48. Aschwin Lippe
This one is inspired by writing to Hong Zaixin, who was involved (9/07) in a symposium in Honolulu on regionalism in modern Chinese painting, and mentioning that the first exhibition and study (at least in English) of a regional school in Chinese painting was done by Aschwin Lippe, in 1955? around then. It was an exhibition of paintings of the Nanking School, held at China House, the gallery run by China Institute in New York. I don't remember that there was a catalog, but Aschwin published an article based on it, “Kung Hsien and the Nanking School,” in Oriental Art, n.s. II (Spring 1956). I had come to know Aschwin Lippe very well when I spent some months as a fellowship student in Alan Priest's office in the Far East Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in the spring of 1954—Aschwin's office was right next door, and we talked a lot—he was more a serious scholar of Chinese painting than Priest was, and had done work on art of the Yuan, as I was doing for my dissertation.
Aschwin Lippe (1914-1988) was a prince—a real one, prince of a defunct tiny kingdom (or principality) called Lippe-Biesterfeldt, which had once existed between Holland and Germany. (Jan Fontein used to sing a mocking Dutch song about it, somehow rhyming Biesterfeldt with "ein Soldat," one soldier, which was supposed to be the kingdom's entire army, going off to war.) Aschwin's older brother was Bernhard, the crown prince of Holland, married to Queen Juliana. He published his doctoral dissertation, a German translation of the Li Kan bamboo essay (in Ostasiatische Zeitschrift XVIII, 1942-3), under the name "Ernst Aschwin, Prinz zur Lippe-Biesterfeldt." Among his publications on Chinese painting is a good article on the late Ming Fujian artist Chen Xian (who painted for the Huang-po/Obaku sect, so lots of his works are in Japan) centered on a handscroll of Arhats by him that the Freer had bought (Ars Orientalis V, 1963). In his later years Lippe worked more on South and Southeast Asian Buddhist sculptures, publishing in 1970 a catalog of the Indian sculptures in the Freer Gallery.
During the time I knew him, he and his wife Simone, an elegant Frenchwoman, lived in a large apartment in one of the tall buildings overlooking Central Park from the west, across from the Met. Aschwin was always modest in his manner, never playing the role of the European titled aristocrat, although he looked like one—thin, narrow face with tall forehead, hair combed back, with a small moustache above a small mouth that smiled a lot, but quietly, almost shyly, pursed rather than expanding horizontally. He had a small collection of Chinese paintings himself, including a Chen Hongshou figure painting. He suffered under Priest, who made jokes about how he had a prince working under him. (The two were an example, like Tomita and Paine in Boston, of what might have happened with Phil Stern and myself at the Freer if I had stayed there, which was a major reason why I didn't stay.) Aschwin wanted to buy Ming-Qing paintings for the Met's collection—this was just when other museums were buying them, with great pieces on the market. But Priest was committed to the idea that Song paintings were the real treasures, even arguing that a not-quite-genuine "Song" picture was more beautiful than any genuine work by a Ming-Qing artist could be. Aschwin had a Bada Shanren album there on consideration; it was never purchased. Instead, Priest pushed through the acquisition, for a big price, of the Bahr collection, which was full of "Song-Yuan" paintings that weren't really so early. (Cf. no. 24 above, in which I mistakenly date Aschwin's Nanking School exhibition to the year I spent at the Met, 1953-4.)
Conclusion
VI Conclusion It is time to draw back and look, if not at the whole Hyakusen, at as much of him as we have managed to illuminate in this study. Dark areas remain, and doubtless many distortions, but...Read More...