People who have always wanted to write about the people who have sold a large number of Chinese cultural relics abroad since modern times, this is Lu Qinzhai, through consulting some materials, he can finally paint a portrait of this person who is very controversial in modern times. There is no controversy. In general, Lu Qinzhai is not a controversial person, he is a cultural relics dealer, not an expert, not a collector, a scum in China. Why? Let's restore this person through historical data.
Ambivalent psychology
Lu Qinzhai was only a servant of Zhang Jingjiang, a diplomat in the early republic of China. Zhang Jingjiang is a famous rich man in modern china, Zhang Jingjiang, although his muscles are atrophied and his feet are blind, he was sent to France as an ambassador by relying on his family power. And Lu Qinzhai also had the honor of going to France with Zhang Jingjiang.
Don't underestimate this servant, Zhang Jingjiang has a lot of trust in him. Zhang Jingjiang took advantage of the convenience of being a minister and opened a business named "Tongyun" that specializes in Chinese goods. Lu Qinzhai worked in this business, and since then he has begun to wear suits and eat Western food, becoming a "fake foreign devil". Although Lu Qinzhai did not have much culture, his brain was extremely intelligent. When he was working in the business, he saw that selling Chinese cultural relics and antiques could make money. Because the West is setting off a boom in the study of the mysterious East, many people are full of yearning for the East.
Because Zhang Jingjiang was busy with the domestic revolutionary cause, he was not good at business at all, and he did not have the energy to take care of foreign business, so Lu Qinzhai became a suitable candidate. After Zhang Jingjiang returned to China, Lu Qinzhai was willing to stay in France to engage in some antique business, and later simply set up his own antique company. After the Xinhai Revolution, Lu Qinzhai returned to China every year to see and order goods, and bought a large number of antiques with a small amount of money to be shipped abroad for sale. I have to admit that Lu Qinzhai has the genius ability to recognize antiques, which is also his experience in dealing with China.
After world war I, Lu Qinzhai was keenly aware that the United States would become the center of the world antique market, so he decided to go to the United States to work hard, and in the United States and Shanghainese Wu Qizhou set up Lu Wu Company on the street corner of Madison and 57th Street in New York, specializing in the sale of Chinese cultural relics.
Since 1915, Lu Wu Company has become a company specializing in selling Chinese cultural relics to the United States, and the company has been operating for 30 years, transporting countless Chinese national treasures to the United States and obtaining huge wealth. According to the records, in this company, a small shareholder pays dividends of more than 100,000 silver dollars every year.
Among the cultural relics sold by Lu Qinzhai, the tang Dynasty Zhaoling Liujun is the most famous, "Salu Zi" and "Fist Hair", which were smuggled to the United States from 1916 to 1917. It was then sold by Lu Qinzhai to the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania for $125,000.
For the famous "two horses" shipped out of the country. Lu Qinzhai defended, saying that he bought it from a third party, and the third party was the government, so it was procedurally legal.
Lu Qinzhai also felt the condemnation of conscience in smuggling cultural relics, but the huge profits made him unable to stop. And he consoled himself, saying that although China's national treasures were lost overseas, he believed that these cultural relics should be protected from war. In order to increase the confidence of his ambivalent psychology, he also studied Chinese cultural relics with others and produced some books.
Contradictory emotions
Lu Qinzhai himself admitted that his life was contradictory. It is true that he is not only ambivalent in smuggling and selling Chinese cultural relics, but he is still not controlled, and he is also an emotionally contradictory person.
In 1908, when Lu Qinzhai was working at "Tongyun", he met Olga, the female owner of a hat shop in The Place Madeland. This Olga is of mixed European descent, with a Polish father and an Italian mother. She grew up doing housework in a childless family in Paris, and was later seduced and conceived by the man, giving birth to a child, Marie Rose.
Since Lu Qinzhai met Olga, who was four years older than him, the two quickly fell in love. But Olga does not want to lose the old lover who gave her a hat shop, but she is not willing to give up the mercurial and amorous Lu Qinzhai. To this end, Olga thought of a way, decided to marry the mother and daughter easily, and married her 15-year-old daughter Mary to Lu Qinzhai to fulfill her wish to step on two boats. And Lu Qinzhai is also happy and can live with the mother and daughter. Later, Lu Qinzhai married 15-year-old Mary, but after the marriage, Olga inserted herself into the life of the two, so that her daughter Mary suffered from schizophrenia.
Lu Qinzhai not only had a chaotic life with Olga's mother and daughter, but after he arrived in New York, he also got along with Elena, a Chinese woman, and even the wife of his master Zhang Jingjiang. When Zhang Jingjiang worked for the revolutionary cause in China, Lu Qinzhai even had an ambiguous relationship with Zhang Jingjiang's wife, Yao Hui.
Such a chaotic and contradictory emotion, I don't know how Lu Qinzhai felt when he was alive?
Contradictory causes
In 1926, Lu Qinzhai bought a Napoleon III mansion in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. At that time, the mansion had 4 towers, and Lu Qinzhai planned to convert the 4 towers into 4 rooms and let his 4 daughters live in each. The residence is located on the corner of a small square in The Parc Monceau, and is ideally located for doing business. Lu Qinzhai eventually converted it into his third store and built the famous "Red House in Paris", creating a very strong Chinese cultural atmosphere. Parts of the first, second and fifth floors of the "Red Chamber" and the first basement floor have now been classified as cultural heritage by the Paris Municipality. Lu Qinzhai put the precious cultural relics smuggled from China here on display and exhibition for sale. As a store, why build a "Red Chamber" with Chinese elements? The contradictory cause is obvious at a glance.
During the Xinhai Revolution, Lu Qinzhai also studied like Zhang Jingjiang and donated money to fund the domestic revolutionary cause, but there is no specific record of how much he donated. Moreover, during the revolution, he sponsored a free lunch for Chinese students in the Red Chamber, and sometimes donated money for China, and was once called patriotic overseas Chinese.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Lu Qinzhai heard about the Japanese aggression and atrocities against our country, and he even mobilized the company to donate 2,000 francs, and his wife served as the financial work of the War Orphans Relief Society to provide relief for Chinese refugees and wounded. In October 1937, Lu Qinzhai even went to Geneva to hold a charity sale, selling 9 pieces of the collection and giving the proceeds to the victims of the war. There was also an exhibition of cultural relics and donated it.
These "patriotic" acts have formed a huge contrast with his "cause" of smuggling Chinese cultural relics, whether it is to "atone for his sins" or to make the Chinese people forget the smuggling work he once did? Contradictions make it difficult to distinguish between true and false.