Riding the wind of rebirth

In 1977, Anzhai Industry declared bankruptcy and was acquired by a steel company. Twenty-one companies of the Sumitomo Group, headed by Sumitomo Bank, came forward to raise 15.2 billion yen and donated it to the Osaka City Cultural Promotion Fund.

The fund was worth about one billion yuan at the time, and Osaka City used the donation to purchase more than a thousand pieces of ceramics collected by Anzhai at the Osaka Municipal Museum of Oriental Ceramics.

Together with the rest of the collection, the museum has a total of about 3,000 items, famous for Chinese porcelain and Korean porcelain. Among them, two pieces of Chinese porcelain have been rated as national treasures by the island country’s Agency for Culture, and 13 others have been rated as important cultural properties.

In the entire island nation, there are only 14 cultural relics rated as national treasures. The Osaka Museum of Oriental Ceramics is the only institution with two "national treasures" and is one of the must-visit places for all lovers of ancient Chinese ceramics.

Since that time, Eiichi Azaka has changed from an "entrepreneur" to a "collector".

"Zhou Sang, we meet again."

"Mr. An Zhai." Zhou Zhi nodded to An Zhaiying on the hospital bed and said, "You must take good care of yourself."

"I have reached my age." Anzhai Yingyi was very indifferent: "There are two things that I can't find a suitable candidate for. I heard this morning that you have arrived in the island country and want to come see me. It's really an unexpected surprise. .”

"No matter what Mr. Anzhai orders, as long as it is within my power, I will do my best," Zhou Zhi said.

"By the way, why does Zhou Sang seem to have calmed down recently?" Anzhai Eiichi asked: "You haven't participated in important international auctions?"

"I'm still studying, and I'm busy restoring cultural relics for the school museum this semester." Zhou Zhi replied, "Besides, I don't have much money, so I can't just buy whatever I want."

An Zhai shook his head slightly: "When you see something good, it's worth going all out."

Zhou Zhi was a little speechless. The person in front of him was a typical person who only looked at things without looking at the price. When collecting, he required the collection to have a sense of "quietness" and "powerfulness" and pursued "thorough perfectionism."

Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to collect so many important collections.

However, Zhou Zhi still asked himself that he could not do it even if he had to give up everything in order to take a photo of a dream collection.

Because of this, Zhou Zhi respected the old man in front of him more and more.

Although the loss of domestic cultural relics to foreign countries is a very sad problem, every injustice has its own owner, and the blame can only be attributed to the robbers.

When China was in poverty and poverty, cultural relics trading was once one of the important sources of foreign exchange.

As for collectors who have tried their best to collect Chinese cultural relics overseas so that they would not be lost or damaged and were finally properly preserved, Zhou Zhi believes that they still need to be treated differently.

But then again, these collectors are not necessarily good people. The purpose of many of them collecting is as a means of investment and hedging. It is they who set off the appreciation of Chinese cultural relics and eventually This trend was brought into the country, resulting in a large number of excavations, destruction and smuggling.

It has also created a large number of strange "national treasure gangs" in the country... However, the old man in front of him is obviously not among the "sinners", but on the contrary, one of the few who are more responsible, legal-minded, and emphasizing public morality and order. The kind of people who want to be "respectable".

"If the old man's request makes me bankrupt, then there is nothing I can do..." Zhou Zhi smiled and spread his hands: "We have just completed a few investment agreements, and there are so big holes waiting to be filled."

"That's not true." Anzhai Eiichi said: "I feel that there are not many days left to stay in this world..."

Seeing that Zhou Zhi wanted to comfort him, the old man raised his hand to stop him: "I can't worry about my collection. I want experts to help clean it up, sort it out, and make a register. I have entrusted my old friend Sakamoto with the specific details. Regarding the appraisal, I want to Please give it to Zhou Sang."

"Old man, you value me too much." Zhou Zhi pondered for a moment: "If it is Chinese porcelain, there is no problem. However, I think that my level is not good enough for Korean porcelain and island porcelain, so I can only say that I am ashamed."

"Well... I don't dare to work with Zhou Sang for the other two items." An Zhaiying has obviously already thought about the appraisal arrangements: "The most important thing is of course Chinese porcelain. As you know, my appraisal level is not good, and I rely on aesthetics when buying things. Intuition, and reading the preface of the porcelain, I can't guarantee that I haven't been deceived, so I want to ask Zhou Sang to clear the source before I leave."

"Okay, this should be a major event in the Chinese porcelain collection world. It is an honor for me to participate." Zhou Zhi nodded: "I agreed to this matter. But I just heard what Mr. said, and it seems that there is one more thing? "

"Yes." Anzhai Eiichi said: "Did you know that the Fujita family has a painting of six dragons?"

The Fujiwara family is also a famous collecting family in the island country. The head of the family, Denzaburo Fujita, is an important industrialist in modern Japanese history. He is also a lover of ancient art and has spent huge sums of money to collect many national treasure-level cultural relics.

Because he spares no expense when collecting antiques, he is known as the number one in Kansai.

The Fujita family founded the Fujita Museum of Art in 1954. It is also the private museum with the largest number of cultural heritage in Japan. It displays to the public the art treasures collected by the industrialist Baron Denzaburo Fujita and his two sons Heitaro and Tokujiro.

The collection of the Fujita Museum of Art includes more than 2,000 pieces of Japanese and Chinese art, including extremely rare paintings and calligraphy, Buddhist art, ancient bronzes, lacquerware, textiles and tea sets.

Before World War II, the largest seller of Chinese antiques in the world was the Yamanaka Chamber of Commerce in the island country, and the Fujiwara family mainly purchased many Chinese works of art from it. Among them is a Chinese Song Dynasty Yaobian Tianmu Jianzhan.

This obsidian lamp has been passed down by the Mito Tokugawa family since the Edo period. With the rise of the emerging Japanese bourgeoisie at that time, replacing the big landowners during the shogunate period, this obsidian lamp was also sold at auction in 1918. On the market, it was bought by Denzaburo Fujita of the Fujita Group for 53,800 yen at the time.

Don’t underestimate the purchasing power of the Japanese yen at that time, it was equivalent to the value of forty kilograms of gold!

The "Taisho Mingqi Jian" compiled by Takahashi Juan of the island country lists six types of "Tenmu lamps" handed down in the country, among which the Yaobian Tianmu is the first, the oil drop Tianmu is the second, and the Jianzhan Tianmu is the third. The gray quilt third eye is the fourth, the tortoise skin third eye is the fifth, and the miscellaneous third eye is the sixth.

The oil-drop Tenmu collected by Anzhai Eiichi can only be ranked second, and is known as the "King of Konoha". The Konoha lamp coveted by Zhou Zhi and Ma Ye can only be stored in the tortoise leather Tenmu, ranking fifth, and The Fujiwara family's Dawn Transformation Tenmu is naturally the number one.

This shows the essence of the Fujiwara family collection.

"The Six Dragons Painting of the Fujiwara Family?" Zhou Zhi felt his heart twitch when he heard this: "The work of Chen Rong in the Southern Song Dynasty is said to be a Six Dragon Painting, but in fact there are nine dragons in total. The island country calls it the 'peak of painting art', what Mr. Yan, is it that one?"