In recent years, Chinese cultural relics lost overseas have attracted more and more attention from the Chinese people, such as the bronze head of the Zodiac in the Yuanmingyuan. Many people believe that these cultural relics represent China's splendid culture and should be returned to China for protection. However, there is such a big collector, his ancestors are the late Qing Dynasty, the family collected a lot of Chinese treasures, but this big collector not only did not leave these cultural relics in China, but gave them to the American museum collection, why is this?
The collector, who has been greatly controversial, is Ongwango. He was the fifth grandson of weng tonggong, a famous politician in the late Qing Dynasty, and many people may have the impression that he was the emperor of the Qing Dynasty during the Tongzhi and Guangxu years, who served as prime minister, and later served as the prime minister, responsible for communicating with Western countries, and was an important figure in the late Qing Dynasty. The contradictions and differences between Weng Tonggong and Li Hongzhang are also the focus of attention and research of modern historians. Weng Tonggong is very fond of collecting, and over time has formed the famous Weng family collection, but all along, the Weng family has not regarded these cultural relics as their own private property, but as their own family mission in the continuous inheritance.
With such a prominent family lineage, Onwango naturally inherited a lot of family property and a huge family collection. Weng Wange was born in 1918 in Shanghai, China, and at the age of 2, he inherited the family collection from the age of 2. In 1938, at the age of 20, Weng Wango came to purdue University in the United States to study mechanical and electrical engineering, and later switched to fine arts and photography. In 1948, Onwango asked his family to pack up all the family's collection and send it to the United States, and he also became an American citizen.
In the 1980s, Weng Wange played an active role in promoting Cultural Exchanges between China and the United States, and was a well-known Chinese social activist in the United States. The Weng family's collection is mainly based on Ming and Qing dynasty paintings and calligraphy, and the most interesting is the 16-meter-long scroll "Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River" by the Qing Dynasty painter Wang Yi. This was bought by Weng Tonggong in Boguzhai in 1875, and it cost 400 taels of silver, which was the money that Weng Tonggong planned to buy a house at that time, but Weng Tonggong was very happy to get this painting. From an artistic point of view, this is also a rare treasure.
For the collection of the Weng family, the domestic museum has always been very attentive, taking the "Yangtze River Wanli Map", which is a cultural relic that can be called a national treasure, but when the relevant departments of the state proposed to buy this painting for a fee, Weng Wange felt that the price was too low and was always reluctant to sell. Another deal with Ongwango with the country took place in 2000 when it sold 542 volumes of ancient books from its family collection to the Shanghai Library for $4.5 million through a card auction company.
But what is very incomprehensible is that in 2018, on Weng Wange's 100th birthday, he actually donated all 183 precious cultural relics in his family collection to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which is almost the entire essence of Weng's family collection, and "Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River" has long been donated to this American museum.
Many people in China expressed incomprehension and even condemnation of his practice, but Weng Wango explained that he donated to the United States because the United States has a stronger ability to protect cultural relics than China, so that these cultural relics can be better preserved.
Do you think his explanation is acceptable?