Chapter 855 Top 3 Japanese collectors

And these Japanese people like it very much. They like the porcelain from the Song Dynasty and before the Song Dynasty, especially the pottery utensils from the Tang Dynasty.

The reason why their tastes are so tricky is not because of how exquisite the ceramics of the Tang Dynasty are, but mainly because of their feelings.

After all, the Tang Dynasty can be said to be the most influential Chinese dynasties on Japan. It was when they dispatched a large number of Tang envoys that they began to become civilized, and they transitioned from slave society to feudal society.

Therefore, the Japanese still have very deep feelings for the Tang Dynasty, which also makes them very obsessed with various antiques and cultural relics of the Tang Dynasty.

It’s a pity that when they became stronger and came to China to share the cake, they discovered that the pottery and utensils before the Song Dynasty in China were basically not divided by the European and American powers who arrived early.

They tried to find it, but there was almost nothing left.

Speaking of which, I can’t help but mention a Japanese, this guy’s name is Yokogawa Minsuke!

This guy, Takashima Kijiro mentioned earlier, and another Hirota Matsushige, can be said to be the three largest collectors in Japan before World War II.

And their most collected antiques, without exception, are antiques from China. After the war, the three of them also became the Tokyo National Museum. Apart from the Tianhuang family, they contributed the most to the three antique collections. Family.

They have all donated hundreds of exhibits to the Tokyo National Museum.

Including the white porcelain phoenix head vase from the Tang Dynasty that Jin Muchen had collected before, and the three-color appliqué double-dragon ear vase in front of him, all of which were donated by Yokogawa Minsuke to the Tokyo National Museum.

After the emperor Meiji hung up, Japan went through a short Taisho period, and then entered the Showa period, and the collection of Chinese antiques and cultural relics. It was also during this period that it reached its peak. It can be said that the famous Chinese cultural relics that constitute the skeleton of the Chinese cultural relics of the Tokyo National Museum, almost all flowed into Japan during this period.

The collections of this period have a major feature. That is almost all collections of extremely high quality.

And these collections are the most collected. The best quality ones are Takashima Kijiro, Yokogawa Minsuke and Hirota Matsushige.

Takashima Kijiro and Yokogawa Minsuke were both famous Japanese industrialists at that time. Takaten Kijiro was the president of Nippon Oji Paper, and was called the “Paper King” by later generations.

And that Yokogawa Minsuke is not too much. He is the founder of Yokogawa Electric in Japan. As for Hirota Matsushige, although he is not an industrialist like Takashima and Yokogawa, he also has his own expertise. I used to play antiques. At that time, he was running a well-known art shop in the Tokyo area, and his name was Huzhongju, so he was also well-off.

Because of the money on hand, these guys often travel between China and Japan, and every time they come back from China, they can bring back a lot of good things.

They not only went to China to search for them, but also had inextricable links with several Japanese cultural relics dealers at that time, so they collected a lot of collections. Actually it’s invisible.

So in the eyes of these three Japanese people, they are very great collectors in the archaeological circle of China. The same has a bad reputation.

Even their reputations are even worse than the previous Dagu expedition, because these guys have definitely collected the most fine cultural relics from China.

Moreover, the three people’s preferences for Chinese antiques can be said to be different.

Just like this Yokogawa Minsuke, he and Takashima Kijiro prefer calligraphy and painting different. He has a soft spot for Chinese ceramics.

He has collected countless Chinese porcelains in his lifetime. Even now, no one knows. How many pieces of Chinese porcelain did he collect, but he later donated more than 1,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain to various museums in Japan, so because of this, many people in the Japanese collection circle call him the king of porcelain.

Moreover, the porcelains he collected are comprehensive, systematic and academic. The Chinese porcelains he donated to the Tokyo National Museum constitute the skeleton of the Chinese ceramics collection of the Tokyo National Museum.

And because the Chinese ceramics he donated to the Tokyo National Museum are of very high quality, the Chinese ceramics collection of the Tokyo National Museum has the ability to compete with overseas museums, not only can it compete with some well-known museums in Europe and America, but even Compared with museums in China, it is not too much.

And this is the most distressing place for Chinese archaeologists of all dynasties.

This Yokogawa Minsuke is not only a well-known Japanese industrialist, but also a well-known architect in modern Japan. Now the Mitsui Bank in Shibuya area is his representative work of architectural design.

The Tokyo Imperial Theater and Mitsukoshi Department Store and other buildings are also his classic works. As for the Yokogawa Electric Company he founded, it is also a leader in the global industrial control field.

Therefore, for a guy like him, the nonsense that we Chinese people pass on from mouth to mouth, such as good and evil, can only be useful to fool the people in China, but it seems that it is useless for beasts like the Japanese. .

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Minsuke Yokogawa has been collecting Chinese ceramics.

At the beginning of the century, the construction of a railway and the discovery of an ancient city attracted the attention of collectors all over the world.

In 1903, the Qing government began to build the Bianluo railway connecting Kaifeng and Luoyang. When the project was in progress to the front section of Luoyang, a large number of ancient tombs of the Tang Dynasty were excavated along the railway.

A large number of burial objects from ancient tombs have reappeared, and a large number of unearthed ceramics such as Tang Sancai and glazed pottery have appeared in the shops of Beijing Liulichang.

As for the Tang Sancai at that time, the Chinese themselves did not like it very much, but European and American collectors and Japanese people were particularly obsessed with this kind of thing.

For these Tang Sancai pottery, Yokota Minsuke rushed to the capital from Japan several times to buy these Tang Sancai pottery.

But at that time, his conditions were still average. He was just an architect, and he had not yet founded Yokogawa, so his financial resources were limited. In the competition, he could not compete with those European and American collectors with deep pockets, and he could only survive by picking up leaks.

But I have to say that this guy has vision, because the Tang Sancai market was hot at that time, and fake Tang Sancai products began to appear in the market one after another, and many European and American collectors were attracted.

So the collection craze of Tang Sancai began to retreat, but at this time, Yokota Minsuke, relying on his own eyesight, picked up a big leak in an antique shop near Liulichang, and this big leak was Now Jin Muchen is in front of this three-color appliqué double dragon ear bottle.

The shape of this double dragon ear bottle is actually a container shape that originated in Greece. During the Tang Dynasty, because of the strong national power and the smooth Silk Road, there were more cultural exchanges with the Western Regions.

In addition, in the Western Regions at that time, there were many city-states left after Alexander the Great and his eastern expedition to India. These countries had not been dyed green at that time, so they still retained the living habits of many Greek countries.

The shape of this double dragon ear bottle was introduced to the Tang Dynasty at that time, and then the pottery craftsmen of the Tang Dynasty, in order to match the hobby of the nobles of the Tang Dynasty, used white porcelain, or three Painted pottery is produced in large quantities, this kind of double dragon ear bottle.

Therefore, this kind of double dragon ear bottle can be said to be popular in the early and middle stages of the Tang Dynasty.

The three-color appliquéd double-dragon-eared vase in front of me is intertwined with bright green and brown glazes, and the glaze flows and flows together, accompanied by embossed patterns of treasure-like patterns. This is the result of the three-color glazing method in the early and middle Tang Dynasty. Typical work.

Therefore, this three-color appliqué double dragon ear bottle can definitely be said to be a representative work in the three-color pottery of the Tang Dynasty. It is absolutely a miracle that it can be preserved in such a good condition to this day.

You must know that the remains of the Tang Dynasty left to the Chinese are probably only the tomb of Wu Zetian that has not been excavated, and the remains of the Tang Dynasty, and cultural relics, are probably not collected by the Japanese. How much.

This is also a point that makes the Japanese feel extremely proud, and even some people still think that Japan is the real Chinese civilization!

Later, after the demise of the Qing Dynasty, they were driven out of the capital and hid in the Jinmen concession area. The old and young of the Qing Dynasty began to sell their collections in order to maintain their lives.

This has attracted overseas collectors including Japan~www.readmtl.com~ to come to Jinmen and begin to join the wave of bidding for those antiques.

And it was in this bidding wave that Yokogawa Minsuke received the white porcelain phoenix head bottle before, and the cost was not high.

And these two pieces of porcelain were donated to the Tokyo National Museum by Yokogawa Minsuke after the end of World War II before he died!

And the precious Chinese porcelain he donated to the Tokyo National Museum is far more than that. You must know that the Chinese porcelain he donated to the Tokyo National Museum alone constitutes the skeleton of the Tokyo National Museum’s collection of Chinese porcelain. This shows how much Chinese good stuff this old guy looted at that time.

So after Jin Muchen put away the three-color appliqué double-dragon ear bottle, he continued to walk inside. There were still many treasures donated by this old guy waiting for him.

Some of these exquisite porcelains were bought back to Japan by an old guy who paid for them, and there are many others that he got from China to Japan through very disgraceful means, so these things, no matter how they came, Jin Muchen All take away. (To be continued.)