Mr. Rong Geng, a master of modern epigraphy and paleography, collected many bronzes throughout his life, and donated more than 150 pieces to the country in the last century (now in the National Museum of China and the Guangzhou Museum), of which the Guangzhou Museum has about 90 precious Shang and Zhou bronzes, which are almost never on public display.

The surging news learned that in the recent exhibition of "Words and Words - Guangzhou Museum Collection of Inscription Bronzes", there are 40 pieces of Shang and Zhou bronzes in the collection of the Guangzhou Museum that were donated by Mr. Rong Geng in the private collection, which is also the first large-scale display of Mr. Rong Geng's old collection of bronzes.

Mr. Yung Geng (1894-1983)

Bronzes on display

According to the information released by the Guangzhou Museum, there are inscribed bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties all over the world, including ritual vessels, chariots and horses, weapons, musical instruments, etc., and the number is about more than 10,000 pieces. Most of the bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the Guangzhou Museum's collection in this exhibition come from the donations of Rong Geng, a master of modern epigraphy and paleography.

Mr. Rong Geng is a well-known paleographer, archaeologist, collector and calligrapher in China, and has taught at Yenching University, Peking University, Lingnan University and Sun Yat-sen University. He is the author of more than 30 monographs such as "Jin Wen Compilation" and "Shang and Zhou Yi Ware General Examination", which are highly recognized by the academic circles at home and abroad, and have collected more than 100 bronzes, more than 1,000 pieces (sets) of ancient and modern calligraphy and paintings, and more than 10,000 books and materials, all of which have been donated to the country.

There is a bronze exhibition, paying tribute to Mr. Rong Geng

Mr. Rong Geng once said: "It is not easy to gather solid, why is it difficult to disperse?" Rather than letting it go after death, it is better to dedicate it to the country in its entirety now, so that more people can make better achievements on the basis of their predecessors. In 1956, the Guangzhou Museum received more than 90 bronzes donated by Mr. Rong Geng. The 40 bronzes on display in this exhibition, such as the Copper Tripod and the Copper Tripod, are all donated by Mr. Rong Geng. "I hope to take advantage of this Ming Bronze Exhibition to pay tribute to Mr. Rong Geng." The organizer said.

The inscription on the bronze "Zeng Da Bao Basin" on display

According to Mr. Rong Geng's daughter Rong Pu recalled in a previous interview, her father's collection mainly began after he became a professor at Yenching University, and the source of funds came from her father's monthly salary. "My father was not a big capitalist and his net worth was not rich, and his collection depended on his salary. My father would always give half of the collection to my mother. Every time it was time to pay the tuition, my father would sell his collection of books and exchange them for gold bars to pay. Rong Pu said.

Rong Pu recounted that the bed she slept in when she was a child was made from a large wooden box where her father had placed a collection of bronzes, and her bed was worth a fortune. "Whenever a visitor comes, we have to help remove the mattress and bed boards before we can bring the bronzes out for display, which is one of the ways I get involved with the bronzes." Rong Pu said.

Rong Geng focuses on collecting, in addition to his hobby, it is also the embodiment of his patriotism. In that turbulent era when the country's strength was weak, a large number of precious cultural relics often found their way into the hands of well-resourced foreigners, resulting in the loss of national treasures overseas. "The reason why Mr. Rong Geng wants to collect and study ancient bronzes is to fight for the Chinese." Rong Geng's disciple and Sun Yat-sen University professor Zeng Xiantong once said. When compiling the "Shang and Zhou Yi Ware General Examination", it was during the Anti-Japanese War, and Rong Geng was studying and writing day and night, just to gradually change the situation that the discourse power of pre-Qin bronze research was held by Japanese scholars at that time with his own efforts.

According to the Guangzhou Daily, according to the list of bronzes donated by Mr. Rong Geng to Guangbo, it can be seen that on April 25 and June 30, 1956, a total of 95 bronzes were donated in two installments. It includes 1 artifact from the Yuan Dynasty and 1 artifact from the Song Dynasty, 5 artifacts from the Han Dynasty, 1 artifact from an unknown date, and 87 artifacts from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, of which there are 9 first-class artifacts alone, which are rare in the world. What is particularly valuable is that in the private collection of bronzes in modern China, this is one of the few personal collections that has been "systematically and completely preserved". Most of the important personal collections of the same period have basically been dispersed during the social turmoil from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, and "most of them have flowed out of the country and become the main body of Chinese bronze art collections in Europe and the United States", or "recombined", and it is difficult to find the old appearance.

The first part of the exhibition, "Jijin Voices: Recording the History by Name", focuses on the Shang and Zhou bronzes donated by Mr. Rong Geng to the Guangzhou Museum, and selects precious inscriptions such as the Yue Wang Sword, Zeng Dabao Copper Basin, and Xibo Copper Plate, to show the writing standards, main uses and important historical value of the inscriptions in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The Paper previously wrote an article introducing that in the twenties and thirties of the last century, one of Rong Geng's major contributions to Yanjing University was to collect antiquities for Yanjing University. On January 12, 1929, Rong Geng suggested that the Institute of Chinese Studies of Yenching University set up an archaeological research room to collect antiquities. Rong Geng's purchase of bronzes and other antiquities for Yanda seems to be of course a service to Yanda, but it is actually a reward for Yanda. Before April 1928, although Rong Geng had the habit of buying antiquities such as books, steles, and rubbings, and was also very interested in bronzes and oracle bones, he could only sigh because he was shy in his pocket. On April 28, 1928, he began buying bronzes. The diary of this day recorded: "Yu Xiang does not enter the door of the antique shop, and he can't get love in his pocket, and he thinks about it in vain." Fan Tianxiang, the accounting director of Jinchen, made an appointment to buy ancient money from the antique shop, first visited the ancient Qi in the glaze factory, and bought more than a dozen pieces of Han mirror and ancient knife cloth, the price was 20 yuan. Another three sheep mirrors, a Dezhi small seal, the price is eight yuan"; "Yi Erding, the record of "Western Qing Dynasty Ancient Books", the first time Yu bought ancient artifacts, it was cheap to get this, and he was very lucky. After the tripod cover, it is still combined, and there is no "Gujian". Sanyang Jingming: 'Sanyang is so big that it doesn't hurt. 'The text pattern and color are good. (pp. 151-152) This diary clearly describes the origin of Rong Geng's collection of bronzes and the joy of his first harvest. The key to his collection of bronzes at this time was that Yan Da was well paid, so that Rong Geng had the financial resources to support this hobby.

Among the bronzes collected by Mr. Rong Geng, the most prestigious is the earliest object of a wrong gold process - the "Luan Shu" cast by Luan Shu, a doctor of the Jin Kingdom in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. (Now in the collection of the Beijing History Museum). Wrong gold and bronze ware, mostly weapons, and the number of inscriptions is small. "Luan Shuyi" is not only the best of the bronze book, but also has a total of 48 characters in the inscription of the vessel. Therefore, Rong Lao cherishes this instrument.

Guangzhou Museum exhibited a more than 2,000 years ago Yue Wang sword unearthed in Shaanxi, the left and right sides of the sword grid are engraved with birds and insects calligraphy body "Wang Hu" two words, a total of eight characters on both sides, the sword color is mercury ancient, until now, it is still sharp, sharpening iron like mud. The spine of the sword contains more copper, has good toughness, and is not easy to break; The blade contains high tin and strong hardness, which shows that its performance is excellent, and the forging technology is excellent, and it is designated as a national first-class cultural relic.

The old collection of the Yue Wang sword Rong Geng on display

Speaking of the process of collecting this sword, there is also a rather legendary story. In 1931, Mr. Rong Geng first obtained this sword in Beijing-style Guzhai, and at first mistakenly understood "Wang Hu" as the "Qing Wang Hu" recorded in the "Historical Records of Qin Shi Huang Benji", so he did not pay attention to it and resold this sword to another bronze collector, Yu Xingwu. Later, when Mr. Rong Geng was in the book "Treasures of the Zhou and Han Dynasty", he found the "King of the Spear", and immediately reacted, the word "Wang Hu" should be "King of the King", and the sword was "the sword of the King of Yue", which was of great value, and it was a pity that the sword changed hands. Later, I found a new opportunity, Mr. Rong Geng accidentally got the Shi Yi Ding, and the collection value of this Ding is also very huge. After hearing about it, Yu Xingwu was very interested in this Ding and hoped that Mr. Rong Geng could cut his love and transfer. Taking this opportunity, the two discussed several times, and finally reached an agreement to exchange the sword of the king of Yue with Shi Yiding. The Yue Wang Sword only returned to Mr. Rong Geng's hands at this point.

Zeng Xiantong, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University, said in "Rong Geng and Chinese Bronze Studies": "From 1928, when Mr. collected the Trump, to 1949, when he was awarded the 'Ten Years of Chen Hou Wudun' in Lingnan, there were more than 20 years of Chinese history." During this period, he "not only eliminated many counterfeit artifacts from the heirlooms, but also rescued a lot of valuable cultural relics from a large number of 'suspected' and 'fake' artifacts, so that they could restore their original appearance of history." Jiang Zhihua of the Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library pointed out that in 1947, Mr. Rong Geng returned to Guangdong with his family. On the way, about three-tenths of the bronzes were damaged. However, until the mid-50s of the 20th century, he still had more than 150 bronzes, including the earliest physical object of the gold process, such as Luan Shuyi, which is now in the National Museum, and a number of bronze inscription rubbings. Relying on his intensive study of bronze inscriptions and other original materials, he wrote the most complete Jin text dictionary in China at that time, Jin Wen Bian, which is still a must-read classic for writing researchers.

Bronzes on display

From cultural relics inscriptions to bronze cultural relics exhibition

Li Minyong, director of the Guangzhou Museum, said in an interview with Guangzhou Daily that the exhibition took more than a year from planning to launch. The original idea was to use bronze inscriptions as a starting point and extend to the inscriptions of other materials and artifacts to show the style of the inscriptions in the museum's collection. However, as the preparations for the exhibition continued to advance, it was found that only bronze objects were enough to support a weighty exhibition, so he abandoned other materials and specialized in bronze objects.

Li Minyong said that bronze is very important in traditional Chinese culture, but as far as the Lingnan region is concerned, it is a relatively weak field. This exhibition also hopes that everyone can get a glimpse of the level of bronze collection of local cultural and museum institutions. The extensive collection is relatively complete and spans a long period of time in the local area, and the cultural relics on display in this exhibition extend from the pre-Qin period to the Qing dynasty, and many of them are on display for the first time. For example, Zeng Dabao, Yue Wang Sword, etc., are very precious.

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The third part, "Between Zhu and Bai, Imprinting All Beings", selects representative official seals of different materials from the Han to the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as the seal of "Zhu Ji of Cheng Si of Panyu County, Guangzhou", the six-sided copper seal of Zhou Junshi, etc., and the private seals engraved with Guanzhai, Jianzang, Xianwen, auspicious language, and flower monogram, etc., from the inscriptions with rich historical information and personal information of users, we can get a glimpse of ancient social credit, official etiquette and interpersonal communication and other customs.

The fourth part of "The Rise and Fall of Fangyuan, Guquan Ji Language" specially selects the circulation currencies of all dynasties since the Qin and Han dynasties, such as Qin and half two copper coins, Han five baht coins, Tang Kaiyuan Tongbao, etc., and some of the Han Mang goods spring copper coins that reflect the beauty of calligraphy, and the two Song Dynasty imperial book coins, as well as the Qing "good luck" flower copper coins full of good wishes, and the five sons of the Qing Dynasty Dengkepei coins, etc., to understand the rise and fall of dynasties and the livelihood of the people from these small square circles.

In addition, this exhibition is also a popularization of the knowledge of "inscriptions".

It is worth mentioning that the exhibition of inscriptions and bronzes in the collection of Guangzhou Museum is the first attempt by Guangzhou Museum and Guangdong Daguan Museum, a non-state-owned museum, to jointly organize an exhibition. In the exhibition, you can also see many other precious bronzes from historical periods, such as the "Six Copper Seals of Zhou Junshi" unearthed in 1955 at Sun Yat-sen Medical College in Guangzhou, and the six seals are: "Zhou Chenggong", "Zhou Junshi", "Chen Chenggong", "Zhou Chenggong Baishi", "Zhou Chenggong Baimu" and "Bai Ji". Except for the "Ministers", the rest of the inscriptions have borders. According to the extensive experts, the printed texts are divided into two categories according to their contents: one is related to the owner of the seal, including the name, character list, family location, official identity, etc., and the other is the language used in documents, such as "Bai Ji", "Bai Mu", "Bai Shi", etc., reflecting the document format and sealing system at that time. "Bai Ji" is a note of the subordinates stating their opinions to their superiors during the Han Dynasty; "White Leaf" is used in narrative letters; "White Things" is printed on the back of the name and is used exclusively for correspondence.

The second part of the exhibition, "Caring for Objects in the Mirror", selects the inscription of the dragon pattern mirror of the Fu beast button "Dale Weiyang", the diamond-shaped "Huzhou Zhenshi Jianian Er Shu Zhaozi" plain bronze mirror, and the Chinese Ming Qiru Rui animal pattern mirror and other inscribed bronze mirrors from the Han to the Ming and Qing dynasties, and leads the audience to understand the social thoughts, religious beliefs, life attitudes and aesthetic tastes contained in them through the interpretation of bronze mirror inscriptions in different historical periods.