The specialists guide to Chinese antiques » Chinese History

Imperial jade, ivory, bronzes, silks and embroideries – all for sale at rock bottom prices (in 1908 that is)

Roger S. — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:51:29 +0000

Absolutely fascinating article from the New York times in 1908, reporting on the sale of The Sarah Pike Conger collection of oriental antiques. Containing priceless artifacts, even by 1908 standards, its in today’s terms that the prices paid are even more eye catching:

Elephant’s trappings from the imperial elephant stables: $150.00
Large gold alloy cast bell from Temple Of Agriculture $560.00
Chinese executioner’s sword engraved with dragons: $25.00
Antique cloisonné enamel palace seat: $540.00

A bit of historical background.

Mrs. E. H. Conger (Sarah Pike Conger) was the wife of Edwin H. Conger, who was the “Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China” (in other words the ambassador to China) from 1898 until his resignation in 1905. An author who wrote several books about her time in China, and experienced the turbulent time of the Boxer Rebellion first hand, having been besieged for 55 days in the British legation quarter in 1900. She was also a friend of the Empress Dowager Cixi and some items in her collection were gifts from the empress herself. In fact, the only known image of Cixi touching a foreigner is of the two of them together.

In many circles however, the auction was highly controversial. The Washington Herald’s 1908 announcement of the auction was less then flattering in it’s assessment and notes with irony that as she was the ambassadors wife, the items even entered the country tax free.

The soldiers who stole these things were glad of any market for they could carry little away with them, and in the far east today, stories are still told, with many a chuckle, of ignorant soldiers selling diamond studded watches and priceless bronzes for a handful of Mexican dollars

Meanwhile the fact of the sale must give our Chinese friends food for thought. It is hard to see how the morality of the case can be defended on any grounds. Without mincing words, the property that is to be put up at auction is stolen poperty, and the shame of this looting rests, in a measure, upon us all as American citizens.

Meanwhile the Evening Times has this to say:

The Conger collection, which was sold in New York last week was advertised as being chiefly loot taken in Peking after the allied armies ocupied the city. E H. Conger, of Iowa, was then United States Minister to China. He did not himself steal the imperial jade, ivory and bronze pieces, or the silks and embroideries; but the thieves who did steal them found a ready market at the United States Minister’s quarters under the flag of the United States. The minister showed his shrewdness by keeping a record of the distinguished owners of the stolen property. It was a good investment.

Such things must have been cheap when the allies were looting Peking but what do the American people think of one of their ministers raising the sign over his door: “Cash for stolen goods here.”

“What must the Chinese people think of a nation that permits it.

Of course this was not the only controversial auction at the time. Herbert G. Squiers, who was the First Secretary of the American Legation in Beijing was said to have amassed such an extensive collection of antique Chinese porcelain that when he eventually left Peking, it filled several railroad carriages. When the Squiers Collection was sold in 1912 it too was also accused of being looted goods.

CHINESE ANTIQUES SOLD.

New York Times - Feb 20, 1908

Auction of effects of former Minister Conger’s Widow.

The hope of geting Chinese loot brought a large throng yesterday to the first day’s sale of the Oriental collection of Mrs. E. H. Conger, widow of the late Minister Plenipotentiary to China, at the American Art Galleries. There are nearly a thousand lots, all told, and the sale goes on every afternoon this week. Brasses, bronzes, idols, cloisonne, and weapons came first on the list. The sale was held in one of the small galleries, and every seat was filled. Standing room was at a premium.

The prices were good throughout, and ranged from $5 up to more than $300. The Metropolitan Art Museum and the Peabody Museum of Salem, Mass., were among the purchasers. The biggest piece of loot brought the highest price of the day. It was a big cast brass bell, 12 Inches high by 9 1/2, in diameter, which was taken from the Temple Of Agriculture during the Boxer rebellion in 1900. It was bought by K. Slater for $560.

It is a beautiful bell, of a rich colored brass, in which there is said to be gold alloy. It was sold with the original red rope by which it hung in the Chinese temple. It belonged to the k’ang-hsi period (1662-1722), and was rung once a year when the Emperor, who is supposed to be particularly the patron and father of those who cultivate the soil, ploughed a piece of land in public.

Two old and interesting pieces, which went to the same purchaser for $1,010 ($505 each), were cast iron temple gongs. These bore the marks of dedication in relief. They were used in the Buddhistic services, and the two together make chimes very rich, clear, and of long continuance.

The largest purchase by the Metropolitan Museum was that of a part of an elephant’s trappings, which came from the imperial elephant stables, and was used during the reign of the Emperor Ch’ien-lung. It was a, great ball-shaped ornament of brass, 16 feet high by as many in diameter, in a design of dragon and cloud scrolls and mounted on a circular base, also of brass. It sold for $150. The museum also bought an antique brass Chinese ink box for $14, an antique brass, square-shaped bowl for $20; a miniature hand mirror of the Ming period, polished brass, for $10; another larger one of the Hsuan-te period for $30, and an interesting antique brass kettle for heating wine for $30.

Interesting among the armor sold was a big Chinese executioner’s sword engraved with dragons, a double-handed grip, and a bright red scabbard, which went for $25. Another without the scabbard was bought by the Peabody Museum for $16. The Peabody Museum also bought an old Chinese sword with an odd blade, a cavalry sword, Boxer swords and pikes, and a couple of wooden weapons from the Sulu Islands.

An antique cloisonné enamel palace seat, in the shape of a barrel, brought one of the highest prices of the afternoon, going to Henry F. Ross for $540. On one end was a mark of the Ming period, and the cloisonne was of the reign of Ch’in-t’ai. Mr. Ross also bought for $205 an antique Chinese incense burner, oblong, on four feet and chiselled in designs of the dragon and Svastika, of the Wan-li period.

A. E. Durrant paid $180 for a palace bell of cast brass with chiselled designs, mounted in a teakwood frame, and $200 for a large antique brass vase. Mrs. Henry Elling paid $180 for a tripod incense burner of brass ornamented in engraving and relief with designs of the sacred lotus.

A quadrilateral-shaped Chinese enamel-covered vase with tree peonies and chrysanthemums in natural colors on a turquoise blue ground went to Geraldyn Redmond for $390. It had brass mountings and cover, the latter surmounted by the sacred fungi. The receipts of the afternoon’s sale , were $8,057 .

Original print of 1908 article in the New York Times can be found here.

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Chinese furniture in B&W: historical perspectives from old china

Roger S. — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:17:12 +0000

This particular image was taken from Ralphrepo’s photo stream on flicker and it apparently comes from a book called “The Face Of China As Seen By Photographers & Travelers 1860-1912.” He has a much longer and interesting commentary with a snip in which the furniture itself is mentioned. “Socially, the furniture belies a family of some affluence. The wooden foot stools at the time were used not for the height challenged but rather to provide insulation against having to put one’s feet onto a cold and unheated floor.”

This image of a Sedan Chair, is entitled “Bride On Her Way To Wedding, Fuzhou Fujian China” and was taken from Ralphrepo’s photo stream (if you are wondering about the basket, think “wedding veil”).

This stereoview image also comes from Flickr, this time from Wolfgang Wiggers photostream. It was taken Guangzhou in the 1860′ies (more commonly known at that time as “canton”). Notice the gate leg or “drop-leaf” table seen in the center background

Another interesting image from Ralphrepo, in which a side view of a vanity can be seen. This particular image was also taken in Canton in 1868 by John Thomson.

From a German photographic album with photographs from the Tsingtau (Qingdao) area around 1900. This image also comes from Wolfgang Wiggers flickr page .

A bit of a gruesome image, this photo was taken in the early 1900′s during the boxer rebellion. Nevertheless it it shows a very common long bench and farm table in a typical environment. This particular one has been modified to suite modern use by shortening the depth. The inset stone panel is not original.

This image was found on a Chinese website and really needs no introduction…

Another unique, though not quite as gruesome image taken in 1900 and entitled “Chinese punishment: whipping a lawbreaker.” Notice the frame unit in which the prisoner is bent across? Though I would assume this piece was purpose built, it nevertheless suspiciously looks quite similar in form to the base of a Chinese standing screen. Or maybe a large stacking food box…

A work chest / toolbox from street vendor

An antique Chinese wooden barber’s stool. Does your hairdresser have one of these?

By the way, if you are interested in seeing more of these fascinating images, here are a few potential books:

A jewelry box sitting atop a high side table known as a “flower stand.”

A photo of a “heavenly wheelbarrow” (the caption on the back of the wheelbarrow says “Heavenly Wheelbarrow) taken in 1910 in or near Qingdao.

Finding Treasures in a City’s Disappearing Past

Roger S. — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:23:57 +0000

Li Songtang at his museum in Beijing, where he displays relics saved from demolition sites in the rapidly modernizing city.

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

BEIJING — The destruction of this 800-year-old city usually proceeds as follows: the Chinese character for “demolish” mysteriously appears on the front of an old building, the residents wage a fruitless battle to save their homes, and quicker than you can say “Celebrate the New Beijing,” a wrecking crew arrives, often accompanied by the police, to pulverize the brick-and-timber structure.

But before another chunk of ancient Beijing disappears entirely, a hospice administrator named Li Songtang can often be found poking around the rubble, looking for remnants that honor what was among the world’s best-preserved metropolises until a merciless wave of redevelopment gained the upper hand.

Since the 1970s, when Mao inspired his Red Guards to pummel every “reactionary” Confucius temple and Ming Dynasty statue they could find, Mr. Li has been salvaging architectural remnants and stowing them away, sometimes at considerable risk.

Manchu hitching posts. Ornate wooden doorways. A giant granite horse that graced an emperor’s palace. These and thousands of other objects fill Mr. Li’s warehouse and spill across the grounds of the hospice he runs in Beijing’s eastern suburbs.

Every item has a tale. That Song Dynasty lintel etched with a frenzy of folk scenes? Pulled from a pig sty. The lacquered screen that tells the history of a clan of scholars? Fished from the burn pile.

The most historically significant items are displayed in his private museum, where every Sunday he can be found leading tours and exhorting people to cherish the old before it is too late. “For 50 years I’ve been watching the destruction of this magnificent city,” he’ll say in admonishment. “We’ve been treating history like garbage.”

It is difficult to overstate how much of China’s old imperial capital has disappeared in recent years. When the Communists took power in 1949, they inherited a city marbled with 7,000 alleyways, or hutong, a Mongol word that referred to the space between tents. In Old Beijing, hutong were the capillaries that fed the walled compounds where most people lived.

Even if the Communists forced aristocratic families to share their courtyard homes with scores of working-class families, the structures, and their stone-and-wood artistry, remained largely intact. Monument-building and road-widening claimed swaths of the old city in the 1950s and ’60s, and more damage was done during the Cultural Revolution, but the pace surged in the 1990s, when China’s embrace of market economics fueled a redevelopment juggernaut.

In the years leading up to the Beijing Olympics in August, the destruction took on a manic pace. According to UNESCO, more than 88 percent of the city’s old residential quarters are gone, including many government-designated heritage zones whose protections existed only on paper. Today, just 1,300 hutong remain, and many more neighborhoods, like the colorful Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square, are scheduled for renewal.

Michael Meyer, who documents Qianmen’s hutong life in his book “The Last Days of Old Beijing,” says most residents are not terribly nostalgic about the old city. For them, a freshly painted facsimile of a 500-year-old Buddhist temple is just fine.

“Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that Chelsea, then Greenwich Village, have been replaced by malls,” he said. “Those who are trying to preserve a bit of the city’s legacy are increasingly isolated and powerless.”

One of Mr. Li’s earliest childhood memories is of the destruction of his family’s courtyard house. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, he watched neighbors burn their own books and smash heirlooms. “People were so afraid that the Red Guards would find antiques in their home, they would toss them into the river at night so no one would see,” said Mr. Li, who came from a family of doctors and teachers.

Like many from the educated classes, Mr. Li was ridiculed, beaten by classmates and then sent to the countryside, where he toiled alongside farmers for nine years. After returning to the city, he devoted himself to rescuing whatever scraps of history he could find. His efforts have sometimes attracted the attention of officials, who have accused him of stealing and obliquely criticizing government policies.

He acknowledges he never paid for anything, although he might give demolition workers a few dollars to cart away a heavy object. “I came to realize that so much of Beijing was destroyed because no one was willing to pay these men for overtime” to haul away relics, he said, half-jokingly.

Mr. Li’s struggle to open his Songtangzhai Museum is a tortured tale that involved five years of kowtowing, cajoling and a “gift” of 148 prized items to the Culture Ministry. The $4.50 entrance fee to his museum, which occupies an 18th-century house, does not cover the cost of operations, so Mr. Li subsidizes it from his own pocket. He says he has never sold any artifacts.

“I have 1,000 stories that I can never tell,” he said conspiratorially, and then offered a few choice words to describe those who blocked his way — and those who have promoted the demise of Old Beijing. But then he corrected himself. “The Communist Party has improved Beijing immeasurably,” he said with a taut smile. “They are doing a wonderful job.”

Source: The New York Times

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: January 18, 2009

Address: No. 14, East Liulichang Road, 100050
Open: 9:00 – 18:00
Tel: 8610-83164662

Chronology of Chinese dynasties & History

Roger S. — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:22:56 +0000

Below is very short but useful post reprinted from Wikipedia time-lining the various Chinese Dynasties (Click on H for the history of the dynasty, and E for a table of its emperors (or other rulers).

Dynasty	Chinese	Pinyin	Links	Period	years
Three Sovereign Ones and the Five Emperors	三皇五帝	sān huáng wǔ dì	(H – E)	before 2070 BC	628+
Xià Dynasty	夏	xià	(H – E)	2100 BC — 1600 BC	470
Shang Dynasty	商	shāng	(H – E)	1600 BC — 1046 BC	554
Western Zhou Dynasty	西周	xī zhōu	(H – E)	1046 BC — 771 BC	275
Eastern Zhou Dynasty Traditionally divided into Spring and Autumn Period Warring States Period	東周春秋戰國	dōng zhōu chūn qiū zhàn guó	(H – E)(H – E) (H – E)	770 BC — 256 BC 722 BC — 476 BC 475 BC — 221 BC	514246 254
Qin Dynasty	秦	qín	(H – E)	221 BC — 206 BC	15
Western Han Dynasty	西漢	xī hàn	(H – E)	206 BC — AD 9	215
Xin Dynasty	新	xīn	(H – E)	9 — 23	14
Eastern Han Dynasty	東漢	dōng hàn	(H – E)	25 — 220	195
Three Kingdoms	三國	sān guó	(H – E)	220 — 265	45
Western Jin Dynasty	西晉	xī jìn	(H – E)	265 — 317	52
Eastern Jin Dynasty	東晉	dōng jìn	(H – E)	317 — 420	103
Southern and Northern Dynasties	南北朝	nán běi cháo	(H – E)	420 — 589	169
Sui Dynasty	隋	suí	(H – E)	581 – 618	37
Tang Dynasty	唐	táng	(H – E)	618 — 907	289
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms	五代十國	wǔ dài shí guó	(H – E)	907 — 960	53
Northern Song Dynasty	北宋	běi sòng	(H – E)	960 — 1127	167
Southern Song Dynasty	南宋	nán sòng	(H – E)	1127 — 1279	152
Liao Dynasty	遼	liáo	(H – E)	916 — 1125	209
Jin Dynasty	金	jīn	(H – E)	1115 — 1234	119
Yuan Dynasty	元	yuán	(H – E)	1271 — 1368	97
Ming Dynasty	明	míng	(H – E)	1368 — 1644	276
Shun Dynasty	順	shùn	(H – E)	1644	<1
Qing Dynasty	清	qīng	(H – E)	1644 — 1912	268