Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1795 Bargaining

"Elbows can really comfort people." Old Master Qi said with a smile.

"He is not comforting others." Old Master Wang understood Zhou Zhi's thoughts: "He is comforting himself."

"What are the origins of these paintings..." Ma Chengyuan asked softly.

Zhou Zhi felt a little embarrassed and looked at Mr. Wang.

"It comes from overseas, the channel is clear, and it is purchased by a private collector in China." Mr. Wang said it very calmly. This is also the rule of the domestic collection community. The underdeveloped Internet has its own advantages. As long as the source is legitimate, there is no moral blackmail to donate to the country. "But we need to keep the collectors confidential."

Seeing that some people were still unhappy, Mr. Qi said, "But there is one thing you can rest assured about. Since these four paintings have entered the country, they must be managed by the domestic legal system. There is no chance that they will be circulated outside again."

This is indeed the case. This is also one of the manifestations that the country is gradually beginning to standardize and pay attention to the management of cultural relics exchanges, that is, the system of lenient entry and strict exit.

In the future, only privately owned cultural relics that have been confirmed to have flowed in from overseas and have all the necessary procedures and documents to be confirmed as having been purchased overseas will have the opportunity to be exported. As for the many other domestic cultural relics, only those from after the three generations of the Qing Dynasty will be allowed to be exchanged at auctions.

To use the famous slogan of animal protection, this is called "no buying, no killing." This practice has certainly greatly dampened the enthusiasm for importing cultural relics into the country, but it has also severely hit the speculation and loss of cultural relics by suppressing the market.

Of course, this was a decision made more than ten years later when the country had sufficient strength and no longer lacked this little money. At this stage, it is impossible to completely ban the outflow. Some regulations have been made for jade and bronze wares before, and we are still in the stage of crossing the river by feeling the stones and testing the water depth.

It was not until last year, after China's classification definition of tangible and intangible cultural heritage was approved by UNESCO, that the country made similar regulations for cultural relics at the national level.

Although three of the paintings of the Four Masters of the Six Dynasties are Song Dynasty copies, they are basically the only copies in the country and of course they are of the highest quality. Therefore, once these paintings enter the country, they can never be taken out.

What Mr. Qi meant was that although these four paintings were still in the hands of private collectors, at least they had been returned and would only be able to circulate in the market in the future. Compared with their previous loss overseas, this was already a fluke.

The cultural heritage protection community has been experiencing a lot of good news recently, but we cannot expect every national treasure to have the perfect ending like the Fang Lei.

"To have come this far is already worthy of respect." Chen Shizhong said: "By doing this, the collector has at least given up hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Is that enough?"

"Almost." Luo Qianhe, who has been active in trading venues for a long time, said: "The four paintings are all Song Dynasty copies and originals. If they are auctioned in Hong Kong Island or Europe and the United States, it is very likely that each piece will be sold for tens of millions of dollars."

"Now that I have returned to China, I can only circulate in the domestic market in the future. The most expensive ancient painting in China is unlikely to be worth tens of millions of yuan at auction, but modern and contemporary paintings can be worth tens of millions of yuan at auction."

"So when these four paintings returned to China, their value went from a minimum of 40 million US dollars to a maximum of 40 million RMB." Chen Shizhong shook his head repeatedly: "This is more than giving up hundreds of millions, this is directly giving up more than 200 million RMB!" "Yes, nowadays everyone is concerned about economic benefits, and the purpose of investing in art is also to maintain value." Grandpa Wang said: "The usual practice in the industry is to store the auction items in places such as Hong Kong Island, bonded areas, and overseas art stores after they are acquired, in order to facilitate the next sale. The goal is to have an appreciation expectation."

"So, Mr. Qi and I are extremely impressed by this collector's ability to get four paintings into the country." After saying that, he winked at Elbow: "Elbow, don't you think so?"

“Uh…” The old man knew the origins of the four paintings very well. He was deliberately making fun of Zhou Zhi. Zhou Zhi had to stammer: “Is it possible that the collector picked up a big bargain overseas, discovered its value after returning, and couldn’t sell it anymore…”

"That's absolutely impossible." Unexpectedly, Zhou Zhi's statement was rejected by Xu Bangda: "Can the person who can find you to repair the ancient painting be an ordinary person? Can such a person make a mistake? Anyway, I don't believe it."

"Yes, even if he made a mistake in judging the painting, it is not difficult to identify the inscriptions of Cai Xiang, Mi Fu and Gao Shiqi." Chen Shizhong said: "Regardless of Gao Shiqi, the collector cannot be unaware of the status of the calligraphy of the first two in the collection world."

The most famous story about Mi Fu's calligraphy works is that Rongbaozhai purchased "Tiao Xi Tie" for 1,500 yuan.

  But that was 1,500 yuan in 1963! Movies cost three cents a piece, breakfast cost five cents a piece, rice cost ten cents a pound, and you could buy five houses of 200 square meters!

As for Cai Xiang's calligraphy, only "Self-written Examination Paper" circulated before the founding of the People's Republic of China. Zhu Wenjun bought it for five thousand oceans, and later sold it to the great collector Zhang Boju, who later donated it to the Palace Museum. It is now one of the treasures of the Palace Museum's calligraphy and painting.

In today's Hong Kong Island, Taiwan Island and the island country, the estimated value of these two pieces of calligraphy alone is around one million US dollars.

After this discussion, everyone understood the significance of the four paintings returning to China. Even if they were kept in the hands of a private collector, it would be a great thing. And if that collector did not have the intention of keeping them permanently, he would not have brought them to China.

This is already extremely difficult.

"How long will it take to repair these paintings?" Ma Chengyuan asked another important question: "It is impossible to keep the discovery of the earliest famous paintings in existence a secret, right?"

"Yes, after the announcement, it will definitely be exhibited to the public. At the same time, we need to write about the discovery process, appraisal opinions, restoration plans, and produce a high-definition album..."

"If it's an exhibition, it will definitely be a touring exhibition. We won't compete with the Forbidden City and the National Museum for the second place, but it's not excessive to have the third exhibition location in Shanghai, right?" Ma Chengyuan said immediately.

“It would be more appropriate to start the exhibition of the works of the Four Masters of the Six Dynasties at our Jinling Museum, right?” Even though it was proposed by a senior veteran in the cultural heritage preservation field, Zhou Zhanlin of the Jinling Museum felt that he should argue for it and immediately raised an objection: “The ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, Zhuxi is a beautiful place!”

"I think it's better to start with our Zhejiang Provincial Museum." Huang Wenguang of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum also mentioned: "Chinese literati painting began with the Four Masters of the Six Dynasties, but the most outstanding successors were the Wu School and the Yangzhou School. Our museum has the most collections of these two schools. If the exhibition is held in our museum, we can dig out all our old collections and hold a literati painting exhibition!"

The big guys were talking to each other and actually bargaining like they were buying vegetables in the market.