Page 63 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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comments in the newspapers and amongst the art lovers. We have many visitors every

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day, more than for any other Exhibition we have had up to-day.”
Loo’s promotional activities not only increased an object’s visibility, but also created a

recorded history for it. When the bronze phoenix vessel was offered to Mr. Neinirdorff

for $4,000 on May 8, 1943, Loo could boasted about its illustrious life: It had been

catalogued and exhibited in the 1935-6 International Exhibition of Chinese Art in

London, the 1939 Exhibition of Chinese Bronzes, the 1940 Exhibition of Ancient Chinese

Ritual Bronzes in museums in Detroit and St. Louis, and in the 1941-2 Exhibition of

Chinese Arts in Loo’s gallery (Fig.13b). Loo knew all these could be translated into

market value.

Distribution

Stock

Many objects in Loo’s possession changed hands in a brief period of time. The

“handscroll painting, representing bamboo in a misty day by Ni Yang Lo”, for example,

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came from China in May 1947, and was sold in October 1947 in America. Not all the

objects were put out for immediate sale after they came into Loo’s hands. Loo kept a

private collection, as indicated by the category “C. T. Loo Private”, in the negative

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collections at the Frank Caro Archive.

The boundary between the collection for sale and Loo’s private collection could be

fluid. For example, in 1919 Loo mentioned a painting in his personal collection to the

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C. T. Loo to G. Washburn, March 9, 1949, folder, C. T. Loo & Co.1920-1944, RISDA.
85 Inventory card 87526, FCA.
86 Case 16-18, FCA,