introduction
With the continuous progress of history, in the long river of history of thousands of years or even tens of thousands of years, the ancestors have left us many relics and relics of historical, artistic and scientific value. These precious historical and cultural heritages, which we call "cultural relics", study the many information of the times contained in themselves, are of great significance to the world today, and are also the capital of a nation to be proud of.
With the change of years, the frequent occurrence of wars, and the change of dynasties, the cultural relics that have survived in the world have become more and more rare and precious, and the cultural relics that can be completely preserved to this day are rare.
As a capital of national pride, cultural relics contain unimaginable value, and it is extremely difficult to properly preserve and collect these cultural relics.
When the Qing Dynasty fell, the last emperor Puyi, in order to take away the countless treasures in the Qing Palace, smuggled a large number of precious cultural relics out of the palace.
In the case of guangzi paintings, Puyi smuggled more than a thousand hand-scrolled calligraphy and paintings, more than 200 kinds of hanging albums and albums, and more than 200 kinds of Upper and Lower Song editions, all of which were transported by him to the puppet Manchu Emperor's Palace in Changchun and hidden in the "Small Zilou".
▲The former site of the Puppet Manchurian Imperial Palace
After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Emperor Puyi fled in a hurry, and a large number of famous calligraphy and paintings, gold, silver and jade objects were robbed by soldiers left behind by the puppet Manchu regime. As a result, many precious cultural relics have also been lost to the people, including the "Ten Arias".
As a silk color painting in the Northern Song Dynasty, the "Ten Yong Tu" was regarded as a treasure by successive dynasties and treasured by successive dynasties after its publication. During the decades that it was lost, the Ten Arias were never seen again, and it was not until 1995 that the national treasure was quietly released
。
▲Old photos of Puyi in the puppet Manchu period
After Puyi fled, the soldiers snatched all kinds of treasures, and one soldier grabbed this very precious "Ten YongTu" and brought it back to his hometown in the northeast, and since then the "Ten Yongtu" has become the soldier's heirloom.
In the 1990s, the soldier's descendant, an elderly northeastern man who was suffering from poverty in his home and had seven children to grow up, wanted to sell the painting and divide the money equally among his children.
▲ "Ten Arias" (partial)
The old man has heard the elders of the family talk about this painting since he was a child, and the elders all say that this is the "Ten Yong Tu" painted by the painter Zhang Xian in the Northern Song Dynasty, and even in the Qing Palace, Empress Dowager Cixi also loved this object, so the old man offered a price of 8 million yuan to resell it
。 In 1992, in that era when ten thousand yuan households were not common, 8 million was undoubtedly an astronomical number, and even rich merchants did not necessarily get it, let alone ordinary people, and for cultural relics protection units, such a price was also unbearable.
▲Stills of Empress Dowager Cixi
The news that the old farmer wanted to sell heirlooms soon spread ten or ten hundred times, and the cultural relics experts came to the scene at the first time after learning about it and identified its authenticity. After determining that it was authentic, the experts of the Cultural Relics Bureau consulted with the old farmers on whether they could buy the painting for 10,000 yuan. Ten thousand yuan was already a huge amount of money in that era, but it was far from the price that the old farmer wanted to sell, and ten thousand yuan was divided equally among seven sons and daughters, which could not make them rich, and the proposal of the experts of the Natural And Cultural Relics Bureau was rejected by the old farmer.
▲The Palace Museum overlooks a recent photo
In the end, the "Ten Yong Tu" fell at a price of 18 million yuan, plus a 10% commission, and the Palace Museum bought the work for 19.8 million yuan.
epilogue
The preciousness of the "Ten Yongtu" is not only because it is the only surviving painting of the painter Zhang Xian during the Northern Song Dynasty, but also because of the character activities and cultural activities of the Northern Song Dynasty depicted in the "Ten Yongtu", which have a major positive role in studying the history, politics, economy and culture of the Song Dynasty. Such a precious national treasure, in order to no longer lose it, even if no more money is paid, its great value is far from being comparable to money.
Resources:
"Telling: The Story of Zhang Xian's Return to the Forbidden City"