Hájek realised that any lasting art historical interest in Asian art would require the engagement not only of art historians and collectors, but also artists,75 whom he endeavoured to engage in publishing and exhibiting activities. He was aware that the standard of expertise was not everything. His interest lay in applying the Panofsky iconological method in order to evaluate the significance and original context of an artwork, and to identify the correlations between a work and its social context. Although he attended lectures in art history and classical archaeology at Charles University with professors Oldřich Blažíček (Proseminar of Art History), Jaroslav Pešina (Byzantine Art), Antonín Matějček (Art History seminar), Jindřich Čadík (Greek Art) and Bedřich Svoboda (Classical Archaeology proseminar),76 Hájek approached the formulation of an art historical methodology rather unsystematically, and as a result his analyses frequently create a fragmentary impression as a certain 'antithesis of a scientific history of art'.77 A certain role-model for Hájek in a methodological approach was the art historian Václav Vilém Štech, who during the inter-war period held a position in the cultural department of the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment (MŠANO), in charge of the cultural agenda, and later from the 1930s as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In his emphasis on the intuitive experience and perception of a work of art, Štech succeeded not only in providing an erudite analysis of the work, but also in identifying its purpose and aesthetic function. He also approached Asian art, with which he was less familiar, in this manner.

In the second half of the 1950s, Hájek edited the two-volume publication *Umění čtyř světadílů z českých sbírek mimoevropského umění* (The Art of Four Continents from Czech Collections of Non-European Art) for the foreign distribution of the Artia publisher,78 which was published in several foreign languages: German,79 French,80 English,81 Italian,82 Spanish83 and Finnish.84 In addition to Štech, who wrote the introductory text, Hájek invited a number of other collaborators to work on the publication, including not only orientalists but also artists such as the photographers Werner and Bedřich Forman, Norberd Frýd, the writers and collectors Joe Hloucha and Adolf Hoffmeister, the scholar of Indonesia Miroslav Oplt, the ethnographer of South American Indian tribes Václav Šolc, and the Egyptologist professor Zbyněk Žába. Hájek's ability to present themes and exhibitions of Asian art to a wider audience was not limited to the journal *Nový Orient* and its later English version *New Orient Bimonthly* (1960–1968), targeted at foreign readers. He found a publication platform also in the academic periodicals *Výtvarné umění*, *Tvorba* (journal for criticism and art), and even in the pages of the army magazine *Československý voják*. 85 He opened the weekly *Kultura* in 1959 in a special appendix devoted to the cultural-political theme of the cultures of the East.86 Under the influence of the critical stance of the socialist bloc towards colonial domination in Asia and Africa, the term Orient represented the colonial expansion of the Western capitalist powers, and now appeared outdated.87 The aim was therefore to arrive at a new conception of this theme in a debate with experts from the cultural sphere, expressing it through the question *Does 'oriental culture' exist?*88 The debate among orientalists, art historians, and artists ultimately reached a consensus that the term 'oriental culture' was a vague and meaningless construct (Lubor Hájek, the architect Václav Hilský, the art historian and director of the Collection of Modern Art at the NGP Jan Marius Tomeš). The Indologist Dušan Zbavitel contemplated the meaning of the word 'oriental' from the perspective of its use which automatically evokes the meaning of 'foreign', thus something far removed from our comprehension and taste: 'Instead of common traits and features we emphasise peculiarities and differences, […] we should not take the word oriental in a qualifying sense, as a synonym for remoteness and foreignness.'89

And Adolf Hoffmeister added that the expression 'oriental culture' was also problematic, because it does not express cultural diversity.

It was therefore a certain paradox that the term 'oriental' persisted in the official title of the collection department throughout Hájek's entire tenure as head of the Collection of Oriental Art.

#### **THE TRAGIC CHAPTER OF THE 1960S**

In addition to a relaxation of social relations, the 1960s also finally brought the possibility of displaying Asian collections in a permanent exhibition. After ten years of its existence in the NGP, in 1961 the collection department succeeded in opening the permanent exhibition *Masterpieces of Chinese Art* at the château in Benešov nad Ploučnicí.90

A review of the exhibition was written by an equally respected figure from the community of Czech art historians, V. V. Štech (fig. 8), who expressed his aesthetic feelings and impressions of Chinese fine art:

In every piece, the style resonates as an intensive relationship to work, an inner respect for the world and for life. The paintings are the product of long observation and a sum of experiences. […] Small, everyday life is linked together with a fantasy of monsters, dragons and celestial guardians perched on rooftops, […] We feel that this great work has grown out of a different concept of time than that which has governed Western art. Statues of the Buddha exist and operate outside of time. Through their silence, they comment on our restlessness and haste.91

Hájek conceived the installation in co-operation with Czech artists as a specific *Gesamtkunstwerk*. For the architectural design he invited collaboration from the artist Květa Horáková (1927–1981), who accentuated the economy of the installation with the aid of lightweight glass display cases and separately placed exhibits, which appeared to be levitating on metal rods (fig. 9). The author of the design of the promotional graphic prints was the artist Václav Rykr (1927–1991). Hájek was

Figure 8. Václav Vilém Štech at the storage of the château in Benešov and Ploučnicí on 19 August 1960. Archive of Masaryk Institute and Archive of Czech Academy of Sciences, fonds: V. V. Štech. Photograph © Archive of Masaryk Institute and Archive of Czech Academy of Sciences.

Figure 9. Photo from the installation of *Masterpieces of Chinese Art*, the château in Benešov nad Ploučnicí, 1961–1969. Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Documentation of the NGP exhibitions (1959–1964), inv. no. 165. Photograph © National Gallery in Prague 2023.

suitably proud of this artistically conceived installation, which he also declared in *New Orient Bimonthly*:

The conception underlying the exhibition is not to crowd the area and not to weigh down the installation furniture. Thus they succeeded in utilising the artistic qualities of the space itself, to the same degree as the Chinese exhibits. […] Pursuing the aesthetic aspect rather than the didactic approach (which is traditionally used in museums) brought good result. The visitor does not mind that the beauty of the European Renaissance construction speaks to him along with the beauty of the ancient relics of Chinese art; their combination seems to enhance aesthetic receptivity and create an unexpected harmony.92

This exhibition was meant to be followed by an additional installation of Asian art in the upper château, which unfortunately was never realised. On 19 December 1969 a fire at the château destroyed more than 2,000 artistic objects,93 marking a culmination of the national tragedy following the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The subsequent period of stagnation was foreshadowed also by the announcement of the discontinuation of the *New Orient Bimonthly*:

Due to the generally known tragic events in our country, beginning with August 21st 1968, the regular publication of our international journal has become impossible. In this situation, the editorial board has decided to discontinue the production of New Orient Bimonthly immediately. We hope that our friends all over the world will understand.94

Hájek's interdisciplinary interest in the art of Asian cultures was founded upon a need to understand artistic expressions within a horizontal perspective, i.e. to conceive of the history of art from a global as well as contemporary perspective. His relationship towards the contemporary art world both in this country and abroad, which he developed both through publications and exhibitions, remained his motto throughout his subsequent years at the NGP.

#### **NOTES**

#### **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

## **'I HAVE SHOWN YOU JAPAN …'1 FELIKS JASIEŃSKI AND JAPANESE ART COLLECTIONS IN POLAND**

*Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik*

The first monographic exhibition of Japanese art in Poland was opened in Warsaw on 14 February 1901. Its initiator and curator, Feliks Jasieński (1861–1929)2 (fig. 1), who supplied works to be shown from his collection, wrote about preparing the Warsaw public for the event, at the same time explaining his intentions:

Reflection on Japanese art and history should be of tremendous pedagogical importance to us, who until now have been unable to create anything that is truly ours. We have Polish artists, but no Polish art. A nation can only produce its own art when it has its own national style […] What we have to realise is that the Japanese exist because they are Japanese. So let us learn from the Japanese how to be Poles.3

The outstanding collector and future donor of the National Museum in Kraków summarised in this way the assumptions and objectives of the new artistic current, which, to a large extent thanks to him, was reaching Poland. Japonisme arrived

there more than thirty years after the first major presentations of Japanese art in London, Paris, and Vienna.

Deprived of a state Poles did not participate in the 1880s diplomatic missions and the signing of treaties

Figure 1. *Portrait of Feliks Jasieński* by Leon Wyczółkowski. 1911. Pastel on paper. National Museum in Kraków (from Jasieński's collection). (See plate 9, p. 248)

'opening' Japan to the West. Among the members of official delegations as well as Austrian and Russian scientific expeditions, however, there were also scholars from Poland such as biologist and zoologist Szymon Syrski, ethnographer Jan Kubary, botanist Hugo Zapałowicz, and geographer Eugeniusz Romer.4 There was also another special 'Polish path', running through Siberia, towards the northern end of the Japanese archipelago, through which the Russians sent deportees, such as participants of Polish national movements. This was the route taken by exiles, the most famous being Bronisław Piłsudski, the future explorer of the Ainu, and Wacław Sieroszewski, writer and author of popular books about Japan, who brought back a small collection of artworks from his year-and-a-half-long expedition. Art historian and collector Count Karol Lanckoroński and princes Witold Kazimierz and Adam Ludwik Czartoryski went to Japan as part of round-theworld expeditions fashionable at the time. In January 1892 in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), Count Paweł Sapieha showed his collection from a trip he had made accompanied by Rüdiger Biegeleben, the Austrian envoy to China and Japan.

Industrialist and political and philanthropic activist Stanisław Glezmer, working in Petersburg, travelled to East Asia to study the circumstances of the success of modernisation in the Meiji Empire.5 Upon his return, he rebuilt his palace in Strugi (near Warsaw), erecting a special Japanese pavilion, the only example of Japonising architecture in Poland (fig. 2). In it he placed his collection, mostly works of craft, acquired during the voyage. After his death it was gifted to the National Museum in Warsaw (where the majority of the collection was lost during the Second World War).6

It was from these individuals' travel memoirs and the increasing number of press reports from abroad that more detailed knowledge was drawn about the exotic 'Land of Mikado', whose suggestive image, though far from real, was imposed by Arthur Sullivan's and William Gilbert's operetta (1885), popular in Poland. For the average Pole, however, Japan still remained too distant to arouse more than passing interest. Deeper understanding and knowledge was still to come, though the long process of discovery was begun by the Russo-Japanese War. Japan was also more of an economic or political model than an artistic one.7

The Polish public first became acquainted with Japanese art a little earlier, thanks to exhibitions organised by Jasieński starting in 1901. His first 'performance' at the Society for

Figure 2. Stanislaw Glezmer's Japanese pavilion, Strugi (near Warsaw), after 1908. Colour photograph. Photo Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik (See plate 10, p. 248)

the Encouragement of Fine Arts (Zachęta) was a typical case of succès de scandale: a provocation designed to draw attention to a new artistic phenomenon, which would otherwise have no chance of being noticed by the ordinary viewer of culture. An earlier exhibition of Sapieha's collection, as well as a commercial presentation of Ukiyo-e prints, from Siegfried Bing's collection, organised in 1900 in Aleksander Krywult's salon in Warsaw, passed pretty much unnoticed. Even the second exhibition, which was to mark the occasion of Ignacy Matuszewski's publication of the first monographic article devoted to Japanese painting,8 did not attract any attention from the general public, despite clear interest from critics.

Feliks Jasieński, the culprit of this artistic scandal, having returned to Warsaw after several years in Paris, was already the author of a book entitled *Manggha. Promenades à travers le monde, l'art et les idées* (in honour of Hokusai)9 and the music critic of the newly established literary and arts magazine *Chimera*, the cradle of Polish symbolism. He presented Japanese works of art that he had gathered in France to astonished Varsovians. Together with the rest of his collection, these artworks were to be transferred, as stated by Jasieński, 'to the museum which must be created here […] Without such a permanent museum of art, there can be no question of developing artistic taste among the general public and, consequently, of creating a national art'.10

He confirmed his intentions in a declaration inscribed in his copy of the auction catalogue of the Goncourt brothers' collection of Far Eastern art (1897), placed significantly on the back of the title page, symmetrically to the facsimile of the famous testament of Edmond de Goncourt on the next page. Unlike Goncourt, who decided to disperse his collection and use the money he obtained to found a literary award, Jasieński gave his collection to the Polish nation:

It is my wish that this modest nucleus of a collection of Japanese arts – the most original, audacious, and refined art ever – should become the property of my country and be transformed into a free-of-charge museum so that art lovers yet to be born may come to experience the most exquisite sensations that art can provide and keep a grateful memory of the first Polish Japoniste.11

The Japanese exhibition was organised on Jasieński's initiative, and at his own expense, at the most prestigious venue possible: the newly inaugurated building of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, the only Polish artistic institution in the territories of the Russian Partition. It lasted two months and was the first exhibition of its kind in Poland, covering all areas of Japanese art. The exhibition was his first attempt – and the model for all Jasieński's future 'artistic actions', where the presentation of objects from his collection was always accompanied by lectures and press publications. Jasieński was personally responsible for all the preparations, from the general concept to the smallest technical details. Before the inauguration, he published a series of articles devoted to Japanese art and its influence on the development of the Polish artistic school.12

As reported in the newspapers, the exhibition showed

about a thousand items, representing, in various sizes and outlines, Japanese art, from the beginning of the twelfth to the middle of the last century. […] The glass showcases contain around five hundred sabre guards […], a collection of dagger handles […] A serious sizeable part is occupied by bronzes […], vases […], incense boxes, candlesticks, plants, animals, etc. This section includes enamelled wares […] The collection of lacquerware includes small boxes [inrō] worn by Japanese women, combs, and hair pins […]. In this section we include related sculptures made of wood, such as Buddha statues and models of theatre masks made of ivory. […] The centre of the exhibition hall is occupied by a large collection of colour woodcuts, including the so-called *surimono*, printed only in one or a few copies.13

Critics underlined the high value of the presented artworks, which were displayed in chronological order 'so that they may give a full picture of the development of the art of this people from the Far Eastern reaches and teach our society to navigate its artistic output'.14 Though, as was noted, the lack of space prevented the full realisation of 'didactical aims' and the presentation of the whole collection, its owner 'faithful to his role of propagator of Japanese curio, not only spares no hints and gladly shares his knowledge […] but also he did not hide his treasures but is ready to place them in the hands of anyone, who has interest in the matters of art'.15

The exhibition drew large crowds – it was visited by nearly eight thousand people. The audience was both intrigued and shocked by the new artistic proposal and, above all, by the atmosphere of scandal and provocation accompanying the event. Jasieński, prone to violent reactions, responded to the criticism of and disrespect for Japan's artistic achievements with an open attack on his opponents, reminding the audience that they not only deliberately distorted the names of Ukiyo-e masters to make them sound as if they were in operettas such as *Mikado* or *Geisha* but also compared 'Japanese art to packages of Chinese tea'.16 On the cover of the album in which he later kept *surimono*, he placed an inscription: 'Not for cattle' in order to protect them from viewers who are incapable of appreciating their full artistic value.

In his polemical passion Jasieński went as far as proving Kuniyoshi's superiority over Jan Matejko, the most outstanding Polish historical painter.17 Even worse, at the same moment, he published an critical obituary about the realist painter Wojciech Gerson, an opponent of new artistic currents, especially Impressionism, whose representatives the collector actively supported.18 By attacking Gerson, the director of the Klasa Rysunkowa ('Drawing Class', the only art school in Warsaw) and chair of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, Jasieński was in fact challenging the entire official – conservative – artistic milieu of Warsaw. In the media storm which followed these publications, the collector's strongest supporters were the members of the circle of modernists gathered around *Chimera*. Its editor, Zenon Przesmycki, prepared a long article presenting Ukiyo-e in the context of the history of Japanese art, referring to Western sources and supporting his arguments with examples from Jasieński's collection – Japanese woodblock prints from the collection, in lithographs by Polish artists, served as illustrations in subsequent issues of *Chimera*. It was the first serious study familiarising Polish readers with the outlines of this newly discovered artistic tradition. Not by accident, its publication coincided with the intensification of criticism surrounding the exhibition.19

Put off by the negative reception of his activities, Jasieński withdrew his promise to hand over the collection to the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and decided to move it from Warsaw to Kraków. His apartment, on the second floor of a townhouse on the corner of Market Square, became an important point on the map of the artistic and spiritual capital of Poland, as Kraków was the seat of such important scientific and cultural institutions as the Jagiellonian University, the Academy of Fine Arts and the National Museum. While preparing for the move he presented his collection in the two most important cities of Galicia: Kraków at the turn of October and November 1901 and again in January 1902 as well as in Lwów in November and December 1901. This series of exhibitions was devoted to the graphic arts. In addition to Japanese woodblock prints, including Utamaro, Eishi, Shunsho, Eisan, Toyokuni, Hokusai, and Hiroshige, the collector presented works by Max Klinger and Henri Rivière, among others.

The reception was very warm, as was press commentary:

The small, cramped space of the Lwów Society of Fine Arts was swarming with long unseen crowds. Every week the display changed, and every week Mister Jasieński was there to inaugurate it with fiery talks in which, meeting the public face to face, he explained his goal to free Poles from foreign influence so that they might develop, following the example of the Japanese, their own applied and pure art that might lay the foundations of national distinctiveness in all daily and exceptional needs.20

While closing the series with an exhibition which featured Ukiyo-e and paper stencils (*katagami*), parallel to the presentation of selected paintings by Polish artists from his collection, he donated a dozen Ukiyo-e to the National Museum in Kraków.21

In time Jasieński's Kraków apartment became the mecca of Polish lovers of Japanese art, as well as of artists and collectors. It was also a meeting place for local bohemians, the seat of 'the Club' founded by the collector to support the Society of Polish Artists '*Sztuka*' (Art) and, above all, by virtue of the collector's own request from 1903, granted in 1906, a new department of the National Museum in Kraków or, in short, the Feliks Jasieński Museum (fig. 3). The 'museum' was made up of a collection of contemporary Polish painting and sculpture, European and Polish graphic art, and decorative art that he had accumulated from

Figure 3. 'Feliks Jasieński's Museum'. Tadeusz Jabłoński Atelier, before 1914. Black-and-white photograph. National Museum in Kraków (from Jasieński's collection).

the 1880s. The Japanese collection, described in all articles devoted to 'the new museum institution of Kraków'22 and shown at subsequent exhibitions, although still exotic for part of the public and the critics was its integral part – as Jasieński always stressed.

In 1904, at the *Prints Exhibition* organised in Kraków by the Polish Applied Arts Society, in the section of foreign prints – which came almost exclusively from Jasieński's book collection – he showed publications on Japanese art, magazines with Japanese graphic design, the magazine *Kokka*, and woodblock prints by Hokusai and Eishi.23

In 1906, to assert his donation and new role as curator of the 'Department' of the National Museum, Jasieński prepared a great presentation of Japanese art in the Palace of Art, the new seat of the Kraków Society of the Friends of Fine Arts. On this occasion he published the *Guide to the Japanese Department of the*  [Jasieński] *Branch of the National Museum in Cracow*. 24 It was in fact a publication prepared with great care, detailing both the collection and history of Japanese art, its cover decorated with a reproduction of 'Suzuki Kiitsu's painting'. The screen titled *Flowers of the Four Seasons*, attributed today to Kikoku, Kiitsu's disciple, was one of the most famous works in his collection. The exhibition was very successful, although this time the earnings from ticket and catalogue sales did not cover the organisation costs. 'The Japanese exhibition was visited by 4,000 people. I sold […] 200 elegantly published catalogues'25 – commented the disappointed collector.

However, Jasieński did not give up his activities as art populariser and exhibition curator. A part of his Japanese arts and crafts collection, placed on deposit, was presented from 1906 in the Czapski Palace, a new department of the National Museum. In 1911 he published the second volume of *Manggha*, which also contained essays on Japanese art, in sections in Józef Rettinger's *Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art*, of which he was also the art editor.26 He delivered, as a summary, a series of lectures based on fragments of *Manggha* at Kraków's City Theatre in November 1911, and once more in 1913 in Kraków and Kyiv, and in March 1914 in Warsaw. Each time the series began with a speech on Hokusai, entitled *The Rembrandt of the Far East*.

He did all this without abandoning his goal of bestowing the Japanese, as well as the Polish and European works of art, upon the nation. On 11 March 1920 Jasieński, finally, signed the act of donation of his collection to the National Museum in Kraków. He inaugurated the new chapter of his activity by preparing a great exhibition of Japanese art, opening a few days later in the Palace of Art, the seat of the Society of the Friends of Fine Arts. The exhibition, warmly received by critics, attracted crowds of visitors interested in Japan or lured by echoes of the stormy, almost twenty-year-long negotiations between the city authorities, the museum owner, and the collector. The latter, as was his custom, published an article in the press before the opening, explaining the objectives of the exhibition.27 He also delivered 'a lecture on Japanese art, supported by items of the magnificent exhibition currently held in the rooms of the Palace of Art'.28 The Japanese exhibition was accompanied by a presentation of the Polish part of his collection in the main gallery of the National Museum. The inaugural cycle was crowned by an exhibition of textiles, opened in the Czapski Palace, department of the museum. The collector presented 'masterpieces of drawing, colour, and composition', examples of two complementary oriental aesthetic systems: so-called Polish sashes, Eastern rugs, batiks, Chinese and Japanese silks and embroideries, and obi belts.29 The choice of these particular fragments of the collection was not accidental: Jasieński wanted to emphasise once again that 'there is only one art', encompassing painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, and harmoniously combining the Western tradition with the artistic output of the Middle and Far East.

The last project in Jasieński's long curatorial career – his artistic testament – was a double exhibition of Japanese art, at the turn of 1923 and 1924, in the National Museum. The first presented Ukiyo-e by Hiroshige; the second, Utamaro, Hokusai, and Kuniyoshi. Visitors could also admire selected examples of decorative Japanese art: lacquerware, inro (including those decorated by Korin), and netsuke.30

The collector did not live to see the creation of the new department of the museum bearing his name, as outlined in the act of donation. He died in his apartment, on 6 April 1929, surrounded by works of art that he had bequeathed to the city. By delaying the opening of the Jasieński Department, National Museum in Kraków allowed itself to be overtaken by the Greater Poland Museum in Poznań where there had been a permanent gallery of Oriental Decorative Arts (Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, and Persian) since 1924. The first of its kind in Poland, it was situated in two rooms on the ground floor of the museum building.31 The gallery was created following the success of an exhibition of Japanese, Chinese, and East Asian art, at the turn of 1922 and 1923 – one of the most popular temporary exhibitions organised by the museum in the interwar period, it was visited by over eighteen thousand people.32 It was born from a wave of compassion brought about after a great earthquake shook the Japanese islands, and it was based on the donation of sixty-six works, gifted a year earlier to the museum by Leon Wyczółkowski, a painter and Jasieński's closest friend.33 Apart from objects from the museum's collection, the exhibition also showed more than four hundred works on loan from private collections from Greater Poland: Ukiyo-e, militaria, lacquerware, bronzes, ceramics, and textiles.

The grand opening of the Feliks Jasieński Department of the National Museum in Kraków took place on 28 December 1934 in the Szołayski house. The works on display included contemporary Polish paintings, kakemono, sculptures, selected militaria, and 'several works by the most famous Japanese master painter Hokusai'34 – a preview of the 'Japanese department' which Feliks Jasieński had dreamed of and strived to create for nearly thirty years.

From 1901 Jasieński systematically presented Japanese art to the Polish public, being the only one to do so. Apart from those organised by Jasienski, there were only two other exhibitions of Japanese art during this period.

The first one was an exhibition of fifty works of oriental ceramics from Henryk Grohman's collection, held in June 1911 in Zakopane, taking the opportunity of an exhibition of graphic arts, accompanying a graphic arts competition of which he was the founder. Just like Jasieński, Grohman strove to equate the position of decorative arts and graphic arts with that of painting and sculpture:

a range of kilims from local workshops with exquisite examples of ceramics Korean, Japanese, Chinese as well as those of contemporary English and French origin from the collection of Mister Grohman gave the exhibition room the look of real culture and thought that art, as we understood it, does not only consist of oil painting that one can be a great artist of vast culture and talent, and not paint, that not only paintings are artworks but so are carpets, not only can one seek lines and atmosphere in frames on the wall but in the pan as well, that no borders exist between applied art and pure art, there are only different materials, that the artists manipulate.35

Two years later, in January 1913, the Society of the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw hosted an exhibition of works by the contemporary Japanese artist Wakana Utagawa, which was, as noted by critics, a further manifestation of the interest awoken by Jasieński, 'the Japanese from Kraków'.36

There is no doubt, however, that the collector found the greatest number of followers among painters, representatives of 'Young Poland', considered to be the first Polish avant-garde. For his part, Jasieński consciously stimulated and developed the Japanese passion as well as an understanding of Japanese art in his artist friends, sharing with them not only his knowledge but also his contacts in the milieu of art dealers. His collection was always open to them, the works it contained were often recorded on canvas, and Jasieński himself willingly posed for portraits 'en collectionneur'. He gifted those interested with doubles of woodblock prints, or he exchanged Japanese curio for works for his collection of Polish art. In this way, he developed the Japanese collections of his friends Wyczółkowski, Józef Pankiewicz, Józef Mehoffer, and Wojciech Weiss. Pankiewicz's collection was destroyed during the war, Wyczółkowski donated his to the Great Poland (today National Museum) in Poznań, and Mehoffer gave part of his to the National Museum in Kraków. The remainder of it, just as Weiss's collection, are in the hands of the artist's families. A great deal has already been written about their collections and their Japanese-inspired work.37

The story of the 'Japanese fever' of the painter Stanisław Dębicki from Lwów and the fate of his collection, second only to Jasieński's, is still shrouded in mystery (fig. 4). It is only known that during his stay in Paris in 1890–1891, he established 'personal and very cordial relations with Japanese artists'.38 Who these friends were and whether their circle included Seiki Kuroda, one of the most important representatives of the *Yoga* current (Western-style painting), who, like the Polish painter, studied at the Académie Colarossi, is difficult to determine without further research.

In any case, Dębicki returned from France as an expert in Japanese art, and the contacts he made in Paris allowed him, as the only collector in Poland at that time, to enrich the collection of Ukiyo-e brought from France with others, imported directly from Japan with the help of a specialised local agent. Jasieński, with whom Dębicki was in constant contact, also used his assistance. Dębicki was also a link between the circles of 'Japanophiles' in Lwów and Vienna.39 Some of the works

from his collection passed into Jasieński's hands; the rest was probably dispersed.

Both the Jasieński and Dębicki collections with 'Parisian' roots, although not comparable in size, had one thing in common: they were dominated by Ukiyo-e prints. Dębicki's much smaller collection was limited to them. Jasieński's collection consisted of over 6,500

Figure 4. *Portraits of Stanisław Dębicki and Damazy Kotowski* by Stanisław Dębicki and Damazy Kotowski. 1893. Oil on canvas. National Museum in Kraków. (See plate 11, p. 249)

items – three quarters of which were woodblock prints, nearly two thirds of which were landscape pictures, with three hundred plates and forty-seven albums by Hokusai and nearly two thousand by Hiroshige.40 Japanese art collections of French artists had a similar structure – especially those of Henri Rivière, Claude Monet, and Theo Van Gogh, who mainly collected images of beauties and landscapes, and Auguste Rodin, who preferred portraits of actors.41

The graphic arts–oriented collections of Jasieński and Dębicki were thus fundamentally different from the collections of members of the Warsaw and Łódź bourgeoisie, headed by the aforementioned Grohman, which consisted mostly of decorative arts.42 Undoubtedly reflecting the growing interest in Japan, the latter did not influence the development of Polish Japonisme. On the contrary, Jasieński's collection became the living centre of dialogue with Japanese art in Poland. Studying the Ukiyo-e collected by him, Polish painters and graphic artists sought to be inspired, to have their artistic choices confirmed, to deepen their knowledge, and then to creatively transform the principles of the Japanese aesthetics. Thanks to the collector's popularisation activities, interest in this art, so recently completely unknown in Poland, started to spread in ever larger circles.

It is worth emphasising that from the very beginning, Jasieński wanted to include his Japanese collection in the National Museum and not in the Museum of Decorative Arts or the Museum of Oriental Art, which was an exception rather than the rule if compared with the fate of other private Asian art collections in Europe, like those of Emile Guimet, Ferenc Hopp, or Vojta Náprstek. Jasieński considered Japanese woodblock prints, paintings, sculptures, lacquerware, and textiles an integral part of a bigger whole, encompassing Polish painting and sculpture as well as Polish and European graphic and decorative arts, equally worthy to be placed in 'the sanctuary' of Polish culture which was – supposed to be – the National Museum in Kraków. The fact that this was not an opinion shared by the municipal authorities responsible for the museum was the main reason why his battle for donation lasted so long.

The Jasieński Department was closed down after the Second World War, and his collecting achievements were almost forgotten (fig. 5). Thereafter, the Japanese collection was presented only at temporary exhibitions, mostly in Poland and in Japan. A renaissance of interest in Japanese art came at the end of the twentieth century and was associated, once again, with the collector. The Manggha Centre of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków was opened in 1994. The initiative came from the world-famous film director Andrzej Wajda. Its building was designed by the Japanese Pritzker-winning architect Arata Isozaki, whose work, though rooted in Japanese tradition, is open to other cultures and forms a bridge between East and West. The Centre started as a branch of the National Museum, implementing Jasieński's ideas and presenting his collection, although it later transformed into an independent museum, where his collection was deposited. Its selected fragments are presented in temporary exhibitions organised by the Manggha Museum and the National Museum in Kraków.

Figure 5. National Museum in Kraków, Feliks Jasieński Department. 1934. Black-and-white photograph. Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe.

The first decades of the twenty-first century saw a number of exhibitions on Japanese art organised by other Polish museums, including the exhibition *Masterpieces of Japanese Art in Polish Collections*, organised in 2014 by the Manggha Museum and the National Museum in Warsaw.43 Private collectors, Jasieński's successors, such as Jerzy Leskowicz, whose collection exhibited in Warsaw in 2017, Kyoto and Aix-en-Provence in 2019, and at the Cernuschi Museum in Paris in 2020,44 are following in his footsteps, recalling the intercultural dialogue Jasieński began in 1901: 'I have shown you Japan so that you may learn to think of Poland as, for two thousand years, those artists have thought of Japan in Japanese'.45

#### **NOTES**

dowem od 30-go grudnia' ['Second Japanese exhibition at the National Museum from 30 December'], *Czas* [*Time*], 1923 (December) (press cutting) National Museum in Kraków Archives, no S1/6.

#### **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

Aitken, Geneviève, and Marianne Delafond. *La collection d'estampes japonaises de Claude Monet à Giverny*  [Claude Monet's collection of Japanese prints at Giverny]. Paris: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2003.

Berbelska, Dorota. 'O zbiorach artystycznych i mecenacie Heryka Grohmana ['On the art collections and patronage of Heryk Grohman'], In *Ze zbiorów Henryka Grohmana. Grafika i rzemiosło artystyczne*  [From the Henryk Grohman collection. Prints and Arts and Crafts]. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 1998.

### **NETWORKS OF ENTHUSIASM FOR JAPAN**

*Johannes Wieninger*

#### **STARTING WITH THE WORLD FAIRS**

Although there is no clear, general way to explain how currents and movements come about within art history, they all have one thing in common: people are always the ones who set movements in motion, who live their interests and enthusiasm and inspire others. This contribution retraces personal networks that have emerged through friendships, passions, and shared business interests. Unlike most nineteenth-century relationships between European and non-European countries, the connection with Japan was less sustained by colonial aspiration. A kind of 'common sense' was the basis for close cooperation and contacts across borders.

Looking at 'Japonisme', one of the first international, transcontinental art movements in the nineteenth century, the connections between political interests, personal preferences, and business acumen can be shown across borders – a 'network of art' that covered the European continent (fig. 1). A brief look at the history of East–West relations brings us back to 1853. Even if Japan was not isolated from the rest of the world for centuries, as is often claimed, this date marks a turning point in Japanese history. Because of the entry of a US gunboat under Commander Perry into the Bay of Edo, the country was forced to undertake long-discussed changes in politics and economy. It took Western countries as an example for individual steps, and it even invited 'advisers' into the country. This approach was not without controversy, because it brought revolutionary changes in social and cultural spheres of life with it.

Diplomatic missions were opened in the new capital, and Rutherford Alcock (1809–1879), the first British consul, arrived in Edo as early as 1859. Parallel to his diplomatic and economic duties, Alcock also dedicated himself to exploring the country and started collecting artefacts in the hopes of representing this distant country's culture and way of life in Europe.1 In 1862 parts of his collection were shown at the London Exhibition – to the great horror of a Japanese delegation that visited this show. The Japan Exhibition at the Paris world fair in 1867 was supported by the lords of Satsuma and Nabeshima; this was the first self-portrayal of Japan, although not yet official.2

**1 Tokyo / Heinrich von Siebold** (1852–1908), second son of Philipp Franz von Siebold, brother of Alexander von Siebold (1846–1911).

Since 1872 with the Austro-Hungarian Legation in Tokyo.

1873: Translator at the Vienna world Fair

1889: His collections were presented to the Naturhistorisches Museum, now at the Weltmuseum (Museum of Ethnology).

1892/ 1905: Donations to the Oriental Museum and the Museum for Art and Industry, now

MAK-Museum of Applied Art in Vienna. 1893: Consultant for the collection of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand.

1889: Consultant for the Baldi collection in Venice.

Wanted to sell his Katagami collection to the Völkerkundemuseum in Leipzig.

#### **2 Dresden / Kunstgewerbemuseum**

1889: Purchase of the Katagami collection for 2400 Mark from Wagner'sche Kunsthandlung Berlin, probably acquired from Alexander von Siebold (1846–1911).

**3 Berlin / Kunsthandlung Hermann Pächter** (1839–1902), previously Wagner'sche Kunsthandlung.

#### **4 Leipzig / Völkerkundemuseum**

1908: Wanted to buy a Katagami collection from Heinrich von Siebold, later sold by Trau, Vienna.

#### **5 Bremen / Übersee Museum**

1907–08: Hugo H. Schauinsland, the founding director of the Übersee Museum Bremen, started a fund raising campaign in Bremen to buy parts of the Bourbon Bardi collection.

#### **6 Venice / Enrico Bardi** (1851–1905)

1889: Acquired his collection in Japan.

1906: Auctions by Trau Vienna.

1908: Description of the collection in five volumes of hand-written catalogues by Justus Brinkmann, compiled, with assistance of Shinkichi Hara.

#### **7 Hamburg / Museum für Völkerkunde**

1908: Director Thilenius acquired eighty-one lots (some of them containing up to 38 objects) from the Bardi collection.

**8 Vienna / Arthur von Scala** (1845–1909) 1868–1871: Taking part in the Austro-Hungarian expedition to East Asia. 1873: Secretary of the Oriental Committee at the Vienna World Fair. 1874–1897: Founding Director of the Oriental Museum (later Trade Museum). 1897–1908: Director of the Museum for Art and Industry.

#### **9 Dresden / Kunstsalon Ernst Arnold**

Since 1893 showing contemporary art. 1895: Exhibition Japanischer Holzschnitte 17. – 19. Jahrhundert organized by S. Bing.

#### **10 Paris / Tadamasa Hayashi** (1853–1906)

1878: Arrives in Paris. 1894: Donates Tsuba collection to Musée du Louvre for its Extrême-Orient section. 1900: General commissioner of the Japanese art section at the World 's Fair in Paris. Trading and selling Ukiyo-e worldwide.

**11 Paris / S. Bing** (1838–1905) 1854: Arrives in Paris. 1888–1891: Publisher of *Le Japon artistique*. 1895: Exhibition Japanischer Holzschnitte 17. – 19. Jahrhundert at Kunstsalon Ernst Arnold, Dresden. 1895–1904: Maison de l'Art Nouveau. 1901: Specialausstellung Hokusai in k.k. Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie, Vienna.

**12 Hamburg / Shinkichi Hara** (1868–1934) 1896: Assistant of Justus Brinckmann.

1902: Publication of *Die Meister Der Japanischen Schwertzierathen* with Brinckmann.

#### **13 Hamburg / Justus Brinckmann** (1843–1915)

1873: Expert at the Vienna World Fair.

1885 and 1900: Juror at the World Fairs in Antwerp and Paris.

1874: Founder of Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg.

Since 1883: Purchases from S. Bing in Paris and R. Wagner'sche Kunsthandlung in Berlin.

1888 - 1891: Publication of *Japanischer Formenschatz* with S. Bing.

1902: Publication of *Die Meister der Japanischen Schwertzierathen* with Shinkichi Hara.

1908: Description of the Bardi collection in five volumes of hand-written catalogues, with assistance of Shinkichi Hara.

Figure 1. The Japan network of art. Illustration by the author.

It was only after the country's transition from shogunate to monarchy in 1868 that the Japanese government began to organise presentations on an international level itself. When Japan was invited to take part in the Vienna world fair, hectic preparations began, with European consultants asked to select the products to be shown. The German engineer Gottfried Wagener (1831–1892) had been in Japan as an economic adviser, primarily on the modernisation of the porcelain industry, since 1868. He oversaw the Japanese exhibition at the Vienna world fair, and above all, his advice not to conform to Western tastes led to the success of this first state-controlled presentation.3

#### **TRADING AND COLLECTING**

Japan had pushed itself into the consciousness of the West and, as a result, began a targeted cultural policy: the country exported arts and crafts, promoted handicrafts, and participated in as many international exhibitions as possible. In addition to the world exhibitions, which were taking place increasingly frequently, there were many small competitions in which Japanese artists took part and from which they brought home medals of honour for their achievements and ambition. The *Internationale Ausstellung von Arbeiten aus edlen Metallen und Legirungen* (International Exhibition of Works Made of Precious Metals and Alloys) in Nuremberg in 1885 is one example of this increased presence of Japanese art and artists on the international stage.4 Ninety-six (!) Japanese artists, craftspeople, and manufacturers are listed by name in the exhibition catalogue. Leopold Gmelin, professor at the Munich School of Applied Arts, describes them with great enthusiasm: 'The bronze works exhibited by the Japanese in the modern department are so perfect beyond all definitions, especially technically, that their works have to be called the highlight of the exhibition'.5

#### **FROM TOKYO TO VIENNA, BERLIN, AND DRESDEN**

At that time, in the 1880s, two 'Japan-friendly' centres had already emerged, Vienna and Paris. Museums and public collections as well as trade fairs and galleries were active and cooperative in the promotion of Japanese arts and crafts on the world stage. Starting with the Vienna world fair in 1873, European collectors began to establish or strengthen their collections of Japanese objects. Particularly noteworthy among these collectors are the brothers Alexander and Heinrich von Siebold, who – encouraged and influenced by their father, Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) – worked in the diplomatic services in Japan and became important personalities in collecting and trading. Alexander (1846–1911) is best known as a diplomat at the British Legation and later in the service of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

His younger brother, Heinrich (1852–1908), initially worked as an interpreter at the Austro-Hungarian Legation in Tokyo; he was also available as an interpreter for the Japanese delegation at the Vienna world fair and played a decisive role in the dedication of objects and works of art to European museums. To the displeasure of his superiors, Heinrich ran an art business in Tokyo and 'supplied' many travellers to Japan with souvenirs and works of art. He was also active as a companion on trips through the country and thus promoted the emergence of extensive Japanese collections in Europe. Heinrich also used his contacts in the highest circles to build an eminent collection, which he dedicated in several tranches to Viennese museums and as individual objects to other collections in the German-speaking area.

Throughout their careers, the Siebold brothers, along with numerous other actors in the interconnected 'Japan network', contributed to Asian art collections throughout Europe, including in Vienna, Berlin, and Dresden.

In 1889 Heinrich dedicated an extensive ethnographic collection to the newly founded Natural History Museum in Vienna, which – in accordance with the attitude at the time – also included an ethnographic department, which later became one of the fundaments of the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology), today's Weltmuseum Wien, founded in 1928.6

Heinrich had been in contact with Arthur Scala (1845–1909), the director of the Oriental Museum (Orientalisches Museum) in Vienna, which was renamed Trade Museum (Handelsmuseum) in 1886. Scala took part in the imperial Austro-Hungarian expedition to India, China, Siam, and Japan; was secretary of the committee for the Orient and East Asia during the Vienna world fair; and in 1874 became the founding director of the Oriental Museum. It was also through personal connections that Heinrich made an important dedication to the Trade Museum in 1892; his contribution still constitutes one of the largest Japanese collections in Europe.

Of the many objects in the Trade Museum that came from Heinrich, one group stands out: shrine fragments from the burial complex of the Tokugawa shoguns around the Zojoji in Shiba/Tokyo. Even in Japan these objects would be a sensation: these fragments are the only remains of the cemetery, which was destroyed

in 1923 and 1945. The two representations of the lions (*shishi*) from the memorial shrine built around 1710 can be attributed to Kano Tsunenobu (1636–1713) (fig. 2).

Figure 2. *Shishi* (Lion) attributed to Kano Tsunenobu (1636–1713). Edo period, ca. 1710. Colour and gold on wood. Part of a Tokugawa Memorial Shrine in Shiba (Edo/Tokyo). Courtesy of MAK – Museum of Applied Art, Vienna, inv. no. OR 3930–2. Collection Heinrich von Siebold. (See plate 12, p. 250)

Figure 3. Katagami. Edo period, nineteenth century. Paper cut-out. Image courtesy of MAK –Museum of Applied Art, Vienna, inv. no. OR 3925–5692. Collection Heinrich von Siebold. (See plate 13, p. 251)

Two other groups of objects in the Viennese collections illustrate the international connections of the Siebold brothers. A large collection of more than 2,700 ink paintings gives insight into the iconography of East Asian painting and shows striking parallels to a similar collection – that of Erwin Baelz (1849–1913), which is kept in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart.7 The second group of objects concerns the collection of approximately nine thousand Japanese stencils (*katagami*) (fig. 3).

The Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dresden acquired a much larger collection in 1889 from the art dealer R. Wagner in Berlin.8 Research by Wolfgang Scheppe, curator of the 2014 exhibition *The Logic of Rain* in the Japanese Palais in Dresden, revealed the likelihood that these more than sixteen thousand *katagami* found their way to Europe via Alexander von Siebold (personal information).9

With the dissolution of the Vienna Trade Museum in 1907, Scala transferred a significant portion of the Siebold collection to the Museum of Art and Industry, of which he had become the director.10

Another art enthusiast that Heinrich von Siebold advised was Enrico Bardi (1851–1905). From 1887 to 1889, Bardi travelled through East Asia, including a six-month stay in Japan, which was long enough for Bardi to accumulate a palace-filling collection. Some of Bardi's collection has been lost, but the rest still forms the core of the Museo d'arte orientale (Asian Art Museum) in Venice.11 After Bardi's death, Justus Brinckmann (1843–1915), a museum director who was then active throughout Europe, prepared the estate catalogue.12

We already come across Brinckmann's name as a commissioner at the Vienna world fair in 1873, where he was able to establish many contacts with Hamburg: as early as 1874 he was the founding director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Arts and Crafts) there. His contacts were not only related to Viennese museums and galleries, but he became a bridge builder between France and the German-speaking countries. The most important person for him was S. Bing (1838–1905).

#### **PARIS, LONDON, AND HAMBURG:** *LE JAPON ARTISTIQUE*

Bing, born in Hamburg, moved to Paris in 1854, where he ran the family business Bing et Renner. Connections to his brother-in-law's commercial activities in Tokyo and travel in 1880 and 1881 led Bing to import enormous amounts of Japanese objects and works of art; these activities led to the wide availability of Japanese objects in Europe, which contributed to continent-wide enthusiasm for Japan. Bing became an important supplier of Asian objects for major European museums, and his magazine, *Le japon artistique*, which he published simultaneously in three languages, became a first-class source of information for many artists, collectors, and art lovers. Together with Bing, Brinckmann was responsible for the German edition – *Der Japanische Formenschatz*. 13 As an editor, Brinckmann was Bing's partner; as a museum director, he was Bing's client. Bing provided the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg with numerous objects. Above all, the excellent collection of Japanese tea ceramics must be mentioned; Brinckmann acquired around 150 ceramics from Bing (fig. 4).14

Another person connected with Bing is Hayashi Tadamasa (1853–1906). Thanks to his knowledge of foreign languages, Hayashi came to Paris in 1878 as interpreter and translator for the Japanese art dealer Wakai Kenzaburo (1834– 1908). He saw his future in Paris and set up his own business dealing in Japanese works of art. With his contacts with Parisian artists, Hayashi became a source of inspiration for Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and many others. From the 1880s onwards, he ran his art trade, specialising in Ukiyo-e and handicrafts of other materials: coloured woodcuts of the highest quality marked with his stamp can be found in the most important collections worldwide. His importance and efficiency were also recognised by the Japanese government, and he was a commissioner for the Paris 1889 and Chicago 1893 world fairs before being appointed Commissioner-General of the Japanese Pavilion at the 1900 Paris world fair. Not only that: he became the editor of the first Japanese-authored art history of Japan published in a Western language.15 No matter how honourable this task was, it was not very satisfying for Hayashi, who had to leave out the Jap-

> anese colour woodcuts; he wasn't even allowed to mention them because the Japanese government didn't want to be represented by pictures of actors and prostitutes. To get an impression of

Hayashi's own collection and his 'commodities', consult the auction catalogues written by Bing.16

In addition to the objects, such as *katagami* and *sumie*, mainly collected by the art enthusiasts mentioned above, there is another group of objects that is kept in large numbers in almost all European collections: sword guards (*tsuba*), and it is precisely this type of object that leads us to London, Paris, Hamburg, and maybe Vienna. *Tsuba* were well known as early as at the London world fair in 1862, where the small metalwork objects attracted attention due to their colourful variations of metals, generating admiration for these attractive metalwork objects, which in the following years were exported to Europe in large numbers.

In 1894 Hayashi donated a considerable collection of *tsuba* to the Louvre, which – remarkably – was accompanied by a published catalogue.17 Brinckmann also acquired many sword guards for the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and in 1896 he was able to engage Hara Shinkichi (1868–1934) to catalogue and publish them.18 In the foreword to the publication, Hara outlines the origin of the objects and thus reveals a '*tsuba* network':

The Vienna World Exhibition of 1873, where we laid the foundation for the Japanese collection of the Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts, did not offer any opportunity to purchase Japanese guard plates and sword ornaments. Only after the ban on carrying swords was issued in peacetime in 1876 did Japanese swords and their accessories reach Europe in larger numbers. The R. WAGNER'sche Kunsthandlung in Berlin brokered the first purchases for us at the beginning of the 1880s. Its recently deceased owner, Herr Hermann Paechter, subsequently rendered great service in supplying German collections with Japanese antiquities. A stay by the director in Paris in the autumn of 1883 opened up what was then the most important market for Japanese art. Mr S. Bing's action, conducted with as much expertise as taste, offered an exceedingly rich selection of sword ornaments, in addition to other actions existing at the time that have since been received as a result of a lack of supplies. To introduce the study of these, Mr S. Bing's exquisite personal collection was best suited, while the public museums in Paris did not then collect Japanese antiquities. On that occasion, Mr Tadamasa Hayashi proved to be a competent adviser for reading the artists' names and explaining the representations on the cover sheets, the same who later, when Mr Bing gave up his Japanese shop, devoted himself entirely to 'l'Art nouveau', to devote to the noblest dealings with Japanese antiquities, who became adviser to the most important Parisian collectors and completed his career in France as Imperial Japanese Government Commissioner for the World Exhibition of 1900.19

Again we encounter Wagner's art shop in Berlin, and once more connections to the Siebold brothers remain speculative. The Viennese collection of Heinrich von Siebold in the Museum of Applied Arts contains more than one hundred *tsuba*

(out of a total 480 *tsuba* at the Museum of Applied Arts). Hara's work is still relevant today, and it should be noted that large *tsuba* collections still lie dormant in storerooms around the world. Bing and Hayashi were also active in the exhibition business in the last decade of the nineteenth century; they made objects available, edited catalogues, and acted as consultants. Two exhibitions at prominent locations deserve special mention: an exhibition of Japanese colour woodcuts at the Art Salon Ernst Arnold in Dresden and an exhibition of Hokusai's works at the Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna.20

Since 1893 the renowned gallery Art Salon Ernst Arnold in Dresden has focused its programme on contemporary art, so it is remarkable that in 1895 an exhibition of Japanese colour woodcuts was shown with the help of Bing.21 Bing endowed this exhibition with first-class prints, and it seems as though museum directors and collectors made the pilgrimage to Dresden to buy from Arnold – and to make contacts. The Austrian Museum of Art and Industry acquired the complete album *Mirror of the New Beauty Contest of the Courtesans by Yoshiwara and Their Calligraphy*, made in 1784 by Kitao Masanobu, whose prints were all originally bound as leporello and in the best quality – a one-off but also very expensive acquisition.

Bing's connections to the Arnold Salon and its 'Japan programme' remained intact. Scala, who left the Trade Museum for the Museum of Art and Industry in 1897, invited the Arnold Salon to show works at a guest exhibition in Vienna. This was held in 1899, and the museum acquired twenty-six prints, including five with Hayashi's stamp! (In total, the Viennese museum acquired more than two hundred prints from the Art Salon Ernst Arnold.) In 1901 we meet Bing again: the largest exhibition of Hokusai's work to date took place in the Vienna Museum for Art and Industry, a sales exhibition organised by a Viennese art dealer where 630 works were exhibited. The foreword to the catalogue states: 'the lovable support that Mr S. Bing in Paris gave us through advice and the provision of the works we needed'.22

#### **NETWORK ENDING**

In the first decade of the twentieth century, this Japan network, which spanned the continent for twenty years, broke up. Heinrich von Siebold tried to sell the majority of the remainder of his collection, so he negotiated with the Ethnological Museum in Leipzig for the sale of twenty thousand *katagami*. Unfortunately it never came to that: he died in August 1908, and his collection was then sold in a sales campaign in Vienna.

His congenial Viennese partner Scala retired as museum director in 1909 and died just a few months later. Bardi, who died in 1905, was able to make his collection public in a Venetian palace. During the turmoil of war between 1914 and 1918, Bardi's collection became a subject of dispute between Italy and Austria. Luckily, large parts have been preserved in the Museo d'arte orientale in Venice. In the same year, 1905, S. Bing died; he was the most important 'motor' of the Japan network, who infected all of Europe with his enthusiasm. After selling parts of his collection at the 1902 Paris auctions, Hayashi returned to Japan in 1905 with what remained of his collection. He died only a year later, but part of his collection found its way back to Europe: Otto Kümmel (1874–1952) became an assistant to Wilhelm Bode (1845–1929) in Berlin in 1906 and, from 1906 to 1909, went to Japan with Ernst Grosse (1862–1927), who was sent to acquire objects for the Berlin Asia Collection, which Bode also supported.

Correspondence between Grosse and Kümmel in the 1890s shows that Kümmel was already interested in Japanese art and that he had been to Paris, among other places, to study the market and its collections. With these two people a turning point in the approach to the art of East Asia, and Japan in particular, can be seen. One – Grosse – still had close contacts with Hayashi and Bing, so he was peripherally involved in the Japan network; the other – Kümmel – was a polyglot, and he was scientifically and museologically trained and interested. He preferred to explore the country himself and tried to build a collection systematically. In Japan they were fortunate to acquire for Berlin important pieces from the collection of the recently deceased Hayashi.23 Brinckmann remained director of the Museum of Art and Industry in Hamburg until his death in 1915. He was the last major networker from the late nineteenth century, but the loss of his partners slowed his activities.

The time after the First World War was not only a major turning point in politics. Travel and direct contact over long distances became easier, and expeditions were equipped to explore and collect artworks and testimonies from distant countries. Interest in Japan waned, and museums and collectors turned to China's history and new archaeological discoveries. This development was summarised in the foreword of a Viennese exhibition catalogue in 1922:

this overestimation of Japanese applied arts in the past few decades has of course not been surpassed in recent years, and people are now turning decisively from the Romans to the Greeks of the East. This is by no means intended to belittle Japan's contribution to East Asian art, but rather to put it in the right light.24

The network of enthusiasm for Japan in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Europe reveals that, during this time, a large number of works of art flowed from Japan and that the image of this East Asian country in the West has been shaped by this accumulation of Japanese works in Western collections at the turn of the twentieth century. Some of the protagonists – such as Hayashi or Alexander von Siebold – were able to work for both the Western and the Japanese side. Hayashi worked as an art dealer and as a Japanese commissioner at the Paris world fair, and Alexander von Siebold began his career in the service of the British, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian legations, but switched to the Japanese government, among other things, to organise Japanese participation in world fairs and to renegotiate unequal treaties.

Although the West – above all the United States and Great Britain, although other states followed in these efforts – tried to establish a colonialist relationship in its trade policy with Japan, areas such as public administration and military affairs remained unaffected by these unequal agreements. Cultural exchange is never a one-way activity – especially the example of European–Japanese relationships can show intensive interactions. The building of rich collections went hand in hand with the interest of many artists in Japanese art, and at the same time a kind of parallel to Western Japonisme emerged in Japan itself: new Western themes and techniques changed the visual arts in Japan, and academic education split into two directions – Japanese (*Nihonga*) and Western painting (*Yoga*).25

As the twentieth century progressed, official Japan gradually decreased the system of European and US 'advisers and trainers', became more assertive internationally, and began to focus on inter-Asian politics. Of course, this also affected Japanese art and culture. The 'West' reoriented likewise: artistic and art historical interests shifted to China, South, and Southeast Asia.

Although I have begun to sketch the pan-European, even intercontinental cooperation in the collection of Asian art, this mapped network of Japanese enthusiasts in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century is not complete and needs to be expanded.

#### **NOTES**

#### **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

Koyama-Richard, Brigitte, ed. *Correspondance addressée à Hayashi Tadamasa*. Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai, 2001.

Kreiner, Josef, ed. *200 years of Siebold: The Japanese Collections of Philipp Franz and Heinrich von Siebold*. Tokyo: Edo Tokyo Museum, 1996. Exhibition catalogue.

Walter-Ris, Anja. 'Der moderne Kunsthandel an Spree und Rhein von 1850–1918'.

In *Kunstleidenschaft im Dienst der Moderne. Die Geschichte der Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin/New York, 1920–1995*, edited by Anja Walter-Ris, 21–52. Zurich: Interpublishers, 2003.

Weisberg, Gabriel P. *L'Art Nouveau: la maison Bing*. Stuttgart: Belser, 2004–2006. Exhibition catalogue. *Werke Hokusai's ausgestellt im K.K.Öst. Museum für Kunst u. Industrie Wien* (Vienna: Hirschler, 1901).

Wieninger, Johannes. 'Er brachte viel Eigenartiges und Notwendiges mit: Arthur von Scala als Mittler zwischen Ost und West und die Grundlegung der Asiensammlung des heutigen Museums fuer angewandte Kunst 1868–1909'. In *Kunst und Industrie: die Anfaenge des Museums fuer Angewandte Kunst in Wien*, edited by Peter Noever, 164–172. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2000. Exhibition catalogue.

# **SPOTLIGHT ON (COMMUNIST) ASIA**

## **WHEN EAST AND WEST MET IN THE HEART OF EUROPE: VOJTĚCH CHYTIL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO COLLECTING ASIAN ART IN CENTRAL EUROPE\***

*Michaela Pejčochová*

#### **INTRODUCTION**

As part of the inquiry into the history of the Asian Art Collection at the National Gallery in Prague (NGP), which in 2021 celebrated seventy years since its founding, it is important to delve deeper into the processes that enabled some of the Asian artworks to reach Europe and become part of the public collections. The collection of these artworks was made possible by institutional conditions and contexts as well as exceptional individuals, who played important roles in getting hold of works of art from Asia. The purpose of this paper is to introduce one of these collectors, who is a towering figure in the collecting history of Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese art in Central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s: Vojtěch Chytil (1896–1936). Chytil brought several hundred paintings by Qi Baishi (1864–1957), one of the most important modern Chinese painters, to former Czechoslovakia, together with dozens of paintings by other famous masters active in northern China, such as Chen Nian (1876–1970), Xiao Sun (1883–1944), and Jin Cheng (1878–1926), as well as works by some little-known painters, who are today pretty obscure both in China and Europe. Besides that, Chytil also collected Chinese Buddhist sculpture and decorative arts, as well as Tibetan art and Japanese woodblock prints.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Chytil organised around twenty selling exhibitions in the cultural centres of Central Europe, such as Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin – but even as far as London – and sold hundreds of the above-mentioned artworks to his contemporaries. In this way, the objects he amassed in the Far East became part of the Asian art collections in a number of places around Central Europe. After Chytil's sudden death in 1936, his collection was inherited by his wife, Nina, and later the NGP was fortunate to receive a part of her estate when Nina died in 1981. In this way, many of the artworks that Chytil valued most and wasn't willing to sell during his lifetime entered the NGP's collection.

This article will elaborate on Chytil's career, his art collection, the exhibitions he held in Europe, and the lasting legacy of his activities for collecting Chinese art in the Central Europe. It will also highlight works of some lesser-known Beijing-based painters preserved in the NGP and other collections that are unique in the global context today and document modernist experiments and other painting styles of creators now forgotten even in China.

#### **THE COLLECTOR**

Vojtěch Chytil was born in 1896 into a poor family settled in the north-eastern part of today's Czech Republic.1 He is said to have excelled in drawing and painting early in his youth, so upon the recommendation of a secondary school teacher, he enrolled at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1912. There he studied what was called the General Course between 1912 and 1915. In the meantime, the First World War broke out in Europe, and most young men had to join the troops of the Austro-Hungarian army. Little information survives concerning Chytil's experiences during WWI. But different sources suggest that he deserted the army somewhere in today's Russia, travelled on his own through a large part of Siberia and subsequently on to Japan and Shanghai. Finally, sometime in spring 1918, he settled down in the town of Hankou (today's city of Wuhan) in central China. There he joined the large community of Westerners, which had established itself in the area more than half a century before, some of them dealing in raw materials or in tea. Chytil painted for wealthy Russian patrons; studied Chinese language, history, and culture; and travelled around central China.

He was also teaching painting: his class reportedly comprised eleven students, recruited mostly from the circles of his friends and acquaintances. Towards the end of 1918, he took part in a three-day exhibition in Shanghai, where he sold most of his paintings on display.2 Having thus earned a substantial amount of money, he could afford to move to Beijing in spring 1919. In the same way as many other foreigners, he liked to paint in the Forbidden City and depict the sightseeing spots of Beijing. Chytil mentions that he completed more than fifty oil paintings, watercolours, and crayon drawings for an exhibition in 1919, after which he travelled back to Czechoslovakia.3

Chytil returned to Czechoslovakia in early 1920 and resumed his studies at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in mid-1921. Back home, he experienced what he liked to describe as 'the call of the East', so he applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a position in the diplomatic service in the Far East. His request was granted, and in August 1921, he was sent as a

Figure 1. Vojtěch Chytil (second from the left) with students from the Beijing Academy of Arts in front of the Meridian Gate in Beijing. 1925–1927. Collection of the author.

legation clerk to Tokyo. In October he was relocated to the newly established Czechoslovak consulate in Beijing, and so began Chytil's second long period of stay in China, which lasted until summer 1927.4

Although busy with official responsibilities, Chytil soon resumed his diplomatic contacts in Beijing and reconnected with art circles; he was also able to find time to paint and sell more of his paintings. At the same time, he was hired by the Beijing Academy of Arts, where he taught between 1922 and 1927 (fig. 1). Chytil's abilities as a teacher and his personal charisma supposedly won him fame and popularity among students and other teachers. His pupil Li Jianchen (1900–2002), who later became a well-known watercolour painter, recalls in his memoirs that Chytil's paintings were mainly admired for his subtle use of colours, with which he was able to create a remarkable atmosphere close to that in original Chinese paintings. Only a handful of Chytil's own works, which could document his painting style and favourite subjects, survive to this day.

Chytil took part in a number of artistic activities in China, displaying his oil paintings and watercolours, for example, in the spring venue of the 1924 *Inter-* *national Exhibition of Fine Arts* (*Wanguo meishu zhanlanhui chunji dahui*) in Shanghai, where paintings, sculptures, and other objects by leading foreign and Chinese artists were shown. In spring 1925 Chytil left the services of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs to live in Beijing as a private person. This allowed him to devote his energies entirely to teaching, painting, and collecting. In March of that year, he married a woman of Russian origin settled in Beijing, Nina Mihailovna Kokorin (1899–1981). It was Nina, in the end, who became instrumental in preserving his collection intact after Chytil's premature death, and she eventually bequeathed it to the NGP in the early 1980s.

Besides teaching and exhibiting his own paintings, Chytil initiated the founding of the Art Splendour Society (*Yiguang she*) in Beijing in 1926 and recruited members from the student body. The proclaimed aim of the association was the study of Western art techniques, particularly the research of watercolour techniques. Its activities also included sketching nude models, which caused such a stir in conservative Beijing that purportedly even the police had to be called to calm down the situation. Chytil was summoned for an explanation and, to help the public understand the activities of the young painters better, allegedly decided to organise a large exhibition that would introduce the works of the Art Splendour Society to contemporaries. The exhibition, held under the auspices of the premier's wife, Huang Huilan, and the Deputy Minister of Education, Chen Renzhong, opened on 23 June 1926 in the Sun Yat-sen Pavilion in Central Park in Beijing. It was very successful, and most of the works sold in a few days.5 In December 1926 Chytil also took part in the *Exhibition of Peking Artists* in the Beijing Hotel and displayed thirteen paintings, some of which depicted architectural subjects, portraits, and flowers. Afterwards, he continued to teach Western painting at the Beijing Academy of Arts, from which he retired in summer 1927 to pursue his plans to collect and exhibit Asian art in Europe.

By establishing himself in the art circles in northern China in the 1920s, Chytil had the opportunity not only to sell his own paintings but also to see and acquire paintings by Chinese painters active there at the time. During his sojourns in Beijing, Chytil made numerous profitable contacts and acquaintances, which enabled him to acquire works for his European shows, organised between 1927 and 1936.

#### **CHYTIL'S CHINESE ACQUAINTANCES**

The Beijing Academy of Arts, where Vojtěch Chytil taught Western painting, was one of the main art training institutions in China at that time, and many prominent painters were thus connected with it.6 Among them was Qi Baishi, who lectured on the techniques of traditional Chinese ink painting and had just started to become famous in China, as well as in Japan. Chytil became one of his early clients and supporters, and gradually, he became completely enamoured with Qi Baishi's art. Two other Beijing-based painters who were close to Chytil at this

Figure 2. *Guanyin* by Xiao Songren. 1925. Ink and colours on paper, 280 × 100 cm. Originally in Vojtěch Chytil's collection, now National Gallery in Prague, inv. no. Vm 5708. (See plate 15, p. 252)

time were Chen Banding and Xiao Sun. Another noteworthy painter was Jin Cheng, who was, among other activities, responsible for negotiating and organising the joint Sino-Japanese exhibitions, which helped Qi Baishi and other artists gain popularity in Japan in the early 1920s.7

Besides these artists, who are today recognised as the movers and shakers of the Beijing art scene in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a number of painters who are all but forgotten today. Thanks to the collecting interests of Vojtěch Chytil, however, their artworks are preserved to this day in European collections. One of these emerging artists was Xiao Songren (1907?–?), whose ten paintings are today preserved in the collection of the NGP. Chytil praised him as the leader of a large group of young painters from the Beijing Academy of Arts and as a brave personality of good standing in his time, but curiously enough, hardly any trace of his life and

work can be found today. Not even his dates of birth and death are certain. All we know is that he styled himself as S. J. Hsiao in the texts published about him in English and that he also used the pseudonym One-Eyed Pilgrim (*Yi yan xing zhe*) as part of his signatures on preserved paintings. He seems to have been born in humble conditions in Tianjin, but he left for Beijing during his teenage years and started to study at the Beijing Academy of Arts, where he met Qi Baishi, Vojtěch Chytil, and other teachers who helped him cultivate his indisputable painting talent. Besides the guidance of his teachers, Xiao Songren was obviously inspired by Western modernist styles, and there are some indications that he also pursued his interest in Buddhism and other systems of thought, which influenced his own artistic creations (fig. 2).8

Another interesting aspect of the Beijing art scene in the interwar period is that a considerable number of women artists were involved; according to the preserved testimonies, they started to enjoy a status similar to the one of their male counterparts, which in itself was huge progress from the traditional order.9 One of these young women artists was the painter Luo Baoshen (dates unknown), who specialised in the genre of flowers and birds. Few details of her life and career survive, and only a handful of her paintings are documented in the period press and catalogues. According to the preserved sources, her father, Luo Shouping

Figure 3. *Hortensia* by Luo Baoshen. 1931. Ink and colours on silk, 33.5 × 44.5 cm. Originally in Vojtěch Chytil's collection, later in Vladimír Richter's collection, now National Gallery in Prague, inv. no. Vm 6710. (See plate 16, p. 253)

Figure 4. *Landscape* by Shao Xilian. 1928. Ink and colours on paper, 89 × 39.2 cm. Originally in Vojtěch Chytil's collection, now National Gallery in Prague, inv. no. Vm 5723. (See plate 17, p. 254)

(dates unknown), was a physician, and Baoshen was among the first graduates of the Beijing Academy of Arts. She painted using Chinese as well as Western techniques, and she focused chiefly on painting flowers using the meticulous 'laborious brush' technique, in which the contours of objects are delineated in ink outlines, which are afterwards filled in with colours. It is said she collected over two hundred types of flowers growing in Beijing and the surrounding area, and she created a painting manual using them. She was involved in several artistic societies, such as the Beiping Art Society (*Beiping yishe*), and some sources point to her activities in the Southern Field Painting Society

(*Nantian huashe*). This group of painters studied the style of famous Qing dynasty painter Yun Shouping (1633–1690) and copied some of his brightly coloured flower compositions, which had been a style preferred by female painters in traditional China. A painting of goldfish under a magnolia twig by Luo Baoshen is reproduced in the period press,10 which is very similar to another picture by female painter Sun Kewu. Both were obviously modelled after a now lost painting by Yun Shouping, which the women copied as part of their practice. Another painting by Luo Baoshen, rarely preserved in a European collection, is *Hortensia*, painted in 1931 and exhibited as part of Chytil's European presentations of modern Chinese painting (fig. 3).

Vojtěch Chytil taught at the Beijing Academy of Arts until 1927 and reputedly devoted enormous energy to promoting the works of his young students. Besides, he was also captivated by painting styles of some of his fellow teachers at the Beijing Academy.  Reportedly a leader of a huge group of painters who strove to revive Chinese ink painting from indigenous sources, without resorting to borrowing elements from Western art, Shao created dozens of landscapes that were part of Chytil's exhibitions in Europe. Four landscapes, mostly in the archaic blueand-green style, where mountain slopes are coloured with azurite and malachite (fig. 4), and one painting of shrimps by Shao are today preserved in the NGP's collection. Another of his landscapes is part of the collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asian Art in Budapest, which received it as a gift from Chytil after his exhibition there in 1930.

#### **EXHIBITIONS OF CHYTIL'S COLLECTION OF ASIAN ART ORGANISED IN CENTRAL EUROPE**

Between 1927 and 1936, Chytil organised around twenty exhibitions of modern Chinese painting and other Asian artworks in European cultural centres, and a few more were put together by his wife and friends after his death in 1936.11 Most of these exhibitions offered artworks for sale and a massive interest in them throughout the decade of Chytil's activity resulted in the fact that dozens or even hundreds of Asian artworks got into private and public collections around Central Europe. The most remarkable part of these were modern Chinese paintings, which had not been sought after as a collecting article in Europe before, but Vojtěch Chytil did his best to promote them among his contemporaries.

The first show, entitled simply *Chinese Art*, took place in Prague in January and February 1928. Two of Chytil's Chinese students, Wang Meng (1901–1987) and Sun Kewu (1904–1931), were the two most extensively represented Chinese painters here. They had originally arrived in Prague in 1926 and enrolled at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts to study in the studio of Czech painter Max Švabinský (1873– 1962). During their three years in Prague, however, they also created a number of Chinese ink paintings, which they sold at exhibitions to earn a living. It appears that when Vojtěch Chytil decided to start exhibiting his collection in Prague, he wanted to test the possibilities of showing modern Chinese painting in Europe first and decided to build his first exhibition around the works of Wang and Sun. According to the preserved reports and reviews in contemporary press, this strategy worked very well, and Chinese painting was met with a warm welcome from both visitors and critics. Chytil, thus encouraged and convinced about the plausibility of his undertakings, moved on with the preparations of larger exhibitions.

A more comprehensive selection of works by Beijing masters was displayed at the second Prague exhibition organised in spring 1929. The catalogue published for this show contains a preface where Chytil describes the latest development in

Figure 5. *Fisherman* by Qi Baishi. Ink and colours on paper, 141.5 × 49 cm. Originally in Vojtěch Chytil's collection, now National Gallery in Prague, inv. no. Vm 1446. (See plate 18, p. 255)

the field of Chinese painting and expounds on the qualities of painters who have brought about revolutionary changes in this discipline.12 An archival document records Chytil's statement that he had planned to present works by Qi Baishi at this exhibition, but due to a delay caused by the shipping company, the paintings arrived in Europe too late and were shown only at the next venue, in Vienna in spring 1930.13 Thus, it is here that the paintings by Qi Baishi, Chen Banding, Xiao Sun, and other major modern ink painters from northern China were presented in Europe for the first time. The exhibition took place in the building of the Wiener Secession in Vienna and was inaugurated under the auspices of the Chinese ambassador in Austria, Dekien Toung (Chin. Tong Deqian 1887–1944?). It was reported as a sensation and received the attention of not only art circles but also the Austrian

nobility and political representatives of the day.

Chytil was greatly encouraged by this success and returned repeatedly to China to acquire new paintings for his upcoming shows. In 1930 three more exhibitions were staged in Brno, Berlin, and Budapest. They all had a fairly similar structure, typically composed of three major parts. One part was usually devoted to modern Chinese painting, represented mostly by the above-mentioned masters and their pupils. These were complemented with a few paintings by painters from other areas or schools, such as Wu Changshi (1844–1927), whom Chytil admired and whom he regarded as a predecessor of Qi Baishi. The second part presented Tibetan painting and sculpture, which Chytil collected passionately as a private delight. The last part focused on Japanese woodblock prints, together with a few paintings by Japanese masters of the day.

In late 1930 and early 1931, Chytil was planning another extensive show in Prague and was determined to secure the best paintings by Qi Baishi and other Beijing artists available at the time. In the end, a number of Qi's masterpieces were shown: a rare album of plants and insects painted on silk, the famous *Fisherman* (fig. 5), and the *Lake in the Wind*, which Chytil allegedly bought from a private collection. In 1932 and 1933 Chytil's collection was repeatedly exhibited in Czechoslovakia. At least four shows are documented to have been organized in different local cultural centres, such as Pilsen, Olomouc, Pardubice, and Ostrava. In summer 1933 and 1934, Chytil held two shows in London, which were unique in that they did not offer the exhibited works for sale.14 These shows were the first to present modern Chinese painting to the British public and were widely covered by the press. Art critics of renown, such as the British Museum Keeper of the Chinese collection Laurence Binyon (1869–1943), praised the qualities of the Chinese paintings in Chytil's collection.15

After the artworks returned from London in 1934, Chytil decided to expand his commercial activities towards a broader spectrum of objects, and he also wanted to engage in politics, which met with little success. Nevertheless, he was still investing lots of energy into popularising Chinese art in Europe and staged another large-scale exhibition in the Slovak capital of Bratislava in summer 1935. The following year, in spring 1936, Chytil was again preparing a grandiose show in Vienna. As usual, several dozen paintings by Qi Baishi, Chen Nian, Xiao Sun, and Jin Cheng were shown, side by side with works by lesser-known artists, such as Hu Peiheng (1892–1965), Luo Baoshen, Shao Xilian, Xiao Songren, and others. This time, the exhibition also featured an array of Chinese applied arts, such as fragments of old wall paintings, earthenware and porcelain figures, wooden statues, and lacquer objects.16 Tibetan art was again displayed side by side with Chinese works. This show, the last exhibition Chytil managed to put together himself, thus represented the scope of his collection attained by the mid-1930s, after some fifteen years of fervent activity.

During the preparations for the Vienna exhibition, however, Chytil suffered a recurrence of typhus, which he had contracted during his days of wartime captivity in Ukraine, and which resulted in incapacitation. He collapsed and died a few days afterwards, at the age of forty. After his death, three more exhibitions of his collection were organised in Czechoslovakia and Hungary by his wife Nina and close friends. Thereafter, unfortunately, the Second World War began to threaten Europe, which severely affected activities related to the collecting and exchange of artworks for more than five years. After the end of the WWII, Nina kept the family collection for more than thirty years and occasionally lent a few works to an exhibition; she also sold some of them to the NGP. Upon her death in 1981, she bequeathed the artworks from Chytil's collection to this institution, and they became an important part of the holdings of the Collection of Asian Art. In addition, a large number of the objects displayed at Chytil's exhibitions had been sold in the 1920s and 1930s and had ended up in the collections of European businesspeople, politicians, and lovers of art. Many of these private collections were unfortunately dispersed during the war and again during the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia and other countries of the socialist bloc after 1948. In spite of this, numerous works can still be found among the family holdings of the heirs of the collectors who had originally bought them from Chytil's exhibitions, surfacing now and then in auctions or offers to the National Gallery in Prague.

#### **CONCLUSION**

Chytil's activities established a basis for the subsequent collection and exhibition of Chinese art, most notably modern Chinese painting, around Central Europe. An analysis of the contents of these exhibitions shows that during his exhibiting and commercial career, Vojtěch Chytil mainly concentrated on promoting the work of modern Chinese painters active at the Beijing Academy of Arts. In his texts, nonetheless, although he tried to position these painters in a pseudo art historical context, Chytil never ventured beyond this group of painters from northern China to learn what was happening in the art scene elsewhere in China. He never mentioned, for example, Lin Fengmian (1900–1991), who was Chytil's superior at the Beijing Academy of Arts before moving on to Hangzhou to start his own art academy there; he even opened one of the most important exhibitions of works by Chytil's pupils in 1926. In his own painting, however, Lin Fengmian was inspired by European modernist masters and broke away from the conventions of traditional Chinese ink painting, which might have been the cause of Chytil's refusal to collect his artworks.

Chytil also never explored the role of Liu Haisu (1896–1994) or Xu Beihong (1895–1953), who both organised other shows of modern Chinese painting that toured around Europe side by side with those put together by Chytil. Curiously, for example, Chytil mounted a huge and successful show in Berlin in 1930, but never realised that Liu Haisu was present there at roughly the same time, preparing for his 1931 exhibition *Ausstellung Chinesischer Maler der Jetztzeit*. 17 Most interestingly, Chytil never mentioned some other important Beijing masters active outside the Beijing Academy of Arts, even though he must have come across their paintings. For instance, he bought the painting *Tao Yuanming and His Poem Return to the Fields* by Pu Ru (1896–1963), which is now regarded as one of Pu's most precious works in European collections, but Chytil explained neither his background nor his importance in the catalogue of the 1931 show in Vienna where the work was first displayed. He merely included a detail of Pu Ru's beautifully painted figure of the poet Tao Yuanming on the cover of the volume, keeping silent about its author in his essay on the development of modern Chinese painting, which served as the catalogue's introduction.

It therefore seems that Chytil was basically exhibiting works of his colleagues and students from the Beijing Academy of Arts, together with a few of his other favourite painters, and promoting them vigorously as masters responsible for the revival of Chinese ink painting. Even though Chytil was an active and enthusiastic collector and teacher of painting, he did not have any true strategy or concept, nor a specialised training that would give him a more profound insight into the workings of the larger art scene in China. His shows received positive responses in Europe and stirred a huge wave of interest in modern Chinese painting, but the artworks were admired mostly for their aesthetic qualities and partly as examples of a certain exoticism.

At the time, media hardly published any critical responses to Chytil's presentations, which is in striking contrast to his experience in the United States. In the early 1930s, drunk on his success with the European public, Chytil was looking for possibilities to show his collection in the United States, which he crossed several times during his trips from Asia to Europe. He sent letters of introduction to Alex Hrdlička (1869-1943), a countryman active in the Smithsonian Institution, who promised to help him pass his proposals to the curators of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Chytil boasted the financial success of his exhibitions in Europe and exaggerated his influence on some of the Chinese government members, who had reputedly promised him support with bringing to the USA the collections of ancient Chinese art from the Palace Museum in Beijing:

The sensational success of those exhibitions in Europe inspired me to organize a large Chinese National Art-exhibition in America, than [those presented in] London and Paris. Old and new art showing the development from the earliest to the latest days. With the help of Chinese Government, as we need to obtain some of those scrolls from the National Museum of Peking /Peipin/. And through the Chinese Legation we reported it already to the Nanking Government. […] And indeed, I wish to bring it to United States first, to the great nation which takes more interest in Young China than any other country in the world. Up to that time my book about modern China Art will be completed and I expect to read lectures on Chinese and Japanese Arts in United States. […] I have introduced the Idea of the exhibition already in 1927 to the Chinese Government in Peking and as owing to the troubles at that time it was hard to push it through, so I undertook the task by myself. I paid all the transport-expenses, I have done all the necessary propaganda. I received 30% from the entrance-tickets to cover my expenses. And to add that the exhibition is enchanting the visitors that much, that more than 600 pictures have been sold in that old poor Europe of today at 3 cities – Vienna-Berlin-Budapest – it says something! Of course, only part of the exhibition is for sale! Of course, I do not know how you are arranging such things in United States, and I leave it gladly to the Institution which will house the show, or which might like to bring it over.18

Obviously, after the huge success of Chytil's European exhibitions, his hopes were high, but he was put off decisively by the response of the curators of the American museums:

the Museum is not interested in modern art primarily because it is modern, nor in ancient art primarily because it is ancient; what really interests us, is art which is the best in quality of its kind […] [and] all exhibitions given in this Museum, are open to the public free of charge.19

The curators in the USA were unimpressed by the emphasis on the financial success of Chytil's exhibitions, as well as his proclaimed connections in China. The American museums were more concerned with objective qualities and the comprehensiveness of a presented collection and didn't dwell on any commercial concerns. From the letter exchange, it is obvious that the exhibiting conventions in the USA differed considerably from those in Europe, where the private and public sphere still overlapped significantly. Chytil was thus left to pursue his interests in the 'old poor Europe' alone. Even there, however, contrary to what he himself declared in many of his texts and talks, none of Chytil's exhibitions of modern Chinese painting represented the whole range of achievements of contemporary Chinese painters. His collection as well as his shows were closely linked to Beijing art circles and thus document the reception of one part of Chinese modern ink painting in Europe throughout the 1920s and 1930s. It remains a task for future research to contextualize these activities within the larger picture of the introduction of modern Chinese art in other parts of the Western world, where modern paintings from other parts of China were in the spotlight.

#### **NOTES**

#### **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

## **BIG PRESENTS MAINTAIN THE FRIENDSHIP: THE GIFT OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO THE STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN (NATIONAL MUSEUMS IN BERLIN), GDR, IN 1959**

*Uta Rahman-Steinert*

There is a proverb in German that reads 'Small presents maintain the friendship.' In the following, an event will be described that proves that big presents are also essential contributions to friendship – in this case, the friendship of two states.

It should be mentioned in advance that the article reflects an interim stage of research. Due to a number of circumstances, I have not yet accessed all the archives I plan to consult, in particular the Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive) of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). This paper is mainly based on the material I found in the Zentralarchiv (Central Archive) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin).

The emphasis of this research is therefore on the connection of the objects donated by the People's Republic of China to the history of the Ostasiatische Sammlung (East Asian Collection), the museum that was the ultimate addressee of the gift. The following story is further evidence that national politics and museum histories are closely intertwined and that the interests and the policies of a nation state may determine the fate of museums, at least in the case of state museums. Such dependencies continue in current museum practices as well. The decision to move the exhibitions of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum) and the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin from the periphery of Berlin to the Humboldt Forum in the centre of the city was not least driven by the intention to demonstrate cosmopolitism. The collections on the Museum Island, which focus primarily on European art and culture, are intended to be enhanced by the non-European collections to form an overall museum of humankind.

In 1945 Berlin was in ruins, as were most of its museums, among them the Museum Island and the former building of the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts, today, Gropius Bau). The Ostasiatische Kunstsammlung (East Asian Art Collection), founded in 1906, has had its exhibition rooms in the former building of the Kunstgewerbemuseum since 1924. The historical museum buildings were considerably affected by the bombing raids on Berlin in 1943 and 1945, causing the Ostasiatische Kunstsammlung to lose five per cent of its holdings. Ninety per cent of its collection had been moved to storage in an anti-aircraft bunker at the zoo before 1943 and was removed after the war by the Soviet Army's Trophy Commission to the Soviet Union.1 The rest was kept in secure sites outside Berlin. This portion of the collection was evacuated to areas later occupied by the Western Allies and was returned to West Berlin. As a result of the Second World War, not only Berlin but also most of the museum collections were divided. Due to the removal and division, there were hardly any museum holdings of East Asian art in the whole of Berlin, and virtually none in East Berlin.2

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) were both founded in October 1949 – only six days apart. Both countries immediately established diplomatic relations and became close allies. Founding a museum in which the cultural achievements of the Chinese people could be presented, became an important cultural and political task on the agenda of the government of the GDR. This was certainly no easy task, with no notable museum collections at hand.

Despite this, on 18 August 1951, the Staatliche Kommission für Kunstangelegenheiten (State Commission on Art Affairs) of the Ministry of Culture issued a letter to the general director of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin proposing to establish a new East Asian department.3 The National Museum's director of administration stated in his reply on 23 August 1951: 'There are certainly opportunities to rebuild such a department if we are provided with the appropriate means to purchase works of art from the East Asian cultural area.' Rooms are not a problem, he continued, and he made up a tentative staff list.4

Without delay, the mandate was implemented. It became the first topic on the agenda of the Directors' Conference5 on 24 April 1952.6 To deal with the deficiencies, the director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum agreed to contribute objects of East Asian provenance. The list he delivered a few days later specified several hundred objects, mainly porcelains and other ceramics, but also objects of glass, enamel, and bronze. He remarked that most of the items were from the nineteenth century and of rather limited quality; he did not think the number of items worth being put on display was large.7 The director of the Ägyptisches Museum (Egyptian Museum) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin was commissioned to contact a possible research assistant for the department, Käte Finsterbusch (1924–2018),8 who had been located at Leipzig University. Preparations proceeded quickly, and a circular from 2 September 1952 already listed the next steps: newly restored and renovated rooms became available, three of which, in the south wing of the Pergamonmuseum, were designated to the new department. Further measures were taken to acquire additional works of East Asian art.

One of these measures was to hire a specialist to set up the first three rooms. Bruno Voigt (1912–1988)9 was engaged, initially on the basis of a short-term contract, starting from 1 July 1952. At that time still the director of the museum in Gotha, Voigt subsequently became the director of the Ostasiatische Sammlung in 1954. He was described as a qualified expert on the subject, 'who has an almost complete collection of East Asian antiquities in his house [i.e. the museum in Gotha].'10 Voigt also brought with him the prospect of additional long-term loans from the holdings of the museum in Gotha.

Voigt designed a preliminary exhibition concept that, despite its limited scope, formulated the claim to present representative objects from all historical eras and dynasties. This overview was planned to be housed in the first two rooms, followed by one gallery for the interaction between China and Europe and another gallery for contemporary woodcuts and objects of arts and crafts from the PRC. The educational purpose was prioritised in the concept and remained a focus later on. Voigt also recommended that contemporary but also older art should be acquired in the PRC 'to ensure a high standard for this department.'11

The next step was to invite museum experts from China. Close cooperation and intensive exchange with colleagues from China were characteristic and an expression of the trusting relation between the countries. Based on a cultural agreement between the GDR and the P. R. of China in 1954, two persons whose positions have not yet been identified, Wang Yi and Wang Zhenduo,12 visited the GDR between January and April 1955. According to the itineraries, they completed an enormous programme during their visit. Their travel itinerary comprised twelve densely written pages. In less than three months, they visited about twenty towns. In ten of them they examined museum collections to assess dates and the authenticity of Chinese objects.13 They were accompanied by the aforementioned Finsterbusch, then research assistant at Leipzig University and in charge of the Ostasiatische Sammlung in Berlin on a part-time basis. Presumably, the trip had been intended to investigate the collections of the museums (and even one art dealer) all over the GDR in order to identify potential loans for Berlin. However, no loans were realised. Although no record can be traced so far, it is conceivable that the quality of the objects did not meet the requirements. There are also indications that the provincial museums were not enthusiastic about giving away what they considered to be their highlights, a fact that can be gleaned from some of the accompanying documents.

The year 1955 was important for the relationship between the PRC and the GDR. Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl travelled to China and brought with him a number of objects: ten banners of the Yihetuan who led the uprising against the Eight Nations Alliance (Boxer War) and three volumes of the *Yongle Dadian*, a Chinese encyclopaedia compiled between 1403 and 1408 that is largely lost today. The objects had been looted by German troops during the Boxer War between 1899 and 1901 in north China. Their return, in a highly symbolic ceremony, confirmed the close relations between the two countries and the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which was signed during the visit. With this gesture, the GDR government distanced itself from the colonial heritage of imperial Germany and positioned itself as a close ally of the PRC. I am including this digression because I believe this gesture may have contributed to the positive attitude from the Chinese side, which later led to the decision about the donation.

The development of the Ostasiatische Sammlung was not only driven by friendly relations with the PRC but also shaped by the competition of the economic and social systems of the time. In West Berlin, as early as 20 December 1952, the East Asian department of the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum, until 2000: Museum für Völkerkunde) had opened new galleries in Dahlem that even included a stage for shadow plays. This, however, did not seem to have been the benchmark for the museum in East Berlin which claimed to be an art museum, not an anthropological or cultural history museum. It had moved to newly renovated permanent exhibition spaces in the north wing of the Pergamonmuseum which were inaugurated alongside the opening of the show *Contemporary Painting of China – Guohua*, on 16 September 195714.

In June of the same year, museum director Voigt underlined in a letter directed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

When it was considered to open the Chinese department here, with the holdings available from the museums of the GDR and from private ownership, the opening of the extraordinarily interesting and valuable East Asian collection in West Berlin – Museums Dahlem – had not yet taken place […] In the current situation, neither the quantity nor the quality of our objects are sufficient to come anywhere close to the level in Dahlem.15

According to the archival sources, this statement was obviously based on the prospect of setting up an exhibition of artefacts from the Turfan Collection16 in Dahlem. Voigt further argued that he, together with Finsterbusch, had researched the holdings of all relevant museums in the GDR. Taking into account the fact that the most valuable objects were already part of their respective exhibitions, only porcelains from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries were available for loan to Berlin. Voigt concluded that loans from the PRC were therefore highly desirable:

For if we really were to receive loans from all epochs, even if only on a modest scale, this material, which is still unknown in Europe, would put us in a position not only to catch up with the Museum Dahlem as well as other West German museums but also to surpass them.17

He proposed negotiating with the PRC government for permanent loans and attached a list of desirable objects that he had already compiled earlier in January. The list comprised seven categories: ceramics, bronzes, jades and other stones, wooden works, lacquerware, stone rubbings, paintings, and objects from contemporary art production. The list had a comprehensive character; Voigt had clearly tried to take into account all significant eras and styles of Chinese art history. Particular emphasis was placed on the importance of Shang and Zhou bronzes as well as on ceramics from Neolithic periods and burial objects from the Han, Wei, and Tang dynasties. The proposals for bronzes, for instance, listed one to seven pieces for each of the eight historical periods Voigt quoted, among them bronzes of the *ding*, *gu*, *hu*, *you*, and *jue* type from the Shang period (1550–1050 bce, dating in the source) or bronzes with figurative motifs as well as mirrors from the Tang dynasty (618–907). The most extensive list concerned ceramics, which proposed a maximum of eighty-seven pieces from all periods. The entry on the topic 'Painting' reveals an interesting detail. Voigt was aware that delicate Chinese paintings on paper or silk were not suitable for permanent loans and therefore requested copies. He obviously understood this to mean painted copies made by artists, because he at the same time emphasised: 'We cannot exhibit reproductions.' In the concluding sentence of the list, Voigt emphasised that the final choice should be left entirely to the Chinese experts and state officials.18

The designed loans were apparently incorporated into a plan for an exhibition to mark the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC. In some of his letters in 1958 and 1959, Voigt refers to an exhibition entitled *4000 Years of Chinese Art*. Besides the aforementioned loans, the concept was expanded and also included stone rubbings as well as costumes, requisites, instruments, paintings, and printed objects documenting the Chinese opera. Contemporary art, paintings, drawings, and woodcuts 'depicting the liberation struggle and the construction of the People's Republic of China' were supposed to form a separate section.19

The fact that, in the end, the exhibits were given not as loans but as donations came as a surprise. The GDR government received official notification about the donation by letter, dated 28 July 1959 from the PRC's Ministry of Culture.20 The collection that was intended for gift by the Chinese side had been exhibited in the Palace Museum in Beijing before being sent to the GDR. When Voigt visited China in June 1959, he had already been informed about the donation and visited the exhibition. It has not yet been possible to retrace whether all the objects that were ultimately part of the gift were shown in the Palace Museum's presentation. On the invitation card for the opening of the exhibition in Berlin, the exhibition title reads *Four Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics and Porcelain*, suggesting that the final selection of objects for the gift was not known on the German side until it arrived. Moreover, the exhibition that had been planned on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC did not open as scheduled on 1 October, the PRC's national day, but a couple weeks later, on 28 November 1959. This was due to a delay in the shipment from China. The fourteen crates containing the objects were shipped on the motor vessel 'Dresden' and did not reach the port in Wismar on time, arriving belatedly on 10 October.

The government donation comprised 251 exquisite arts and crafts objects, including ceramics; objects made of lacquer, jade, and enamel; woven silk fabrics

Figure 1. Selection of Qing dynasty imperial porcelains, donation of the PRC, 1959 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, photo: Jörg von Bruchhausen. (See plate 19, p. 256)

Figure 2. Selection of Qing dynasty jade carvings, donation of the PRC, 1959 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, photo: Jörg von Bruchhausen. (See plate 20, p. 257)

and embroideries from the Neolithic period, the third millennium bce, to the end of the imperial period in 1911. The 175 ceramic works made up the majority of the donation. This selection does indeed, with reservations, provide a kind of an overview of the history of Chinese ceramics. The Neolithic period and the Shang (17th? c.–11th c. bce) and Zhou (11th c.–256 bce) periods are covered by eighteen pieces, followed by thirty-four mainly burial objects from the Han (202 bce–220 ce) to the Tang (618–907) dynasties. In the general context, two hollow bricks, probably architectural elements from burial sites, each more than a metre long, appear unusual. The Han and Tang burial objects do not only comprise vessels but also a considerable number of figurative sculptures, among them female and male servants, warriors, and animals. Models of household objects such as wells, a stove, and a pigsty address vernacular culture.

Only six ceramics, however, represent the period between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries. Fifteen ceramics can be dated to the Ming dynasty (1368– 1644). In addition to plates, bowls, and jars, there are also a sculpture of a Guanyin and two sculptural roof tiles. By far the largest number of objects, 102 porcelain vessels, date to the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Bowls, plates, and vases give an overview of the porcelains collected and used in literati circles and at court (fig. 1).

Figure 3. Chinese catalogue with black-and-white photographs, cover and inside page with Qing dynasty porcelains. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, photo (right): Claudia Obrocki. (See plate 21, p. 258)

The forty-seven textile objects, woven fabrics, fans, bags, and silken bands, ten utensils made in different enamel techniques, ten jade carvings (fig. 2), and nine pieces of lacquerware which demonstrate a range of different lacquer manufacturing techniques, all date to the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644–1912). Certainly, the selection reflects not least the availability and dispensability of objects.

Ritual vessels made of bronze, which Voigt had always listed first in his compilation of suggestions and which were particularly significant to him, were not part of the donation. Such bronze vessels are among the oldest collectibles. Often showing cast inscriptions, they were valued equally as testimonies of history and as aesthetic treasures. They were regarded as treasures that conferred identity and served rulers as emblems of power and authority. It is therefore not surprising that China did not give away such objects. Why no copies of paintings were provided is, however, less explicable. As far as contemporary art from the PRC is concerned, which was also high on Voigt's wish list, there were obviously other plans on the Chinese side. An exhibition with this content was put together almost in parallel and was shown the following year, also at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.21

Accompanying and documenting the donation, the Chinese side prepared a two-volume catalogue bound in brocade (fig. 3). One volume showed black-andwhite photographs of all objects with brief captions, and the second volume gave more detailed descriptions including date and place of origin for all items. The Ostasiatische Sammlung edited a catalogue later, in 1960, the year following the handover. Unfortunately, the modest publication gives only an inadequate impression of the significance of the gift. The thin brochure lists all the works with their technical details, based on the aforementioned Chinese compilation, but reproduces only thirty-two of them in black-and-white photographs. The objects are arranged chronologically and according to materials or media. The chronological order of the catalogue allowed for the chapters to be opened with short introductions to Chinese history, which, at the same time, made the catalogue a handbook on cultural history, albeit a concise one. This was not least in keeping with the educational mission that the museum and its exhibitions were to fulfil 'for mutual understanding, creative cultural cooperation, and everlasting friendship with the great Chinese cultural people and their socialist people's government.'22

The catalogue included erroneous aspects: on the title page, contemporary painting is listed, which frequently leads to the misconception that painting of the time was also part of the gift. Paintings by living Chinese artists were, however, actually purchased from China.23 They were exhibited alongside the donation in the most representative and largest gallery, the last of the exhibition rooms. Contemporary art always played a crucial role in all the exhibit concepts for the museum. In propagandistic tones, it was praised as an achievement of the new society:

National liberation and the abolition of capitalist exploitation inspired art, which has become an expression of the victory of socialism […] the new is not sought through sensational effects, but through intensive study of the environment, the theory of socialism, the laws of art and through mastery of craftsmanship, artistic effect is achieved.24

Unfortunately, only few images of the exhibition *Four Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramic and Porcelain*, which opened at the Pergamonmuseum on 28 November 1959, have been handed down (fig. 4). But the arrangement of the exhibition is reflected in a description Voigt gave in a newspaper article.25 The artworks were set up in chronological order, starting with Neolithic and Shang and Zhou dynasty ceramics in the first room and ending with the handicrafts of the Qing dynasty. The interpretation of the objects was embedded in the socialist narrative of history. Referencing the works from the Qing dynasty, Voigt stated: 'They prove that the foreign rulers had to continue the traditions of Chinese art, that Chinese artists and craftsmen and the national consciousness of the people were stronger than their oppressors.'26 In addition to contemporary paintings, the display in the big hall at the end of the suite of galleries also included a number of modern ceramics.

The objects from the donation formed the basis for the permanent display of Chinese art in the galleries of the Ostasiatische Sammlung in the north wing of the Pergamonmuseum during the following decades. Over time, works from other acquisitions were gradually added.

Generally, the press broadly covered the exhibition of the gift. The museum's director, Bruno Voigt, had penned most of the articles himself. He emphasised that the donation enabled the museum to present an almost complete view of the development of Chinese ceramics and porcelain. On this basis, the history of the country could be introduced in general terms. The Chinese achievement of having produced the earliest porcelain provided the rationale for the focus on ceramic development. The museum's mission to educate visitors and to link historical and art historical education to sociopolitical instruction was underlined throughout the articles. In keeping with the spirit of the times, the donation was

Figure 4. Later Chinese porcelains in the exhibition *Four Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramic and Porcelain. Gift of Friendship of the People's Republic of China*, Pergamonmuseum, 1959 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Zentralarchiv.

emphasised as a testimony to the friendly relations between the two countries and as a contribution to a better understanding of the history and culture of China.27

Finally, I want to return to the original question that led me to the research about the history of the donation. The complete circumstances of the donation remain unclear and still require further research. Where did the objects included in the gift come from? Who selected them and according to what criteria?

As for the decorative art pieces from later historical periods, small signs on the bottom of some vessels provide a first indication. They are printed with the name 故宫博物院 (Gugong Bowuyuan), Palace Museum, with the additional character 新 (*xin*), which means 'new'. These objects come from the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. 'New' means that they found their way into the museum after 1949 and were not part of the original imperial collection. Numbers and the character 德 (*de*) for Germany have been added by hand (fig. 5). Initial research with Beijing colleagues of the Palace Museum in 2017 showed, however, that only sixty-nine items with reference to the transfer to the museum in the GDR were documented in the archive there. The provenance of the other 182 works of art, before they came to Berlin, remains unknown. A handful of them bear labels from a Beijing dealer in Liulichang, a famous traditional quarter with numerous antique and artistry dealers. Even the prices are still visible on the small stickers

Figure 5. Lidded box in the form of a peach with inventory labels of the Palace Museum Beijing, China, Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), eighteenth century, inv. no. OAS 1959–245 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, photo: Ricarda Brosch. (See plate 22, p. 259)

on the bottom of the jars. The archaeological items bear numbers and characters indicating information that is probably related to archaeological sites. In the catalogue the Chinese side provided, the place of excavation is only indicated for some of them. Even in these cases, no date and no precise identification of the relevant excavation campaign are given. With a considerable number of objects, all information related to their origin is completely missing. To pursue their provenance will only be possible to research in close cooperation with colleagues in China.

The gift from the PRC was indeed an extraordinary gesture of friendship and solidarity between China and the GDR. There were rumours that the GDR planned to donate German artworks in exchange; there is also evidence that these were intended to be graphic prints. This would, however, need to be verified by further research. These plans probably ended up being cancelled due to the deterioration of political relations between the Soviet Union and the PR of China, which promptly affected relations between the GDR and China.

Looking at the event, one cannot help but think of the practice of tribute gifts, which were an essential part of Chinese foreign policy for centuries. In the 1950s, however, this practice took on a different character. Communist China had a difficult time on the international stage and struggled for diplomatic recognition. The achievements of the country's millennia-old culture thus had to serve as the role of ambassador for the new China. They were used to strengthen relationships and encourage understanding. Shen Yanbing, Minister of Culture of the People's Republic of China (Tchën Yän-bing/Mao Dun, 1896–1981), stated in the letter to his fellow minister, Alexander Abusch (1902–1982): 'We would be pleased if these cultural objects could serve to deepen the mutual understanding and cultural exchange between the Chinese and German peoples as well as the scientific research of the archaeologists and orientalists of the German Democratic Republic.' Further, he asked that 'this gift be received as a symbol of the everlasting friendship between our two countries.'28

Similar donations were also granted to other socialist countries. To date, I am aware of gifts to Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Hungarian People's Republic. In the mid-1950s, the National Gallery in Prague received sixty-five premodern artworks that were officially inventoried in 1958. According to Michaela Pejčochová, to whom I owe this information, an unusual process lies behind the donation: the gift was based on objects that official Czechoslovak delegates bought or received in China in 1953 or 1954. However, they were prevented from taking them out of the country due to the law on protection of cultural relics. Subsequently, Chinese authorities confiscated the objects and handed them over to the Palace Museum, where Chinese experts researched and described them on registry cards. Sixty-five artworks were then finally handed back to the Czechoslovak authorities and donated as an official gift to the National Gallery in Prague.29

In 1955 the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts in Budapest received an enormous donation of 575 works, consisting of seven hundred objects, as a gift from the Chinese Central Government that were part of a touring exhibition of the PRC. The donation, delivered in twenty-two crates, contained contemporary objects: Chinese pottery from Jingdezhen and Shiwan, as well as lacquerware and cloisonné enamel from Beijing, a variety of textiles and jewellery, ivory, and soapstone carvings, and even furniture. According to Györgyi Fajcsák30, 'Its greatest value, however, unquestionably lies in the fact that the gift represents a cross section of mid-twentieth-century Chinese applied art.'31

A special case seems to be donations to the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. New Zealand was never a country one would particularly associate with the Eastern bloc, but the China expert Rewi Alley (1897– 1987) managed to mediate the donations, probably to a great degree thanks to the esteem in which he was held in China. Alley was a New Zealand writer and political activist who lived in China for most of his live and was labelled as one of the 'Ten International Friends of China' that China awarded in 2009. He was an active collector and donated his private collection to the Canterbury Museum. In addition, he managed to arrange official gifts from the Chinese side to the Canterbury Museum. Roger Duff (1912–1978), the museum director at the time, described the gift to the New Zealand press as follows:

For the first time in its history, the People's Government of China has granted a special permit for the export of such items. They are valuable old pieces of porcelain, jade, bronze, and scroll paintings. With a very large collection of books on Chinese art, they fill seven large crates, now awaiting direct shipment by a Chinese vessel.32

The donation was followed by several other gifts of objects of decorative art in the late 1950s. A concrete number is not given, but Alley's collection and objects related to it are presented and edited in detail on a website.33 Under the title 'China, Art and Cultural Diplomacy' in-depth searches are possible. 'Gifts and Exchanges' lists, for instance, about a dozen pieces given by the Palace Museum in Beijing.34

Presumably, there are other donations from the PRC of which I am not yet aware. It would be a rewarding project to investigate the worldwide efforts of China in the field of cultural diplomacy with a focus on the gifts of artworks and cultural relics to different countries. In a world of increasing tensions and demarcations, the aspect of cultural diplomacy, which focuses not only on one's own interests but equally on those of the partner's side, might provide inspiring impulses.

### **NOTES**

part from Buddhist temples. Today they form a crucial part of the collection of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst. Large parts of this collection are presently on display in the galleries of the museum in the Humboldt Forum, with two reconstructed cave temples at the centre of the exhibitions.

### **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

## **SAVED FROM THE FURNACE, THROWN INTO THE COLD WAR: ISLAMIC ART IN HUNGARY IN THE 1950S**

*Iván Szántó*