James Cahill dies at 87; scholar of Chinese art

40. C. T. Loo And Chinese Paintings

 

 

He did, however, make one major—and disasterous—purchase late in his career. A Shanghai collector—was his name T'an Ching? (Tan Jing)—that sticks in my head. I think the affair is recounted more accurately in Wen Fong's article on authenticity (in Artibus Asiae XXV, 1962. Some of the paintings had been in Zhang Congyu's collection—anyway, he owned a major collection of Yuan-Ming paintings, and Loo wanted to acquire it as a whole. But he wouldn't pay the owner's asking price, offered a lower price (so goes the story). The owner first refused, but after the passage of a few years? agreed and sold the collection to Loo. Except that in the meantime he had had it perfectly reproduced—a set of extraordinarily good copies, exact replicas, made with the benefit of the best technology—tracings made on a light-table, seals copied photographically so that they matched the originals perfectly. And major museums, seeing these seemingly high-class paintings shown by Loo, purchased them: two in the Freer (Zhu Derun handscroll Xiu-ye Xuan, Sheng Mou hanging scroll), one in Cincinnatti is it? one at the Met (Zhao Yuan "Saying Farewell" picture)—the Met also owns the original. Wen Fong reproduces both, with another copy, in his article. It was a bitter lesson for the museums—I remember Archibald Wenley of the Freer resisting, thinking his purchases were genuine, and giving in at last. It was a lesson also for me, being there and learning while this was going on, or just after. And Loo's successor Frank Caro was left with some of the copies, I think, and had to unload them somehow.

• < Prev
• Next >