Regarding the dating of this glaze red three-fish pattern goblet, Meng Zitao estimated that Shen Xuanzhong should also have some numbers in his heart, otherwise, he would not have agreed so quickly, as for whether it would be the official kiln of Xuande, then don't joke. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Xuande also has such a bright glaze red three-fish pattern goblet, but it is worth the least few tens of millions, such a treasure, how could Shen Xuanzhong be so relieved to give it to Meng Zitao for identification, and how easy it is to agree to Meng Zitao's request?

Shen Xuan was very happy when he saw Meng Zitao agree, and then took out the painting again.

Unfolding the scroll, Meng Zitao found that this painting is a picture of "Rich Changchun" by the Shanghai School painter Zhang Xiong, the so-called "Rich Changchun" is a pattern composed of peonies and moon flowers, implying that spring is long and rich.

Zhang Xiong, the word Zixiang, Shoufu, the number Xiang Weng, the West Chamber, alias Yuanhu Outer History, the room name "Silver Vine Flower Pavilion", he is the Shanghai School of painters, one of the more famous, Gong Danqing, flowers are longitudinal, vegetables and fruits are beautiful, and also as figures, landscapes, especially good at making large peony paintings, elegant and vulgar appreciation, when called "Yuanhu School".

It is a very important painting genre in modern China, which originated from the social transition period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Generally speaking, the "Shanghai School of Painting" and the "Beijing-Tianjin School", "Lingnan School", "Chang'an School", "Jinling School" and so on are called the five major schools of Chinese modern and modern painting and calligraphy.

Among them, the original meaning of "Shanghai School" refers to the "Shanghai School" Peking Opera, which was the opposite of the "Beijing School" in the early 20th century, and gradually became dejorative, and later the "Shanghai School" was slowly referred to as the "Shanghai School".

The formation of "Shanghai School of Calligraphy and Painting" has the characteristics of a wide range of members, eclectic styles, diverse expressions of brush and ink, multi-dimensional creative concepts and close themes to the public, catering to the interests of collectors from all aspects.

For example, Ren Bonian's paintings are part-time and written, and they are appreciated by both the elegant and the vulgar; Ren Xiong's characters are painted with silver hooks and iron, fresh and lively; the animals in Xugu are intertwined with reality and have a touching taste; Zhao Zhiqian's flowers and birds are hearty and colorful; Pu Hua's paintings are unrestrained and charming; Wu Changshuo's flowers are painted with books and are majestic; and Wu Hufan's landscapes are beautiful and plump, clear and elegant.

Of course, these are just a few of the more famous ones in the "Shanghai School of Calligraphy and Painting", in fact, apart from them, the works of most of the Shanghai School of calligraphers and painters do not perform well in the calligraphy and painting auction market.

This is mainly because the main market for the "Shanghai School of Calligraphy and Painting" was originally formed in the Chenghuang Temple in Shanghai, which was operated by a few painting shops there, and was mainly faced with the citizen class and tourists, so the cultural level was not very high. At that time, the works of the painters led by Ren Bonian were all some commercial paintings, which were vulgar and elegant, and they were begging for a mouthful, which laid the brand of insufficient artistry of the early "Shanghai School of calligraphy and painting".

In addition, a considerable part of the works of "Shanghai School of Calligraphy and Painting" have been circulated abroad, because of the price reasons, collectors do not want to take out the works for sale, and the market is flooded with more ordinary works, which slowly leads to the malaise of the "Shanghai School of Calligraphy and Painting" market.

To get back to the point, Zhang Xiong's picture of "Rich Changchun" is already very level from the perspective of ordinary people, but for professionals like Meng Zitao, although it is also remarkable, compared with some famous works, it is still ordinary, and the value is not too high, at most about 20,000 or 30,000.

However, upon closer inspection, Meng Zitao found that the framing of this painting was very unusual, and it actually looked like the craftsmanship of the master of the glaze factory during the Republic of China.

Speaking of framing, we have to mention the glaze factory, its mounting shop is highly skilled and famous all over the country.

Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, calligraphy and painting collectors, calligraphers and painters have been in contact with famous painting shops. Some of the calligraphy and painting connoisseurs who have an eye for calligraphy and painting are born in the mounting industry, and some can frame paintings.

There is a saying in the antique line that "three points of painting, seven points of mounting", which shows the importance of framing ancient calligraphy and paintings. The craftsmanship of the glaze factory to frame calligraphy and painting can be called the world's first.

The painting shop is called the mounting shop in the early days, and the paper or silk fabric is used as a backdrop to decorate the calligraphy and painting books, or to repair them to make them beautiful and durable. The mounting must be two layers, the calligraphy and painting are facing the lying person, which is called the Yuan, and the one who sets off its back with undyed plain paper is called the jacket, so it is called the mounting robe. There are still framed alleys in the capital, and it is likely that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were gathered framed shops.

The art of mounting calligraphy and painting in the capital is from the city of Suzhou, and in the Guangxu period, the craftsmanship of mounting calligraphy and painting in the glaze factory is so exquisite that although the old calligraphy and painting are broken to the point that they can not be distinguished, and even so brittle that they can be blown away by exhalation, they can still be framed in their original state, which is really miraculous and incredible.

And this painting is actually the work of a master of mounting, Mencius Tao can't help but feel strange, to use an analogy, it is like seeing a beggar driving a luxury car.

Maybe everyone thinks this metaphor is not appropriate, but it should be taken into account that this painting was not worth much money at all in the Republic of China, and the price of buying it is probably not higher than the salary of the master to frame it once.

This is obviously not in line with common sense.

Because of this, Meng Zitao immediately used his ability, but to his surprise, the painting was not a picture-in-picture, and the value given by the ability was about the same as he had estimated.

"Could it be that I guessed wrong? Actually, which rich boss liked this painting and found a master to frame it?"

Meng Zitao was puzzled in his heart, but he still had the idea that he would rather be wrong than let go, and wanted to put the painting away.

"Mr. Meng, I wonder what you think of this painting?"

"It should be Zhang Xiong's early work, and it's okay. ”

Meng Zitao continued: "Shopkeeper Shen, a friend of mine likes the works of Shanghai School painters, but he is shy and can't afford to buy too good ones, so can you give me this painting too?"

Shen Xuanzhong has also heard a little about the value of Zhang Xiong's works, and Meng Zitao said so, the value will definitely not be high, he smiled: "Of course no problem, this painting is about the same as adding a head, you can give the price as you like." ”

Meng Zitao thought about it, if it was too high, it would make Shen Xuanzhong feel surprised, and it was not good to give too low, so he simply gave 18,000.

Shen Xuanzhong was already very satisfied with this price, so Meng Zitao directly wrote him a check.

Because he had to catch a plane, Meng Zitao chatted for a while, then said goodbye, went back to pack his luggage, and got on the plane back.

…………

When he returned home, Meng Zitao began to prepare for going abroad, and after a busy day, he arranged things at work.

On the morning of the day he was about to go abroad, Meng Zitao went to the master's side, and the last time the master learned that he was going abroad, he told him that he had something to explain when he went to him before going abroad.

When Meng Zitao came over, Zheng Anzhi had just had breakfast, and after chatting for a while, Zheng Anzhi said: "Zitao, what do you think about recovering lost cultural relics?"

Meng Zitao said: "Of course I support it very much, but it should be very difficult, right?"

Countless cultural relics have been lost overseas from countries around the world. Taking China as an example, according to UNESCO data, more than 1.64 million pieces of lost cultural relics in China are collected by 47 museums around the world, and more than 17 million pieces are scattered among the people.

Zheng Anzhi said helplessly: "Yes, it is indeed very difficult, especially our country is not strong now, and now Western countries have been holding 'cultural relics internationalism', which is quite hateful!"

For a long time, although China, Egypt, Greece, India and other ancient civilizations have constantly demanded that Western countries return the lost cultural relics of their respective countries free of charge, but the major "cultural relics inflow countries" such as Britain, France, and the United States have ignored the voices of return under the pretext of "internationalism of cultural relics".

On December 9, 2002, 19 European and American museums and research institutes, including the British Museum in the United Kingdom, the Louvre Museum in France, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, jointly issued the "Statement on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums", opposing the return of works of art, especially ancient cultural relics, to their countries of origin.

They argued that as the cultural heritage of all mankind, the collection of cultural relics should not and need not be limited by national borders, and claimed that their cultural relics protection technology and equipment were advanced, which was conducive to better preservation of cultural relics.

Speaking of the protection of cultural relics, when Meng Zitao saw a news on the Internet about the exhibition of China's cultural relics abroad some time ago, he actually saw that there were netizens who thanked the cultural relics for being robbed and preserved.

Meng Zitao was quite speechless about this kind of remarks, as if the end of many treasures in China was only destruction, as if what the current cultural relics workers were doing was useless.

In fact, on the contrary, for example, the famous painting "The Female Historian" is the treasure of the British Museum, which is said to have been made by Gu Kaizhi, of course, the current one is only a copy of the Tang Dynasty. But even so, this is the earliest known surviving scroll of Chinese painting.

The original painting was collected by the Qing court, and was stolen in 1901 when the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded China. On his return to England, he sold the scroll to the British Museum for £25.

The British Museum, as a connoisseur, recognized the value of the painting. However, at that time, Western experts had a very shallow understanding of Chinese artworks, so they directly invited a Dongying painting framer to use Dongying's framing method instead of China's painting mounting method, and the habit of Western oil painting, to cut the good long scroll into two sections.

The most serious consequence of this practice is that the framing method of cutting the painting into two sections by reference has caused a series of irreversible damage to the surface of the painting, such as cracking of the surface, loss of powder, and exposure to light.

When Meng Zitao learned of this, he was undoubtedly very angry. In fact, this phenomenon of damage due to ignorance of cultural relics is not only in the British Museum, but also in the treatment of Chinese scroll paintings in other major museums in Europe and the United States.

To put it bluntly, it is the ignorance of Western naturalists about Eastern culture. Anyone who has been to the metropolis knows that Chinese culture was placed after Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, and even ancient Persia and Dongying. To this day, the people of Europe and the United States may have a shallow understanding of China's culture and art. What qualifications do they have to preserve our cultural heritage?

But the reality is helpless, there is no way, who calls things in the hands of others, and the blatant bandit logic of "cultural relics internationalism" and "cultural hegemony" dominate the world?

Zheng Anzhi continued: "In fact, in addition to the fallacy of 'cultural relics internationalism', there are other reasons that hinder the recovery of lost cultural relics in our country......

Many cultural relics have reached a consensus that cultural relics lost in illegal and immoral ways, such as those that have been looted in war, and have been exported by theft, excavation, smuggling, etc., are the main objects of recovery, and the ownership should not be disputed. However, the criteria for defining whether cultural relics lost abroad are "illegal" or not have always been very vague.

Some experts say that the situation of "bona fide acquisition" complicates the definition of whether cultural objects lost abroad are "illegal". Every artifact has its own complex experience. They are likely to have changed hands several times and sold through legal channels, such as on a legitimate and formal trading market. Nowadays, most of the people who hold the lost cultural relics belong to "bona fide third parties", rather than the parties who plundered and stole the cultural relics in the first place. For example, we still can't do anything about the large number of lost artifacts from the Old Summer Palace in many museums in the United States.

As disputes over cultural relics have become a problem for many countries, international conventions on the recovery of cultural relics have emerged. These conventions stipulate that cultural objects that have been looted or lost as a result of war, smuggling, or other illegal imports and exports should be returned.

However, none of these international conventions has the status of "jus cogens", and the return of a large number of lost cultural relics does not have direct and effective legal support, which leads to many practical difficulties in recovering lost cultural relics in accordance with the conventions.

On the one hand, the retrospective period of the Convention is limited, generally not more than 50 years, such as the cultural relics looted by the Anglo-French and Eight-Nation Coalition forces in the Qing Dynasty. On the other hand, treaties are binding only between the parties to the treaty and can only be bound by the parties to the convention, while some countries with a large collection of lost cultural relics, such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States, are not parties. However, none of these international conventions has the status of "jus cogens", and the return of a large number of lost cultural relics does not have direct and effective legal support, which leads to many practical difficulties in recovering lost cultural relics in accordance with the conventions.

On the one hand, the retrospective period of the Convention is limited, generally not more than 50 years, such as the cultural relics looted by the Anglo-French and Eight-Nation Coalition forces in the Qing Dynasty. On the other hand, treaties are binding only between the parties to the treaty and can only be bound by the parties to the convention, while some countries with a large collection of lost cultural relics, such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States, are not parties.

Knowing these difficulties, Meng Zitao immediately asked: "Master, is the country ready to take action to recover these lost cultural relics?"

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