Five thousand years of splendid culture, five thousand years of history, China's wandering folk cultural relics can be said to be innumerable, so naturally derived from the antique trade.
Many collectors do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to buy a piece of their favorite antique, which requires extremely high appreciation ability to make their money worthwhile, and you may not imagine that the collection industry also has a benchmark figure.
I don't know if you have seen the "Hundred Tribunes", one of them shared one story after another on the Baijia Pulpit, called Ma Weidu, said that Ma Weina is a big man in contemporary collectors, he has studied all kinds of antiques thoroughly, he can see clearly, and has a pair of eyes to find treasures and identify treasures.
How legendary is he? That is, people who like to collect must know his name, and he also founded a Guanfu Museum to display his collection, and it is conceivable that the collection of antiques is enough to open a museum, which is how spectacular.
But once someone asked Ma Weidu, "Who is the person you admire most in your life?" Ma Weidu didn't even think about it, and directly replied: Wang Shixiang!
And who is Wang Shixiang? He is also a legend in the collecting world, extraordinary eyesight, that is, this kind of skill, let him pick up a big bargain in his life's collection career, a Qing Dynasty rosewood case, he actually only used 80 yuan to buy it! One can't help but wonder what kind of story this is?
From an early age, his family was well-off
Wang Shixiang, born on May 25, 1914 in Beijing, from Fuzhou, Fujian Province,
Wang Shixiang can be said to have been born in a family of scholars, his mother is a famous fish and algae painter, elegant and noble, sending love to painting, and his father is a treaty department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in addition to busy work, in his free time, his father likes to visit antique shops and buy some broken ancient porcelain specimens.
So the family conditions can be said to be very rich,
When I was a child, there were special private school teachers who came to teach ancient Chinese, scriptures, history and poetry.
But wang Shixiang in addition to being interested in poetry, there is no enthusiasm for other disciplines, and later his father also sent him to the school run by the Americans in Beijing's Ganmian Hutong, where he graduated from high school and spoke fluent English, which made many people think that he was a big intellectual who returned from studying abroad, but Wang Shixiang told them that he could not learn anything.
Except for poetry, even history was not well studied.
Wang Shixiang "Plaything Lost"
Not good at reading, so what's good? Wang Shixiang, who has a superior family, liked to travel with a group of players in the capital when he was young, and he was simply a "young man in Yan City, a gentleman of the wind".
When Wang Shixiang was in college, he often either had a big eagle on his arm or carried a cockroach in his arms, so he went to school to attend classes, and once he was still in professor Deng Zhicheng's class, he directly carried the grasshopper gourd and swung it in, provoking the students in the audience to laugh, and finally invited out by the teacher.
Not only that, Wang Shixiang plays everything,
He also used to learn wrestling from the wrestlers of the court, and from there he learned the big eagle and badger dog that only the samurai played.
It can be said that he plays a variety of things. Crickets, pigeons, eagles, cats and dogs, cooking, fire painting, lacquerware, bamboo carving, Ming-style furniture, etc. He is involved in,
It's really like a "plaything" brother.
Even he himself said:
"Since I was young and strong, from elementary school to college, I have always been a plaything and a wasteland. Autumn fighting crickets, winter songbirds... Dogs catch badgers, and everyone is happy. And raising pigeons flying is a perennial habit that is not restricted by the season. ”
Playthings become a family, research objects aspire
Although Wang Shixiang loves to "play", Mr. Huang Miaozi said that he was "a plaything to make a family", and Mr. Qi Gong said that he "studied things and aspired".
Although Wang Shixiang plays with so many things, he is not never to entertain his empty time, but really loves from the heart, so he is willing to work hard for these hobbies, at the expense of money, and even sometimes in order to get the things he loves.
He travels long distances, doesn't care about the wind and food,
Moreover, his "play" does not stop at the surface, but to explore the bottom of the plaything,
Therefore, he befriended many ordinary people and humbly asked them for advice, without the slightest shelf of rich and noble families.
A lot of the things he plays are folk customs, but he just has the ability to do it
Big customs
Play into Daya, he not only plays, but also pays attention to the learning of play, he is not lost after playing, everything That Wang Shixiang has played, he will write down a text to record his research experience, others have a sense of reading after reading, he has a sense of playing.
The so-called playing eagle walking dog fighting cockroach was originally a general idle city thing, but Wang Shixiang played not only stayed on the market well, he gave them a description and summary, these games have risen in value and become a culture.
He can always make the "carving insect trick" on the "hall of elegance",
He is known as the "first player in Beijing".
However, he is also a well-known cultural relics expert, a scholar, a research institute of the Chinese Cultural Heritage Research Institute of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, a librarian of the Central Research Museum of Culture and History, and a special allowance of the State Council. Who can play such tricks?
By chance, 80 yuan bought the Qing Dynasty rosewood case
Wang Shixiang loves antiques and also loves antiques, especially Ming and Qing furniture, and he is particularly fond of them.
Wang Shixiang also wrote a book "Ming-style Furniture Appreciation", which was included
He has a collection of 79 Pieces of Ming-style furniture.
These 79 pieces, indispensable to spend a lot of money to buy,
Among them, there was a case made of rosewood, which was actually bought by Wang Shixiang for 80 yuan.
Let's say that this rosewood, how precious, rosewood is one of the most precious woods in the world, all say that things are rare and expensive, rosewood growth rate is very slow, just a circle of annual rings will be three years long, long and thick three centimeters will take a hundred years, so a rosewood to become a timber, but also eight or nine hundred years or even thousands of years, so there is "an inch of rosewood and an inch of gold" said.
And because the cutting of rosewood in the Ming and Qing dynasties was not controlled,
As a result, the number of rosewood is decreasing, so the price of rosewood is constantly appreciating.
That being the case, a Qing Dynasty rosewood case, with a shoulder mortise, a thick tooth plate of Ruyi Cloud Head, four square legs and a pagoda brake pattern treasure, the case surface is made of seven beautifully textured rosewood panels, very wide and huge, it can be said that it is a full treasure, but also a full piece. So how did Wang Shixiang buy this 80 yuan in the first place?
It turned out that in 1945, when Wang Shixiang was visiting the antique market, by chance, even
However, seeing this rosewood case, its color and texture immediately made Wang Shixiang fall in love with it, and finally bought this case for 80 yuan.
It was not until Wang Shixiang moved the rosewood case home, when he looked at it carefully from head to toe, that he found that there was an inscription of Fu Dong of the Qing Dynasty on the side of the case, and then Wang Shixiang reacted, this rosewood case was originally under the famous door of the Qing Dynasty, who was once praised by Kangxi as the "first inspector of the world", song meat, which was like a treasure, no wonder it would issue such a sigh.
It is said that this rosewood case is the biggest bargain he has ever picked up in his life.
brief summary:
Although Wang Shixiang got this Qing Dynasty rosewood case at a low price, not everyone had the opportunity and ability to pick up this cheap.
This seems to be a big bargain, but without Wang Shixiang's eyesight and his superb ability to appreciate, would someone photograph this cultural relic so happily before knowing the ins and outs of this cultural relic?
So behind everything that seems to be accidental, there is actually a hidden necessity, Wang Shixiang and this Qing Dynasty rosewood case, it can be said that this is a fate,
Wang Shixiang played with so many things in his life, until he died at the age of 95, and in his later years he also wanted to be an old naughty boy, there were many strange things, and he even exhausted his savings in order to collect Ming-style furniture, but he did not care at all.
Playing with one thing is to refine one thing, this is the spirit of Wang Shixiang's body, playing with things is to play a famous hall, this is Wang Shixiang's tenacity, Wang Shixiang's play, Wang Shixiang's spirit of play, can make future generations of people work hard to learn.