标题: American Looters of China's Art Treasures [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 4-14-2015 15:59 标题: American Looters of China's Art Treasures Jane Perlez, 掠夺还是保存，那些追寻中国文物的美国人. 纽约时报中文网, Apr 14, 2015
cn.nytstyle.com/books/20150414/t14collectors/
, which is translated from
Q and A: Karl E Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac on ‘The China Collectors.’ New York Times, Mar 26, 2015 (blog).
Note:
(a) Karl E Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, The China Collectors; America’s century-long hunt for Asian art treasures. Palgrave MacMillan Trade, Mar 10, 2015.
(b) “We had been invited to be members of St. Antony’s, a graduate college at Oxford."
(i) cn.nytimes.com translates it wrong: 我们当时被邀请前去圣安东尼学院——哈佛一家研究生院——学习
(ii) Harvard University does not have St Antony's. Only two schools--Harvard does not have "college"--in Harvard are named: John F Kennedy School of Government and TH Chan 陳曾熙 School of Public Health (after Chan's sons donated $350m). See Schools. Harvard University, undated. www.harvard.edu/schools
(iii) St Antony's College, Oxford
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Antony%27s_College,_Oxford
(c) "we had uncovered files in the Harvard archives relating to the acquisition of the great “Empress” frieze from Longmen in China, now in Kansas City. The correspondence between Laurence Sickman, then a scout for the newly founded Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, and his Harvard mentor Langdon Warner was exceptionally frank — to summarize: 'Go for it!' ”
(i) Nelson-Atkins Transforms Chinese Sculpture Gallery to Tell Broader, Richer Story; First update in 63 years, ’The Glory of the Law’ collection reinstallation opens Oct 2. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, undated (but in 2004). www.nelson-atkins.org/images/PDF/press/glory%20of%20the%20law.pdf
two consecutive paragraphs:
"On view at the opposite end of the Glory of the Law[: Treasures of Early Chinese Buddhist Sculpture] gallery, an anchor of the Nelson-Atkins’ comprehensive collection of Chinese sculpture also derives from Longmen, in the Binyang 宾阳 Caves. Dating to about 522, Procession of the Empress as Donor with Her Court 皇后礼佛图 is a monumental relief depicting the worship of the Buddha by Empress Wenzhao 文昭皇后, the mother of Emperor Xuanwu 宣武帝 of the Northern Wei who ordered the cave’s construction. The companion relief of Empress Wenzhao’s consort, Emperor Xiaowen 北魏孝文帝, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
"The survival of Kansas City’s half of the pair is due in large part to Laurence Sickman [1907–1988], the first Curator of Oriental Art and the second Director of the Nelson-Atkins. Both friezes of fine, dark gray limestone were plundered between 1931 and 1934, and the fragments were scattered throughout China and as far afield as Germany. Sickman and the director of the Fogg Art Museum at Sickman’s alma mater, Harvard, recovered hundreds of pieces of soft limestone from the work. After two years of reconstruction, the Empress panel was unveiled with the opening of the new Chinese sculpture gallery at the Nelson-Atkins in 1941.
(ii) 程奇, 王晶 and 赵朝军, 《帝后礼佛图》，洛阳人的 '百年心痛;' 浮雕被盗流落海外 石窟空余盗凿伤痕. 洛阳晚报, Apr 13, 2011.
lywb.lyd.com.cn/html/2011-04/13/content_731926.htm
(iii) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson-Atkins_Museum_of_Art
(iv) frieze
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieze
(d) "The method the Harvard art historian Langdon Warner [1881–1955] used for removing the paintings in 1924 was based on that developed for detaching frescoes in Europe. But the Dunhuang paintings were not true frescoes. The techniques the Chinese artists used on the cave surfaces were quite different. Although Warner followed the best practices of the time, the caves were icy, the hot glue froze and became unworkable, so pigment remained on the walls when the strips were removed."
fresco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresco
(e) "The Fogg and the Nelson agreed together to provide funds to acquire all the pieces [皇后礼佛图] and reassemble them in Kansas City. [Alan] Priest 普艾伦 and the Met acquired the other pieces [皇帝礼佛图] from a Beijing dealer [岳彬] who was then commissioned to acquire the remaining heads directly from the site."
(i) Fogg Museum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogg_Museum
(ii) "The [Fogg] Museum is named after William Hayes Fogg, a successful Maine merchant who died in 1884. Fogg had grown wealthy by trading out of China, and together with his wife Elizabeth, they amassed a sizeable Asian art collection. Elizabeth went on to leave the art collection to Harvard, along with a $200,000 legacy."
(f) "CT Loo 卢芹斋 [1880－1957 (died in Switzerland)] was the leading dealer of Longmen sculptures"
(g) "When Squiers auctioned his prizes a decade or so later, the sale catalogs underscored the imperial provenance of key works."
(i) sn.nytimes.com's translation: 当十多年后当斯奎尔将他的藏品拍卖时，那次的出售目录无疑突显了关键藏品的帝国主义来源。
(ii) My reading about the word "imperial" is the articles came from palace.