Page 64 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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MFA curator Lodge, “ It is the only one owned by me personally and I have never shown

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it to any of my clients.” After showing it to Lodge, Loo offered it for sale at the price of
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$25,000.

Loo kept a large stock of antiquities, which would increase in value over time. The

review of the 1931 Exhibition of Chinese, Indian and Cambodian Art was impressed by

the quality of the items on display despite the difficult situation in the Asian art market.

The review suggested, “Perhaps Mr. Loo has had these treasures well hidden for decades

in his Paris cellars.” (Jayne and Fernald 1931, 25) This speculation was confirmed by

Loo’s correspondence with K. Tomita in 1947. Loo mentioned that he was taking out for

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sale a bronze, which he acquired two or three years before the war in the Pacific.

Loo’s 1940 Exhibition of Chinese Stone Sculptures was a calculated market move in

response to the draining sources of Chinese sculpture due to years of pillage and the

Chinese prohibition against exportation of its national treasures (Salmony 1940b, 8). The

Art Digest review of exhibition noted, “Some of the stones have been in the firm’s

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possession in Paris for upwards of 20 years.” Loo’s strategy capitalized on the rule of

supply and demand, as indicated by Loo’s prediction of the increased value of stone

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C. T. Loo to J.E. Lodge, January 3, 1919, folder: Lai-Yuan Co., box: Unofficial
Correspondence L, 1910-1922,AAOA-MFA.
88 C. T. Loo to J.E. Lodge, March 28, 1919, folder: Lai-Yuan Co., box: Unofficial
Correspondence L, 1910-1922, AAOA-MFA.
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C. T. Loo to K. Tomita, May 19, 1947, folder C. T. Loo, box: I to L, 1936-1947,
AAOA-MFA. “two or three years before the war in the Pacific” possibly indicated the
late 1930s and the 1940s.
90 “China’s Monumentality in Stone,” Art Digest, January 15, 1940,15.