Chapter 0666 – Treasure Room (II)

“This …… these are all porcelain from China?”

Zhuang Rui took a glance, there were four or five rows of wooden shelves before and after, more than twenty meters long, and on each shelf, a few centimeters apart, a piece of exquisite porcelain was placed, Zhuang Rui did not know, how many Chinese antique porcelains were here.

Previously often heard Uncle Te or Fatty Jin and other people said, China’s best antiques, all in foreign countries, although heard more, but the sense of not a direct cognition, now see the scene in front of him, Zhuang Rui is understood.

Porcelain fragile, this is the world all know the truth, in China for thousands of years in the course of history, are accompanied by war scourge, and in the process, a lot of unique and exquisite porcelain, are lost in the war.

Later, like the Song and Ming dynasties of the official kiln porcelain, basically all collected in the Qing dynasty court, only tribute to the emperor to play to appreciate, folk is rare to see.

It can be said, Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong three people, were the largest antique collectors, no way, people’s conditions are good, you can use the power of the country to collect their favorite things, you do not serve can not.

But this is also caused by the loss of cultural relics in later generations of the source, in the 18th century China’s door was knocked open by the Eight-Power Allied Forces, placed in the Yuanmingyuan precious relics were snatched countless, simply can not be counted clearly.

In later years, some scholars have roughly counted, in the loss of foreign countries have millions of precious Chinese antiques, and most of them, are the Yuanmingyuan collection, that is to say, at least there should be more than 1 million pieces of Chinese works of art, from the Yuanmingyuan was looted.

Not to mention, in the 50s and 60s, Beijing Yuanmingyuan around the pig pen fences, are carved beams and paintings of good stone, you can imagine, those looted objects will be how valuable.

The famous modern Chinese painters Wu Guanzhong and Chen Danqing have said that among the antiques handed down from Chinese history, the objects in the Yuanmingyuan are of the best quality and the most artistic.

At this moment, these only stay in the legend of the precious porcelain, placed in front of Zhuang Rui, so that the heart has been prepared for Zhuang Rui, but also the mood of the agitation, continuous deep breath a few times, only to smooth out the mood.

Perhaps Picasso’s sketches, in terms of value, to be higher than these porcelains, but psychologically, Zhuang Rui would rather take Picasso’s works in exchange for these objects, after all, the production process between the two is different, it is difficult to say who is more precious.

A beautiful and precious porcelain firing success, to cohesion of countless people’s efforts, and the cost of this sketch is extremely low, a sketch paper, a few pencils can be, but it also represents the author of the effort poured.

Of course, this was only what Zhuang Rui thought in his heart, if Ezkena beside him learned that he was calculating the value between the two in this way, guaranteed that Ezkena would ruthlessly slaughter Zhuang Rui as a meat pig.

“Yes, Zhuang, these porcelains, from my grandfather’s father, has been collecting, to me has been several generations, a total of more than 20,000 pieces. Starting from the Chinese Tang Dynasty’s three-colored porcelain, all of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty’s porcelain, there were once people who wanted to acquire these items from me, all of them were rejected by me, Zhuang, you are the first Chinese person who came here.”

Looking at these different shapes and sizes, a wide range of exquisite porcelain, Ezkena’s heart is full of pride, he once went to visit a lot of collectors who specialize in Chinese art collection treasure room, but there is no one, in the porcelain collection can be more than his.

“More than twenty thousand pieces?”

Sparing Zhuang Rui’s good mental quality, he also exclaimed in shock.

“Yes, it is more than 20,000 pieces, in the bottom of these multi treasure cabinet, are porcelain, if you are interested, you can also check one by one, but then the time can be long.”

Ezkena afraid Zhuang Rui do not believe his words, squatted down the body, open a wooden shelf below the cabinet door, from inside out of an object wrapped in layers of old newspapers, after opening, Zhuang Rui clearly see, that is indeed a porcelain, and is still a good quality of the Qing dynasty enamel pinch figures plum vase.

See this in China, casually can be assessed as a national second or third-class cultural relics of porcelain, in Ezekiel Kennedy here, actually even the display cabinets are not up, which makes Zhuang Rui feel a little unbelievable.

But look around, this layers of stacked, densely spread over dozens of square meters of space porcelain, also let Ezkena just move can be explained clearly, do Zhuang Rui, I’m afraid that it is also pick up the best placed outside.

“Mr. Ezkena, this is a Chinese plum vase of the Qing dynasty, the survival quantity is not very small, the value is not very high, such porcelain, I am not in the eyes.”

After receiving that enameled and pinched gold silk plum vase from Ezkena’s hands, Zhuang Rui played with it for a while and said to Ezkena.

However, while saying this, Zhuang Rui was still a little bit vain, although the auction price of this thing, in the Chinese art market, was probably worth three to four hundred thousand RMB, but it was this kind of contraption that Zhuang Rui didn’t have a single piece in his collection.

Of course, Zhuang Rui’s piece of restored Ru kiln porcelain and that piece of black pottery of Longshan culture, the value is far more than this porcelain, but start a museum, can’t just put on those two pieces, right?

Porcelain like these that can represent the level of cultural craftsmanship of a certain period of time is still very important for a museum.

“Of course, of course …… Zhuang, this is just some of the more ordinary porcelains in my collection, and the best of those objects are on the shelves, you can pick them all.”

Ezkena heard Zhuang Rui words, hastened to explain a bit, as he said himself, this plum vase, he is also not in the eyes, imagine you face tens of thousands of precious porcelain all day long, will not be able to put these firing process at a medium level of porcelain in the eyes?

And then good things, see a lot, but also numb.

Let’s say, if you live in a house where all items are made of gold, I’m afraid that even if you know the price of gold, you won’t take it as a great object, and at this time, Ezkena’s mentality, is just like this.

“Mr. Ezkena, your collection makes me feel surprised, maybe I will consider, taking out a few more of Mr. Picasso’s works to exchange with you, but ……”

Zhuang Rui knows the reasoning of taking in advance must be with first, he knows that Ezkena wants to get Picasso’s works, much stronger than himself, all intentionally put the words in half, waiting for Ezkena to interface it!

Sure enough, after hearing Zhuang Rui’s words, Ezkena’s eyes lit up and said, “Dear Zhuang, you are really a great collector, you can actually get so many Picasso’s works, don’t worry, I will absolutely treat my Chinese friend, and exchange in the most reasonable way.”

Seems to feel that his confession is still a little bit not straightforward enough, Ezkena thought for a while, and then said, “In these collections of mine, some of them are obtained from your motherland, of course, I don’t hide it, that kind of tactics is not bright, Zhuang, we are all friends, I can consider, like this porcelain, gratuitously gifted you some.”

“Give me some?”

Zhuang Rui doubted whether his ears had heard wrong, turned his gaze to Ezkena, this hundreds of thousands of a thing, said to give it away?

Ezkena nodded and said with certainty: “Of course, in order to compensate for the harm that my forefathers caused to the Chinese people, I can do the honors and send you a batch of such porcelain. But …… Zhuang, I hope you can understand, like I listed to you on the list of those objects, there is no way to gift you, because in my family, there are other heirs existed, the exchange can be, but gifting, I put them will not agree.”

“Understand, of course understand, I first on behalf of my museum, thank you for your generosity, as a friend, I will not let you in front of the family to make it difficult, Mr. Ezkena, you rest assured, our transaction, will make you become a truly international big collector.”

Zhuang Rui at this time can’t wait to hold Ezkena kiss, this buddy is too preachy ah! Although the current market value of these porcelains is not very high, but also really are the Qing dynasty official kiln porcelain ah!

With the heating of the Chinese antiques market, in a few years, is to turn up a dozen times, that is normal, Zhuang Rui did not expect Ezekiel Kenner so generous, open mouth is to send a number of, this is if the fat man learned that, then do not envy death of their own ah?

However, Zhuang Rui now does not know a few years after the market, but for the moment, this batch of porcelain for his museum, absolutely is as important as sending charcoal in the snow.

In fact, Zhuang Rui does not know, in foreign countries, some private collectors, often will put their own collections, gifted to the national museum, there are some will be gifted to private museums, and do not charge any fees and returns, although these people’s behavior makes it difficult to understand, but this is indeed a real thing.

“Alright, Mr. Zhuang, you can pick the porcelain you are interested in.”

After Ezkena heard Zhuang Rui’s words, he knew that he had truly won Zhuang Rui’s friendship with this performance.

For Ezkena, if all these porcelains are taken out for auction, it is estimated that the market can be washed out in one go, that is, slowly auctioning them off, I am afraid that they will not be able to sell all of them in their own lifetimes.

Take out a hundred or ten pieces to give away, not a big deal, Ezekiel’s grandfather had given the British Museum thousands of pieces of porcelain from China.

To Ezkena and expressed some thanks, Zhuang Rui will focus on the porcelain on the shelf.

Although most of the porcelain is not put out, but only these surface, enough to have thousands of pieces.