Imperial treasures on the move, 1937 (Image Credit: Zhuang Ling and the New York Times)

1933: The Palace Museum, officially opened to the public only eight years earlier in 1925, ships approximately 19,000 crates of objects to Nanjing after Japan invades North China.

1937: Days before the Japanese attack and occupation of Nanjing, the objects were divided into three groups and sent to Baxian, Emei and Leshan before being consolidated in Chongqing.

1945: Japan surrenders, and the collection is shipped back to Nanjing.

1948: Chiang Kai-Shek orders most valuable pieces sent to Taiwan; about 20% of the imperial collection arrives there by 1949, including the majority of the paintings.

Telegram to J.P. Morgan offering the collection for sale (New York Times)

The article also reports that in 1913, the Qing imperial family sought to sell the entire imperial collection – “including pearls, bronzes, porcelain, etc.” – to American financier and collector J.P. Morgan for $4m. On March 6, 1913, J.P. Morgan and Co. agent Francis H. McKnight telegrammed New York from Beijing with the news of the offer, expressing the need for a quick response. Unfortunately, Morgan died at the end of the month in Rome, shortly after his staff received the telegram. But imagine – if he had survived and bought the imperial collection, then the greatest works of Chinese art would likely now reside in New York, at the Morgan Library and Museum.

For more on the dispersion of the imperial collection, see The Odyssey of China’s Imperial Art Treasures by David Shambaugh and Jeannette Shambaugh Elliott.

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*This week’s post abstracted the paper I’ll be giving at CAA 2011: “Staging Europe: Theatricality and Painting at the Chinese Imperial Court.”

*Qiao Zhongchang’s (act. late 11th-early 12th centuries) masterpiece Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art until August 1 – after which, it stays out of public view for five years.

*11th-century Tibetan Buddhist murals uncovered in Qinghai might demonstrate a relationship between Tibetan and Han Buddhist arts.

*The Storm King Art Center unveiled the addition of Zhang Huan’s twelve-ton sculpture Three-Legged Buddha (2007).

*As OffiCina founders Rosario Scarpato and Monica Piccioli navigate between the established definitions of commercial gallery and non-profit institution.

*The latest issue of China Heritage Quarterly focuses on Shanghai in honor of the Expo.

*Bejing’s status as the capital of Chinese art in Asia was starkly outlined against Shanghai’s auction shortcomings and Hong Kong’s perceived lack of local art scene. Given the success of the Ullens collection at Beijing Poly International in the spring, and the foreign art dealers increasingly setting up shop in Beijing, the capital is clearly the epicenter. But Hong Kong shouldn’t get such short shrift, especially after this week’s articles at Art Radar Asia.

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New Resources added this week:

*The “Scholars” page is now Scholars and Students, with the addition of Rachel Marsden’s blog and website.

*The Chinese Contemporary Art page is now up.

*Exhibitions Online: New Chinese Art: Inside Out and 88 MOCCA Museum of Contemporary Chinese Art on the Web

*Museums: Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (Birmingham UK), Chinese Arts Centre (Manchester UK), Museum of East Asian Art (Bath UK)

*Bibliographies: Buddhism in Western Central Asia

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*This week’s website article looked at Chinese art at the 1904 St. Louis Expo.

*On July 1, China adopted new stricter rules for auctioning cultural relics.

*After Expo 2010 Shanghai, the Shanghai Biennale plans a global perspective to draw crowds.

*The Terracotta Army blockbuster show opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, as a miniature chocolate version arrive in Taiwan.

*Two Chinese architects are among the finalists for Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and contemporary artist Cao Fei is among the nominees for the Future Generation Art Prize.

*Contemporary Chinese art is the hot new design hook, from vodka bottles to watches.

*Zheng He’s tomb was discovered in Nanjing, minus Zheng He. But his remains weren’t looted: he died in India.

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New Resources added this week:

*Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Photo-Essay on the Great Leap Forward, 1958

*Artists page in the resources. I’m collecting the websites of Chinese artists – please leave a comment below if you have one to add.

Stone sarcophagus of imperial consort Wu Huifei (699-737), Shaanxi History Museum

On June 17, the eighth century sarcophagus of imperial consort Wu Huifei 武惠妃 (699-737) went on display at the Shaanxi History Museum. As the Tang emperor Xuanzong’s 玄宗 (r. 712-756) favorite consort before Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 (719-756), Wu commanded a high court position as the emperor’s favorite – even above the empress. Upon her death, Wu was granted a richly appointed tomb decorated with colorful murals. Her sarcophagus is decorated with relief carvings of colorful flowers as well as plump female figures that exemplify the Tang aesthetic of feminine beauty. The tomb and the sarcophagus together add to our understanding of High Tang burial culture, painting, architecture, and court life – but the sarcophagus did not arrive at the museum directly from the tomb.

In 2005, the 27-ton stone sarcophagus was looted from Wu’s tomb in the Jingling Mausoleum. After receiving a tip about the looting in 2006, the Xi’an police began a three-year search for the piece that led them first to a gang of traffickers headed by Yang Bin, and then to an American antiques dealer who had bought the piece for US$1m. The sarcophagus was returned to Xi’an in April, the first State-level relic that Xi’an police have recovered from a foreign country through legal processes.

Interior of Cao Cao's (155-220) tomb. Photo permission of the Henan Cultural Relics Bureau.

Wu’s sarcophagus is a rare example of looted works that have been successfully recovered. But this is a pyrrhic victory: for all that has been gained by the return of the relic, the original tomb context and its full archaeological expression of life and art in the eighth century are irrecoverable. Tomb raiding itself is not news, but lately tomb raiding in China has increased dramatically together with the rising demands of Mainland collectors. No tomb is immune: despite all the news last week about the “official opening” of Cao Cao’s tomb, reports have emerged that the tomb had already been looted several times over.

To combat tomb raiding, Cornell University professor Magnus Fiskesjo suggests that the most effective approach would be appealing to the collectors’ morality. This is only one of many possibilities, from raising public consciousness to increasing government oversight. (Regarding government oversight, for the moment let’s leave aside the controversial issue of Tibetan collector/businessman/philanthropist Karma Samdrup’s 15-year conviction for tomb raiding.) But with the cases of high-profile tombs like those of Wu Huifei and Cao Cao, the question of how best to curb and prevent tomb raiding is becoming increasingly more pressing. As Fiskesjo himself says, it is a question that only the Chinese can answer.

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*New regulations on tourist statues of Mao made for an interesting week in sculpture.

*Weekly news from the imperial gardens: restorations at the Yihe Yuan 頤和園 (Summer Palace) and imperial ceramics at the Yuanming Yuan 圓明園 (Old Summer Palace).

*Zhang Zeduan’s 12th-century masterpiece Going Upriver at the Qingming Festival (Qingming Shanghe Tu 清明上河圖) has been digitized in an interactive display at the Palace Museum

*Contemporary painter Gao Minglu defines “maximalism” in a new exhibition.

*Art news from Shanghai: Shanghai-style modern painting on display, Xu Bing’s “Phoenix Project” at the Shanghai Expo.

*PLA artist Qu Zhi styles himself a psychological realist painter in the traditions of Edvard Munch and Lucian Michael Freud.

*Although Sotheby’s London Impressionist and Modern sales were largely uninspiring, Chinese art sales were strong at Bonhams and Butterfields in San Francisco this week, and are expected to remain so in the upcoming Taiwan sales.

*RedBox Review is “China. Art. Current. Concise.” If you don’t already read it, you’re missing out on thoughtful, well-written posts about the latest Chinese contemporary art from a Beijing perspective.

*ChinaLuxCultureBiz commented on the rising numbers of Chinese graduates pursuing careers in arts administration. According to the original article, the young female arts administrator who was interviewed advised students to develop “strong background knowledge” for success in the field. But notably absent was any discussion of studying art history, because the field does not really exist in China.

*Did you know that the creator of the pop culture icon known as the Twitter “fail whale” is Shanghai-born artist and designer Yiying Lu?