Through Six Generations: An Exhibition of the Weng Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

by Hao Sheng, Assistant Curator of Chinese Art, Department of Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and curator of the exhibition `Through Six Generations: The Weng Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy'.

The Weng collection was assembled primarily in the second half of the 19th century by Weng Tonghe, a preeminent figure in late Qing China: private tutor to two emperors and holder of high positions at court. Hao Sheng explores his life and obsession with antiques and works of art that led to the formation of the collection. Hao also considers the works from the collection, and ends with a look at the life of Wan-go Weng and his role in the preservation and study of the pieces.

Weng Tonghe

Xie An's Excursion on the Eastern Mountain By Shen Zhou (1427-1509), 1480 Hanging scroll, ink and colour on silk Height 293 cm, width 122.5 cm Wan-go H.C. Weng Collection

by Wan-go Weng, an independent scholar of Chinese history, literature and art, specializing in painting and calligraphy.

This album of landscapes by Shen Zhou, the Ming period painter, calligrapher and founder of the Wu School, is part of the Weng collection. In this article, Weng examines the individual leaves, as well as the life and history of Shen. The history of the album itself is also traced, through the seals and colophons of the collectors, from its first owner in the late 15th century up to Weng Tonghe.

`Walking to the Summit of Mount Dachao with Shen Gongshi of Jingxi', the first leaf from the album Suzhou Sceneries

by Wan-go Weng, an independent scholar of Chinese history, literature and art, specializing in painting and calligraphy.

The artist Wang Hui won renown by painting a series of twelve handscrolls depicting the Kangxi emperor's journey to the South - this task alone took him seven years. After its completion he set about painting another set of scrolls showing the length of the Yangzi river, a theme addressed many times by Chinese artists. This series of paintings is in the Weng collection; in this article, Wan-go Weng analyses the scrolls and the painter who created them.

Detail of Wang Hui's Ten Thousand Li up the Yangzi, the eighth section showing the city of Wuchang

by Qianshen Bai, Associate Professor of Chinese Art at Boston University.

Bai traces the history of composite rubbings of ancient bronzes combined with flower paintings through four interesting paintings in the collection of Wan-go Weng. These once belonged to noted literatus Wu Yun. The development of the genre and notable artists, including Ma Qiyun and Tu Zhuo, and influences on it, including western-style painting by Jesuits at the imperial court, are discussed.

Set of four bogu huahui By Lin Fuchang (d. after 1877) Hanging scrolls, ink and colour on paper Each: height 169.5 cm, width 51.5 cm Wan-go H.C. Weng Collection

by Xiang Gao, Research Fellow at the Department of Nutrition, Harvard University School of Public Health.

The tradition of learning calligraphy from tracing the works of earlier masters has a long history in China. Xiang looks at the `model letters' in the Weng collection, especially the works of Yan Zhengqing, whose brushwork had the greatest influence on the development of Weng's calligraphy. Wen Zhengming's Letters to Sons is also in the Weng collection, bought by Weng Tonghe in 1888; this piece is also addressed, as is the life of the calligrapher himself.

Letter 7 in Letters to Sons By Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), 1523 Handscroll, ink on paper Height 24.5 cm, width 495.3 cm Wan-go H.C. Weng Collection.

by Sheng-chih Lin, an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

The handscroll Illustration of the Classic of the Yellow Court, in the Weng Collection, contains one of the most distinguished Daoist paintings of the Southern Song period. Lin examines the iconography of the scene in the scroll depicting the Daoist death ritual, the huanglu, and explains the significance of the picture's elements in terms of Daoist religion. Lin explains how this might mean the scroll is representative of a Daoist salvation from hell.

Classic of the Yellow Court Attributed to Liang Kai (c. 13th century) Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) Handscroll, ink on paper Height 26 cm, length 74.3 cm Wan-go H.C. Weng Collection

by Anning Jing, Associate Professor at the Department of Art and Art History, Michigan State University.

Jing offers an alternative interpretation of Illustration of the Classic of the Yellow Court, and offers analysis of why it could portray the story of the descent of the Holy Ancestor of the Song dynasty, visiting Emperor Zhenzong.

Detail showing the Holy Ancestor releasing Wang Jie from a jail (bottom left of scroll)

The lasting legacy of the Weng Collection owes as much to the enthusiasms of the earlier generations who built it as it does to the dedication of its current owner, 88-year-old Wan-go Weng, to the preservation of the ideals and values it embodies. As `Through Six Generations', the most comprehensive exhibition to date of works from the collection, opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Wan-go Weng submits himself to Orientations' version of the Proust questionnaire.

Wan-go Weng By Ye Qianyu (1907-96), 1946

by Anita Christy, a former director of China Institute Gallery, is a writer living in New York.

An account of the life of the descendant of one of most prominent and influential scholar-official families of late imperial China who inherited the family's collection and has been responsible for its conservation, study and fate at the same time as being an accomplished author, film-maker, artist and poet.

The Weng family in Tianjin, 1933 Clockwise from left: eldest brother, Kaiqing; 2nd brother, Chuanqing (deceased, 1945); 3rd brother, Xingqing (Wan-go Weng); only sister, Chanqing; 7th brother Mingqing; 5th brother, Yongqing (4th brother, Chongqing, died c. 1930, at the age of 10)

Wan-go Weng selecting footage from an existing film, New York, c. 1947

Garuda Prasat Thom, Koh Ker, Preah Vihear, 2nd quarter of the 10th century Sandstone Height 2.13m National Museum of Cambodia (Ka 1737)

Susan Conway's recent publication The Shan: Culture, Art and Crafts
is the first publication to document the material culture of the Shan, a distinct branch of the Tai people. In her review Sylvia Fraser-Lu acknowledges Conway's diligence and scholarship in putting together such a publication. Through a careful scouring of the colonial literature and the uncovering of contemporary maps, genealogical tables and magnificent archival photographs, she has single-handedly rescued the former Shan monarchies and their distinctive history and culture from certain oblivion. In doing so, she also shines a welcome light on a little known area of the world, whetting the appetite of scholars and curious travellers alike to learn more about the Shan state and its inhabitants.

Princess Tip Htila, sister of the prince of Keng-tung, 1902 (After Conway, p. 97)

by Carol Conover, Director of Kaikodo, New York.

When I read the excellent piece `Shuffled Off in Buffalo' by Tom L. Freudenheim in the Wall Street Journal (15 November 2006) about the Albright-Knox deaccessioning their antiquities, African, Pre-Colombian and European works of art, and old master paintings, I had just been to see the actual booty at Sotheby's that morning. They included a Chola period four-faced Shiva, the best example of its kind, and an important Shang bronze fangjia, the only one of its type. Of course it is a good thing for our business to have provenanced ancient Asian art being sold on the block; however, I actually felt kind of sick. Like Freudenheim, I thought that the trustees should not have been trusted. Collectors and dealers love to say they are only temporary keepers of works of art, but museums were supposed to be different, to be in it for the long haul. Practically speaking, if those antiquities from the Albright-Knox were in a warehouse somewhere and not being lovingly looked at, then I suppose they should be sold. But in an escalation of the issues, all I can see is that an entire region, most of upstate New York, is now without any direct contact with the past.
One never knows when a kid will be grabbed by a work of art, which is why I worked for a very long time to ensure that my small college had a real art museum on campus. A few days after the announcement of the Albright-Knox sale, I was having lunch with a family of collectors. They happened to have been brought up in the Buffalo area. I broke the news to them. They were astonished and greatly saddened and began to describe in detail to me their wandering through the `Chinese' room when they were kids and the old master paintings they knew as old friends at the museum. One brother is an artist and a collector, and the other brother, a retired academic and a collector.
We appear to be having our own cultural revolution in the US. When I heard that Princeton no longer teaches ancient Chinese history I really flipped my lid. This is not the time to not understand China. There has been a great shift from print to screen, from antiques to contemporary art, from letter-writing to email, from upper case to lower. Should we keep these old relics around gathering dust even though no one is looking at them upstate? I saw a Tang dynasty guardian figure from the Albright-Knox at Sotheby's. As I often do when looking at a work of art, I wondered what that work would say to me if only it could speak? The guardian regarded me as if to say: `Finally someone is looking at me!' I thought, well, you have been on quite a journey. From about 750 to 1930 you were in a tomb, I speculated, and maybe by 1940 you were under the arm of a legendary dealer of Chinese antiquities like J.T. Tai, on your way to the US; then, from 1940 to 1970 you were on view in the Albright-Knox and, from 1970 until the present, you were in a warehouse, another kind of tomb. Now, in 2007, maybe someone, or another institution will purchase you. What will happen if you don't sell? Talk about getting a life. Ours is only a few decades, while that of a work of art is hundreds of decades.
You know this is all fine for me. I live in New York so there is no problem with access to art. I can wander the Met all I want. My problem is that maybe for quite a long time no one in upstate New York will have any access to ancient Chinese art. I guess they can go to China, or Cornell in Ithaca, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Washington, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles or other centres of culture. We are a very rich country when it comes to Chinese art. But in Buffalo the art is no longer in their backyard. I am happy for the antiques, I guess, since they will survive yet another move, but very sad for people upstate.