Riding the wind of rebirth

Just as one cannot avoid Mr. Wang when studying Ming and Qing furniture, one cannot avoid Wang Fangyu when studying Bada Shanren.

Wang Fangyu and Bada Shanren became acquainted in the 1950s. At that time, Zhang Daqian was living in the United States and was in a hurry to raise money for his life. He publicly sold his collection of Shitao and Bada Shanren's works. Wang Fangyu then purchased more than 20 works of Bada Shanren from Zhang Daqian in installments. From then on, he could not stop. Over the past few decades, he has collected nearly 100 works of Bada Shanren, becoming the collector with the most works of Bada Shanren at home and abroad. His academic life was also related to the study of Bada, and he is also a top authority in the appreciation and study of Bada Shanren's works.

The old man is now over eighty years old, so Zhou Zhi must of course greet him.

"Father is in good health, but he likes to live in peace and quiet. Apart from his children and grandchildren, he hasn't seen outsiders in recent years." Wang Shaofang said with a smile.

There were probably too many people who wanted to see the old man at any opportunity, and the Wang family's children were already a little scared, so they decided to say it out loud first.

Zhou Zhi understood this, and recalled that among the works that Zhang Daqian had sold together, Shi Tao's 1000 Arhats album had been passed on to him through Cui Ruzhuo. Now that he saw the descendant of Bada Shanren's collection, he couldn't help but ask, "I heard that for the purpose of research, Mr. Wang collected more than photos of Bada's paintings and calligraphy in addition to hundreds of Bada Shanren's paintings... I wonder if "Lotus, Stork and Fish" is among them?"

Wang Shaofang couldn't help but be surprised: "How do you know about the painting "Lotus, Stork and Fish"?"

"Really?" Zhou Zhi originally just wanted to try his luck, but now he couldn't help but be surprised and happy to hear what Wang Shaofang said.

"What did the painting of Lotus, Stork and Fish look like when you saw it?" Wang Shaofang asked.

"It is somewhat similar to the Heron and Rocks painting. The picture is simple. There are some small white stripes between the water waves in the left corner. In the center of the picture is a withered lotus. On the upper right side of the lotus stands an old stork with its hair standing alone. The old stork rolls its eyes, as if it doesn't like the small fish in the corner."

"The fish in the clear water should represent the salary of the Qing Dynasty. The painting I am talking about should be a self-portrait of Bada Shanren who maintains his mental cleanliness. His accomplishments are higher than those of the Herons and Rocks. In particular, the painting is huge, 205 cm long and 120 cm wide, which is comparable in size to the four-piece scroll of Birds Playing in the Lotus Pond at the Metropolitan Museum of Art put together."

"Where is this painting now?" Wang Shaofang grabbed Zhou Zhi and said, "Historical documents record that this painting was finally taken away by the Qianzhou warlord Zhou Xicheng, and then disappeared. How did you know about this painting?"

"Zhou Xicheng? No wonder..." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "I bought this painting from a fellow villager in my hometown when I was in high school, under the guidance of my fourth cousin. Although Zhou Xicheng was a warlord in Qianzhou, he was born in our county, Jiuzhi Town, my mother's hometown. He also built an ancestral hall for my mother in our hometown, which we call 'Zhou Temple'. It is entirely possible that his things were passed on to the people in his hometown."

"Little brother, you are so lucky..." Wang Shaofang couldn't help but feel a little envious: "This painting was confirmed by my father after many searches. It is the largest painting by Bada Shanren. By the way, can you ask China to fax the picture over?"

“You don’t need to do that. We have pictures on the Internet.” Mai Xiaomiao interjected at the right time.

"Huh?" Zhou Zhi couldn't help but be a little surprised. He didn't even know about this.

Mai Xiaomiao opened his laptop, connected to the satellite network, logged into a forum address, and quickly entered a string of passwords. A folder appeared on the computer, and when he opened it, there was a bunch of photos.

"Where did this come from?" Zhou Zhi asked.

"Sister Xueshan sorted it out for you." Mai Xiaomiao said, "Then...she threw the job to me."

"Oh..." Zhou Zhi was really touched. Jiang Shuyi was the one who did this originally. After they broke up, Zhou Zhi never asked about it again.

It is estimated that Jiang Shuyi handed the matter over to Feng Xueshan. After Feng Xueshan took over, she did not tell Zhou Zhi. Instead, she took advantage of the opportunity to work in Zhou Zhi's hometown and later in Suihuaxuan to complete the catalog.

After meeting Mai Xiaomiao, he handed the matter over to a computer expert, who used his authority to "steal" a space on the Clover Forum to store these "personal belongings".

Now it really comes in handy. The satellite network is quite fast, and the picture opened in a short while. It was hard for Mai Xiaomiao to remember it, but he found that the file name was not "Lotus Stork Flirting with Fish", but a name he gave himself, called "Ugly Old Bird Hating Fish Through Lotus.JPG".

Looking at the file name, Zhou Zhi couldn't help but roll his eyes like the old stork in the picture, but now was really not the time to educate Mai Xiaomiao about the intentions and interests of Bada Shanren's calligraphy and painting.

After the file was downloaded, Mai Xiaomiao clicked on the picture and asked, "Is this it?"

"That's it!" Zhou Zhi and Wang Shaofang said in unison.

Neither Jiang Shuyi, Feng Xueshan nor Mai Xiaomiao are cultural relics workers, and they don’t know that when taking such pictures, one should at least place a ruler or a familiar reference object in order to determine the size of the scroll in the picture.

But it is not necessary now. Wang Shaofang was excited just by looking at the picture: "That's it! At that time, this painting was collected by Pang Yuanji, and later it was transferred to Zhou Xicheng."

"I know Pang Yuanji." Zhou Zhi was a little amused. "But Zhou Xicheng is a well-known warlord with a very low level of education. The only good thing about him is that he values ​​education and intellectuals, and he hates bureaucratic corruption."

"Logically, he shouldn't be able to understand Bada Shanren's paintings..."

Pang Yuanji was from Nanxun, Wuxing. His father was Pang Yunzheng, one of the "Four Elephants of Nanxun", and his family was a wealthy family in Nanxun Town. During the reign of Emperor Guangxu, he donated 100,000 silver dollars to the government for relief and was granted the title of Juren and the rank of a fourth-rank official in Beijing.

In his early years, he was good at calligraphy, painting, and inscriptions on stone tablets, and his skills in calligraphy and painting were very impressive.

Not only was he skilled in calligraphy and painting, he was also extremely wealthy. He opened silk factories, spinning mills, trading companies, sauce factories, wineries, Chinese medicine stores, pawnshops, banks and other large and small businesses, and owned a large amount of land and real estate in the above places.

So he had no pressure at all when it came to collecting, and some people called him "the world's largest collector" at that time.

The famous person Zheng Xiaoxu's statement was slightly more conservative, saying that he "was the best collector in the southeast."

The characteristics of Pang's collection of paintings are: first, the collection of paintings by famous artists of all dynasties is relatively complete and rich. It is basically a collection of representative works of famous calligraphers and painters from various periods of previous Chinese dynasties, and most of them are authentic masterpieces.

How many of these works are there? There are thousands of them in total, and three books were published to record the collection. In addition to the 16 volumes of "Xu Zhai Famous Paintings Record", which was not completed, the four volumes of "Xu Zhai Famous Paintings Record Continued" and the book "Famous Paintings of China in Successive Dynasties" were also published.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the descendants of the Pang family donated or sold the calligraphy and painting cultural relics to the Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum and Suzhou Museum. Many of them have become the treasures of the three museums.

The famous first-class collection of the Shanghai Museum, "Northern Song Dynasty Zhu Kerou Kasi Lotus Pond and Ducklings", was donated by his son Pang Bingli.

After Wang Shaofang's introduction, Zhou Zhi realized that the painting he received in his hometown actually had such a great origin.

In addition to the information, the reason why Wang Shaofang was able to recognize this painting at a glance was that there was an image of this painting. Pang Yuanji lived in Shanghai in his later years. At that time, the famous Shanghai pictorial "Liangyou" once published an interview with Pang Yuanji. One of the paintings in the background of his study was Bada Shanren's "Lotus, Stork and Fish".

Zhou Zhi felt that he was already a very careful and solid scholar among his classmates. He never expected that the senior scholars could achieve such a level. He could not help but admire them greatly. (End of this chapter)