"This painting ......"

"I'm sorry Mr. Zhang, but this painting is not for sale. Napoleon VII said apologetically: "This is the only impression left by my ancestors, I can't sell it too, even if I really have to go bankrupt, I can't do that, otherwise it will really be unfilial." ”

"Then forget it, I understand Monsieur Napoleon's thoughts. Zhang Tianyuan smiled, although he was a little regretful, but he understood the other party's thoughts very well, and if he changed himself, he probably wouldn't sell it.

After giving up David's painting, Zhang Tianyuan looked at other things, don't look at only one layer, but there are really a lot of things placed here, and there are also many types. In addition to gold and silver utensils, there are also armor and weapons that can only be found on the battlefield.

"That sword was used by one of the ancestors' subordinates, but unfortunately, the ancestor's own sword was missing. Napoleon VII pointed to the sword held in the hand of an armorer, the cold light was shining, it looked as if it was a new weapon that had just been created, but Zhang Tianyuan could feel that this thing still had some history, to say the least, hundreds of years.

In addition to this Western-style command of the long sword, there are also a few bronze swords from China in a square box on the weapon rack in the corner, the shape is very peculiar, and the protection is also very good, but it is estimated that the history is not too long, that is, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, someone imitated the method of the ancients to make it, and the appearance can only be regarded as average, perhaps for many people who collect swords, this is a good thing, but it is not up to Zhang Tianyuan's collection standards.

So he just glanced casually and moved his gaze elsewhere.

Under one wall, most of the antiques are from ancient Egypt and Greece. There are crowns, there are carvings, and there are some scimitars that look clever. Zhang Tianyuan had never seen this kind of thing before, but he felt a bit like the kind of scimitar in the Prince of Persia.

There is also a scepter. The row is inlaid with red gemstones, which looks very powerful, and although the scepter is made of wood, the material should be very good, because there is no crack at all, but it is wrapped in a metal skin, which has a little rusty feeling, but it is very few, as if it has been specially treated later. It doesn't continue to spread anymore.

There is no doubt that France in the Napoleonic era was the most powerful empire in the whole of Europe, and these antiques must have been looted from other countries or others.

Zhang Tianyuan didn't want to comment on this, because it had little to do with him, and he was most interested in Chinese antiques. If he could, he wanted to buy all the Chinese antiques back, and it was obviously easier to trade with Napoleon VII than for the Brotherhood to exchange money without money. At the very least, Napoleon VII asked for money.

If you can solve it with money, it doesn't matter.

"Mr. Zhang, you should prefer Chinese antiques. It's all Chinese antiques, mainly porcelain. After all, this kind of thing is easier to preserve, as long as it does not experience violent shocks. are not too easy to break. The rest is also some calligraphy and painting, bronzes, jade and other things, I don't know very well, you can go and see it first. Napoleon VII said, pointing to a space farther away on the second floor of the White Tower.

Don't think that the first floor of this white tower is very small, in fact, it is not small at all, this floor is about three or four hundred square meters, but it is not the kind of tower with only a few dozen square meters, or even more than ten square meters.

So even though it's just one floor, it's also arranged in many different spaces for different antiques, which are basically divided according to the actual area.

European, Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese are also in good order, only when entering the door, some weapons are a little messy, and it can be seen that they have been often moved later, such as those bronze swords, which should have been placed in the Chinese Pavilion before.

It is said that the China Pavilion is actually just a large room, about 100 square meters, so let's call it so for the time being.

In the space of 100 square meters, there are tens of thousands of Chinese antiques, most of which are porcelain, of all types, which is simply dazzling and dazzling.

In all shapes, colors, and dynasties, this is like a small porcelain gallery. I really don't know how spectacular it would be if the antiques on the rest of the White Tower were still there.

"Oh my God, these are antiques from China? There must be tens of thousands of them, right?" said Blue Phoenix in surprise.

Zhang Tianyuan's mood is actually the same as the blue phoenix, but he didn't shout, he came to Europe this time, went to the British Empire Museum once, came to Napoleon VII's castle again, and also saw the list of antiques of the Brotherhood, which made his heart really like a hurricane on the sea, and he was shocked beyond measure.

How many good things are there, all abroad!

Although I used to hear people in the circle who have been abroad mention that China's good things are actually abroad, Zhang Tianyuan didn't have an intuitive impression of this before, but he just felt a little incredible, but when he walked around this circle, he was really convinced of this statement, and the inner turmoil was naturally difficult to calm down.

Porcelain has a very long history, and later gradually faded out of the mainstream market due to the maturity of glass and metal processing technology. Today's porcelain products are basically used for ornamental purposes, after all, porcelain has a huge disadvantage, that is, it is too easy to break.

In China's thousands of years of history, there are many excellent ceramics, but it is very normal for a large number of porcelains to be destroyed either because of wars or because of carelessness, and even in modern times, there are many porcelains that have been broken during transportation.

And the most valuable porcelain is known to be the official kiln porcelain.

The official kiln originated from the Tang Dynasty and has two meanings, one refers to the tribute vessel and the other refers to the official factory. From the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, there were many tribute vessels in official kilns, and few official factories. The form taken is "official prison and people burning", and the porcelain fired is "selected out of 10 out of 10 and 1 out of 100", and paid tribute to the ruling class. This kind of porcelain is called tribute porcelain and official kiln.

After the Song Dynasty, the official kiln can basically be said to be the imperial kiln, that is, the royal porcelain factory.

The Ming Dynasty adopted the form of "government-run private kilns", and began to have official factories to burn tribute-paying porcelain. For example, in Jingdezhen, there is a royal ware factory, a special factory official, the funds come from the locality, the servants are served, and more than 50 kilns are set up, which are specially fired to make imperial vessels, that is, tribute vessels. The Qing Dynasty was different from the Ming Dynasty in that it adopted a compromise form of "official and private burning". Its products are divided into two categories: "Qin Limit" and "Ministry Limit", the former is for the emperor, and the latter is for the imperial court and diplomatic protocol.

But no matter what the difference, the official kiln porcelain, which is basically the stuff used by the upper class, is not only more exquisite, but also mostly of superior quality. The porcelain used by the people, that is, the folk kiln, is more practical and has insufficient appreciation value, so the collection value is relatively low.

Therefore, the fine products are basically for the royal nobles to play with, and few people in the people can get the fine products of the official kiln, and it is even more difficult to preserve them.

Yongzheng also repaid, but Kangxi and Qianlong, the grandsons and grandsons, were both collectors, and they had to put all good things into their royal treasury, and these things were naturally passed on to their descendants, and then until the opening of the Old Summer Palace, a large number of porcelain were placed in the Old Summer Palace.

It's a pity that neither Kangxi nor Qianlong could have imagined that the things he had worked so hard to collect for a country were made wedding clothes for others, and eventually became the treasure trove of the imperial masters, and a large number of things were shipped to Europe.

Many of them then found their way into the hands of Napoleon's descendants and were placed in the White Tower of the castle.

How many cultural relics have been looted, no one can say an accurate number now, only that it will probably not be less than one million anyway.

You must know how many things were in the Old Summer Palace at that time, although they were all included in the booklet, but a large number of lists were burned, leaving only a part, and there were millions of pieces, that is to say, this number is very conservative, and the actual number must be much larger than this.

The loss of China's precious cultural relics overseas is not new. According to the statistics of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society, since the Opium War in 1840, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been lost to Europe, America, Japan and Southeast Asia. For many years, the loss of cultural relics has been a pain in the hearts of Chinese people.

The Old Summer Palace was likened by the French writer Victor Hugo to a representative of oriental art, calling it "the almost all the fruits of a nation's creation of superhuman imagination", however, such a "garden of ten thousand gardens" was looted and burned by the British and French forces in 1860. Since then, a large number of treasures of the Old Summer Palace have been scattered abroad.

Some American media said that the best place to find Chinese antiques is not China, but the United States.

This may not be accurate, but it is a brilliant statement.

It's just that the word "United States" can be replaced by Britain, France, the Netherlands, or even the West!

Of course, the United States has taken a lot of things.

U.S. ties to Chinese art date back to the 17th century, when British and Dutch merchants and colonists who arrived in the New World often brought blue and white porcelain from China instead of more expensive tin plates and the like.

In the 19th century, American missionaries to China often brought palm-sized jade and statues back home as souvenirs, according to Spency Rochmorton, a New York dealer.

Interestingly, among Western museums, the largest collection and exhibition of the treasures of the Old Summer Palace is the Palace of Fontainebleau in France, and the Chinese Pavilion in the palace can be said to be a reproduction of the Old Summer Palace in the West. The Chinese Pavilion was built by Queen Eugenie of the French Emperor Napoleon III for the simple reason that it was built to house artifacts looted from the Old Summer Palace. There are also more than 30,000 pieces of famous Chinese paintings, gold and silver jewelry, porcelain, incense burners, chimes, precious stones, gold and silver ware.

In fact, Napoleon put more fine antiques into his castle, but unfortunately now there are only these things left in front of Zhang Tianyuan. (To be continued......)