Over the past five thousand years in China, the brilliant civilization has made the ancient country of the East have a unique long history precipitation, and many exquisite cultural relics and relics have become a stunning existence for the world. However, many cultural relics that originally belonged to China are still wandering overseas for various reasons, and a large part of these cultural relics are flowing out of Lu Qinzhai.
Lu Qinzhai is an internationally renowned cultural relics dealer and a great antique dealer. His life experience is full of controversy, some people despise him for selling domestic cultural relics in order to make a fortune, resulting in the loss of many national treasures, and in his later years, he did not dare to return to China to "fall leaves and return to his roots", and could only be buried in France;
Some people also say that Lu Qinzhai taught Westerners how to appreciate Chinese antiques, enhanced the international value of Chinese cultural relics, and was quite sober on some principle issues. Lu Qinzhai, who bore these controversies, was born in 1880, a native of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and his ancestors had been prosperous for 16 generations of officials and merchants, but his family had fallen when he was born.
So Lu Qinzhai looked for an opportunity on his own. He first went to the Nanxun Zhang family and followed Zhang Jingjiang, the eldest young master of the Zhang family, as a servant. The Zhang family was extremely rich and the family was superior, and Lu Qinzhai watched how the Zhang family operated foreign trade business with the young master, and learned a lot of experience. The eldest young master sells antiques, and Lu Qinzhai learns about the antique business while learning foreign languages.
Lu Qinzhai did not want to work for others all his life, he wanted to start his own business. So Lu Qinzhai cooperated with Wu Qizhou, another person who worked for the Zhang family, to plan to open an antique shop. In 1902, the two left the Old East Company and then founded their own antiques import and export company, the "East England Company".
Because there were few people in Europe at that time who knew how to appreciate Chinese cultural relics and understand their value, and there was no market sales, Lu Qinzhai lost money. He learned from this and then devoted himself to spreading his knowledge of cultural relics appreciation, working with a number of sinologists to divert the attention of European antique collectors from Chinese porcelain to Chinese burial relics.
Lu Qinzhai's cultural business strategy was very successful, and after he opened a second antique shop, "Laiyuan Company (meaning treasure from afar)", he soon became a prominent figure in the French antiques industry.
Wu Qizhou and Lu Qinzhai have a clear division of labor, the former is responsible for purchasing and shipping antiques overseas, and the latter is responsible for marketing and attracting foreign collectors. Because of the fall of the Qing Dynasty, many princes and nobles were in a hurry, did not know how to make a living, and could only sell antiques, which flowed into the hands of Lu Qinzhai and made him rich.
From 1915 onwards, Lu Qinzhai realized the value of the American market and exported cultural relics to the United States for 30 consecutive years.
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It was during this period that Lu Qinzhai sold them to the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and they drifted overseas and were unable to return to China.
Lu Qinzhai gained fame and fortune because of his antique business, and when his company's business was at its peak, even a small shareholder could get more than 100,000 silver dollars at the end of the year, when the annual sales of an antique shop in Beijing Liulichang were not so much. Lu Qinzhai's marriage is also very controversial, he married the French girl Marie when he was 30 years old, when Mary was only 15 years old.
Mary was married because Mary's mother was Lu Qinzhai's lover. This relationship is a bit chaotic, probably because Lu Qinzhai met Mary's mother when she was doing business, and the two developed a lover relationship, but Mary's mother was a rich businessman's outer room, and she did not dare to be a brazen couple with Lu Qinzhai, so she married her daughter to him.
In the year lu qinzhai and Mary were married, Lu Qinzhai's mother-in-law and lover was 34 years old, and it is conceivable that even if Mary became Lu Qinzhai's wife, she could not stop her mother from continuing to associate with her husband. This chaotic relationship lasted for a long time, Lu Qinzhai was torn between the mother and daughter, Mary's mother did not give birth to him, but Mary gave birth to 4 daughters.
His daughter was not the "Lu family" in Lu Qinzhai's mind, so he never taught his children to say that Chinese, and often lamented in his later years that he had no heirs. In addition to selling antiques, Lu Qinzhai also funded Chinese students in France, and once donated money and held a charity sale with his wife Mary, which made Lu Qinzhai gain some praise.
In his later years, Lu Qinzhai had to stop selling antiques because of the cut off of the source of cultural relics. He admits that he has caused the loss of the national treasure, but he is glad that he protected the treasure and let it avoid the war. In 1957, at the age of 77, Lu Qinzhai died, and instead of being buried in Zhejiang, he was buried in his wife's family cemetery. His merits and deeds are left to posterity to comment.