The best way to reclaim these antiques was to dispatch specialists around the country to locate and buy them back. Rongbaozhai, as an enterprise partly owned by the government and with more than a century of experience in fine art, joined the effort to locate and restore lost antiques. Because of the company’s proven ability as an appraiser of antiques, Rongbaozhai became the government’s leading agent to buy back the lost treasures.
Most of the pieces purchased through Rongbaozhai were paintings and calligraphy from the Ming (1358 – 1644) and Qing (1644 – 1911) dynasties, eras in which these arts thrived.
Although the cross-regional transfer of cultural relics was forbidden, the Ministry of Culture granted special permission to Rongbaozhai to scour the entire country for treasures. It also gave the agents access to local governments as well as a great deal of financial support.
As Rongbaozhai’s collection of recovered artwork grew, it became apparent that many of the items were damaged and in desperate need of repair. And all of them, whether damaged or not, were in need of careful protection.
With the public-private joint ownership reform, the most prominent picture restorers and framers on Liulichang Street all went to work at Rongbaozhai. For a time, the skill of the technicians’ there rivaled those of the Forbidden City.
Of the many works that were restored at Rongbaozhai, the most famous and most difficult one was the Liao Dynasty (916-1125) Tripitaka.
Rongbaozhai continued to add to its own collection as well.
Years before Rongbaozhai had started out selling paper, and was a specialist in the Four Treasures of the Studio: paper, brushes, ink and ink stones. Its collection of writing implements was extensive, and included many examples of Tianhuang stone, known as the “emperor of stones.”
In the 1980s, someone sent a message to Rongbaozhai saying that they had found a 4.5-kilogram Tianhuang stone in Shoushan Village, Fujian Province. The experts at Rongbaozhai were skeptical: chances of finding such a stone were very slim indeed. But they decided that it was certainly worth checking, so they dispatched agents to Shoushan.
As it turned out, the stone had been discovered and dug up by five men. They had kept the find a secret even from their wives.
Yuan Liang, the Rongbaozhai purchasing agent says, “After we checked the stone, we began to negotiate. But after we made a deal, they said that they had to be paid in cash.”
The Tianhuang stone deal was clinched at 135,000 yuan (US$16,310). The 50- and 100-yuan denominations of Chinese currency had not yet been launched at that time, so carrying such a huge amount of cash from Beijing to the mountain village would be a difficult and risky venture. Thus, everyone was sworn to secrecy about the transport of the money.
It was well worth the trouble. Rongbaozhai’s Tianhuang stone is still one of the largest in the world, and is considered priceless.
But for all the acquisitions of treasures over the years, the experts at Rongbaozhai still consider the story of the Shaoxi Poems Scroll of Mi Fu the best.
Who was the young man? How had he come by so many state-level cultural relics? Was he a front man for someone who wished to remain anonymous?
Thirty years after Rongbaozhai bought the scroll, a local newspaper provided a lead that helped to solve the mystery.
In the March 30, 1996 edition of the Harbin Evening News, reporter Yuan Xiaoling wrote a feature story about the young man and his mother.
The family had kept their experience a secret for decades, and they wished to maintain their anonymity. The reporter used pseudonyms in the story.
The young man was named Ding Xingang, and it was his father, Ding Zhenglong, who had acquired the treasures
Ding Zhenglong was an educated man, having studied in Europe after graduating from Northeast University. In August 1945, he received an assignment to go to work at the Yingkou coal mine.
On September 8, 1945, Ding Zhenglong bid farewell to his family and went with his friends Luo Dazhao and Wang Xuewu to visit his old teacher in Changchun. Japan had just surrendered, ending World War Two, and many peddlers in Changchun were selling antiques and art treasures that had been taken from the palace of the puppet emperor in Manchuria. Ding Zhenglong bought many paintings and works of calligraphy.
Not long after, Ding Zhenglong’s wife, Sun Manxia, received word that her husband had been killed and his body found by the railroad tracks near Yingkou. Luo Dazhao, the friend and who had accompanied her husband on the trip, said Ding Zhenglong had been killed by Russian soldiers. But late one night, a worker from the coal mine came secretly and told Sun a different story.
When she thought carefully about all she had heard, Sun realized that there were many questionable points in Luo Dazhao’s statement. After talking to a number of people, she concluded that Luo had murdered her husband. The very night that Ding Zhenglong had purchased all those art treasures, the greedy Luo had decided he wanted them for himself. He murdered his friend on September 20 and took the paintings and calligraphy.
Sun Manxia formally accused Luo Dazhao and in the face of the evidence she presented, he could not deny his crime. Sun had avenged her husband and recovered the stolen treasures.
In the 1960s, Sun Manxia began to fear that she could not protect the fragile old artworks. If they were destroyed, she would feel guilty before the spirit of her husband and before the nation. She decided to find a better home for them.
And so the thousand-year-old treasures finally made their way back to Beijing, where Rongbaozhai donated them to the Forbidden City.
Efforts to develop woodblock printing
Woodblock printing techniques have been around for more than a thousand years, but letter paper decorated with woodblock-printed poems or pictures did not come into use until the late Qing Dynasty.
Translator Lin Qinnan invented the use of woodblock prints on letter paper, and before long the famed painters Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian followed his lead with images of their own. Under such talented hands, decorative letter paper represented the top skill in woodblock printing as well as painting genres typical of the period.
Lu Xun , the father of modern Chinese literature, was very fond of woodblock-printed letter paper. He often went to Rongbaozhai to buy their letter paper. Scholar Zheng Zhenduo, who was to become a deputy minister of culture after the founding of the PRC, shared Lu Xun’s fondness for the special paper.
But in the 1930s, the letter paper industry was in decline, in large part because of the political and economic upheaval China was suffering at the time.
Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo were afraid the art of printing decorative letter paper would disappear altogether so they collected as many samples as they could and compiled them into the Collection of Decorative Letter Paper in Peking. They entrusted Rongbaozhai with the job of publishing the book. In the following year, Rongbaozhai printed the Collection of Shizhuzhai Decorative Letter Paper.
In printing these compilations, Rongbaozhai was also able to collect the techniques of woodblock watercolor printing, which established a firm foundation for further development.
Zhang Daqian, together with his family and students, went to Dunhuang in 1941 to study the frescos in the Mogao Grottoes.
During the next two years, Zhang copied 276 frescos. Despite repeated offers to buy his work, Zhang Daqian, who lived by selling paintings, would not sell anyone the copies of the Dunhuang frescoes.
Rongbaozhai manager Wang Renshan, already a friend of Zhang’s, suggested that the shop could try to copy the paintings using woodblock watercolor printing. The results surprised Zhang Daqian, who delightedly sent copies of the prints to his friends.
When Tian Yongqing created the prints of the Dunhuang fresco paintings, he also created a transition to a new stage of woodblock print art.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Zheng Zhenduo and other intellectuals helped Rongbaozhai to become a public-private joint ownership company. Many famous painters and artisans worked with the new company to help develop the art of woodblock watercolor printing.
The first color film produced by Wenhua Film Studio was a documentary focusing on the woodblock watercolor printing of Rongbaozhai.
The detailed accuracy of Rongbaozhai’s woodblock print copies of paintings could frequently fool even the sharpest eyes.
One day, Hou Kai, the then manager of Rongbaozhai, invited top painter Qi Baishi, whose trademark works were of shrimp, into the studio. Hou hung two paintings of shrimp before Qi and asked which was Qi’s original and which was the duplicate. Qi Baishi studied the painting for a long time, finally admitting, “Er, I don’t think I can tell.”
With the reformation of the social economy in 1960s, Rongbaozhai became a state owned enterprise. The woodblock watercolor print skill and picture mounting techniques got better and better, and Rongbaozhai got many chances to show its fine art to the public.
Many of China’s state-level cultural relics are collected in the Forbidden City. Preserving these priceless treasures while allowing scholars to study them in detail had long been a thorny problem.
It was suggested that Rongbaozhai’s woodblock watercolor prints might be the solution. Scholars could study the virtually identical prints without any danger of damaging the original paintings.
But no one was certain that it would work. Rongbaozhai’s prints were all made on paper, and the painted treasures that were the primary concern here were on soft silk scrolls. The artists were so nervous about attempting the copies that the project was almost abandoned before it even started.
Woodblock artist Tian Yongqing found the solution to the problem that had stymied them. By chance he noticed that cloth used to wrap packages for mailing was easy to write on, unlike the silk that they needed to use. He discovered that treating the fabric with sizing made it relatively easy to write on and manipulate. Thus, almost by accident, the first hurdle was eliminated and Rongbaozhai was able to set to work.
The first silk scroll woodblock watercolor printed work was Pavilion in the Moonlight, originally painted by Wang Yun in the Qing Dynasty.
Because all the original paintings were invaluable relics, working copies had to be made. It took Rongbaozhai 12 years to copy them.
“The Night Revel of Han Xizai”, a result of the efforts made on the Forbidden City collection, is regarded as the pinnacle of woodblock print art. Chen Linzhai was the copyist; Zhang Yanzhou, the woodblock carver; Sun Lianwang, the printer.
They began planning and preparing “The Night Revel of Han Xizai” in 1959, and finished it in 1979. It took the three experts 20 years to make this great work.
Chen, Zhang and Sun have all passed away, and none of those that followed them at Rongbaozhai has yet felt capable of printing another run of their work. The blocks have slept now for 25 years, and it is possible that they will never again be reawakened.
（Source: chinaculture.org）
It is said that there are over two hundred kinds of snacks in Beijing, including dishes going with wine, such as Quick-Fried Tripe (Bao Du), Boiled Sheep’s Head (Bai Shui Yang Tou), Flour-Pastry desserts, like Pancakes with Meat-Fillings (Rou Mo Shao Bing) and some other snacks for breakfast or as midnight snack, like Sticky Rice with Sweet Fillings (Ai Wo Wo) and Rolling Donkey (Lu Da Gun). What local Beijing people, especially elder ones like most are Mung Bean Milk (Dou Zhi), Fried Liver (Chao Gan) and Filled Sausage (Guan Chang).