In 919, Maoshanyu, Hunan Province, had just experienced a heavy rain, and Ai Qingyan, a young boy in his 10s, was carrying a feces rake to his grandmother's house to ask someone to carry the coffin. Unexpectedly, when passing by the side of the mountain, he suddenly stepped on the air, and a black iron lump appeared on the ground. Ai Qingyan rushed back to call his family, and soon dug out a hundred-pound Guding monster.
The news that the Ai family had dug up the treasure did not go away, and soon, a collector of antiques came from the family, claiming to be surnamed Shi, and came from Yiyang. After seeing this ancient ding monster, Shi Mou immediately decided that it was a square léi, and its shape was simple and exquisite, not a common thing, so he wanted to bid 400 silver dollars to take it away.
Knowing that someone was willing to pay a high price for the purchase, Ai Qingyan's father immediately left a heart eye, while brewing a pot of hot tea to let Shi Wait for a moment, while taking the square cover to the nearby primary school to ask Principal Zhong.
Principal Zhong picked up the Fang Zhen cover and looked at it carefully, and found that it was engraved with four small tadpole characters of "Father Zha Zun Yi (yí)", so he expected that this Fang Zhen was not an ordinary antiquity, and immediately decided to buy 800 silver dollars.
When Ai Qingyan's father heard this, his heart was broken, so he put the lid under it, turned around, and went home to get the instrument. I also blame him for not being able to hold things in his mouth, before he arrived in the village, everyone shouted, "I dug up the treasure, this is a fortune!" Get rich! ”
Shi Mou heard the sound, knew that the deal was going to be yellow, turned his head to see that there was no one around, so he picked up the nearly 100-kilogram instrument and ran out of the village upside down.
Ai Qingyan's father went home to see, did not see Gu Ding, suddenly anxious to pat the pants leg, busy out of the village to chase, but Shi Mou had already rushed to the car and walked away, where is there a shadow? Since then, Fang Wei's body has been separated, and this separation is nearly a hundred years.
In 1925, Zhou Pan, the head of the Kuomintang Regiment in Taoyuan County, after learning of Fang Jiao's case, forcibly purchased Fang Mugai from Principal Zhong with 3,000 silver dollars and took it for himself.
Until 1950, Zhou Pan was captured by the revolutionary masses. In order to make up for the merits, he took the initiative to sacrifice the privately hidden Fang Wei Cover, but he still did not escape the fate of eating a gun. After liberation, Fang Mugai was handed over to the Hunan Provincial Museum and has been well ever since.
As for the body of the Fang Wei in Shi Mou's hand, it can be described as full of ups and downs. It was first transported by Shi mou from Changsha, Hunan to Shanghai, sold to a local cultural relics dealer, and later, after several changes of hands, it was exiled overseas.
In 1992, the Hunan Museum heard that the body of Fang Wei had appeared in the hands of a Japanese collector, so it immediately sent someone to negotiate with the Japanese collector.
As a result, Hunan hoped that Fang's body would return to his hometown as soon as possible, but the Japanese collector counted on Fang's body and cover to be one in Japan, and even offered to donate a beautiful square cover from the early Western Zhou Dynasty, as well as 200,000 US dollars in exchange for the Fang Li Cover of hunan Museum.
As a result, it is conceivable that the Hunan Museum, which has always regarded the return of cultural relics as its own responsibility, how could it accede to such a request? Although the body of Fang Wei is a cultural relic of the mainland, it is neither war plundered nor stolen and lost, it is difficult to recover, and in the end, Hunan can only return with fear.
In 2001, the Japanese collector's career crisis, decided to auction Fang's body at christie's auction house in New York, as soon as the news came, the Hunan Museum rushed to raise 3 million US dollars, which was bound to make Fang's body return to his hometown.
Unexpectedly, "a dark horse" popped up at the auction, and the fang artifact was finally bought by a French buyer for Genesis's $9.246 million, quickly killing fang's body and covering the road.
It wasn't until 2014 that Christie's in New York broke the news again, saying that Fang's estimate was pending, with a starting price of about $10 million to $15 million.
After the news came out, Hunan immediately launched a fundraising work to the whole country, and soon Chinese collectors from all over the world donated money to help each other, and jointly issued an open letter, willing to support the return of national treasures.
In order to be able to take down the body of the fang, The south of the lake first made a 3D model of the square cover, personally found the French collector, and merged it with the body of the fang, which was gorgeous and spectacular after the combination, so that everyone present was moved.
In the end, after countless negotiations, the French collector was willing to donate the body of Fang To the Hunan Museum for 20 million US dollars.
Fortunately, many bidders who had already paid $3 million at that time, after communicating with Hunan by phone, expressed great understanding and support for Hunan's efforts to return to China and were willing to withdraw from the Bidding.
Eventually, at the end of nearly a century of overseas wandering, the body of the fang qi was finally completed with the lid in Hunan and was permanently collected by the Hunan Provincial Museum.
Subsequently, according to the inscription "Dish Heaven Quan Father Zha Zun Yi" engraved on the lid, the expert named this statue of Fang Wei as "Dish Tian Quan Fang Wei", which is 84.8 cm high and weighs 51.5 kg, which can be filled with 51 liters of wine at a time, which shows the arrogance of the ancients!
Moreover, Fang Wei's whole body is covered with cloud thunder patterns, as well as a variety of animal face patterns, kuí dragon patterns and other ornaments, which set vertical carvings, reliefs, and line carvings in one, revealing a majestic and solemn momentum, which can be called a representative work of the heyday of China's late Shang bronzes.
The 罍 is a large wine vessel and ceremonial vessel in ancient times, born in the late Shang Dynasty, popular from the Western Zhou To the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, and extinct in the Warring States period.
Due to the short historical popularity of bronze, it is very rare. This "Dish Heaven Quan Fang Zhen" is tall and magnificent, and it is the largest and most exquisite piece of Fang Wei unearthed so far, which can be called the "King of Fang Wei".
Nowadays, after three thousand years of suffering and waiting, and a hundred years of displacement, this unique treasure of "Pan Tian Quan Fang Zhen" has finally returned to its hometown, and the "guardian of the national treasure" who completed this feat is even more worthy of our admiration!