loo’s connection to the Guomindang government in China

put him in a privileged position to acquire and export Chinese antiquities. Edward von

der Heydt, Loo’s client and close friend, observed, “Being in touch with important people

of the then comparatively new kuo-min-tang regime, he was able to know of precious

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works of art which had been hidden from the storms of many revolutions.” (Heydt

1957, 186)

Not all the object that Loo offered for sale in the U.S. came directly from China. With

his social network and branches in Paris and New York, Loo was able to acquire Chinese

antiquities from a variety of Euro-American sources. The bronze kneeling figure that Loo

introduced to the Pillsbury collection (Minneapolis 50.46.114), for instance, was in the

possession of Emorphopolous, a renowned collector of Chinese art in England (Fig.11)

The terra-cotta actor figure, which was offered to the Rhode Island School of Design

42 One of the mural fragments is in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
43 kuo-min-tang (guomindang) refers to the Nationalists.