Weng Wanghua has a large number of cultural relics at home, many of which are fine works. These are not his collections, but what he got from home. It all started with a man named Weng Tonghe. For the late Qing Dynasty, most people may be familiar with Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, Zuo and others, and Weng Tonghe was a contemporary of them. Weng Tonghe was born in 1830 and died in 1904.
His experience is not simple. In the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), he won the first place in the palace examination, that is, the champion. Later, he joined the military twice and served as Tongzhi and Guangxu emperor. Those cultural relics were not accumulated by Weng Tonghe's generation. His father is Weng Xincun, a university student in Tijen Pavilion, and he is also an influential figure in North Korea. He especially likes collecting books. According to records, he once bought 40,000 books at a time, all of which were very collectible.
After Weng Xincun's death, according to the logic of the ancients, most of the books were given to his eldest son Weng Shu Tong, but Weng Shu Tong gave them to Weng Tonghe after his death. Weng Tonghe probably inherited his father's hobby of collecting and bought some from time to time. In order to please him, others will find valuable books to send. Weng Tonghe has been an official in Beijing for more than 40 years, and his contacts are far beyond the reach of ordinary collectors. Later scholars have always believed that his collection contains many rare books with high academic value, and it also belongs to the kind of national treasure important cultural relics according to standards.
However, although Weng Tonghe collected a lot in his life, he didn't have a son to inherit, so after his death, all his inheritance was given to his younger brother Weng Tonghe, who adopted his son Weng Zenghan. Unfortunately, in the later inheritance, some people have no children, so they have to find a child from the descendants of Weng Tonghe's brother Weng Shu Tong, and this child is Weng Wangkai. This is not a few generations apart, but also a pie in the sky, just because there are no children.
Weng Wanghua was born in 19 18. He was only two years old when he was adopted and accepted the property. From the age of two, he doesn't have to worry about the rest of his life. These cultural relics will last him several lifetimes. In order to protect this collection, Weng Wanghua packed this collection at the beginning of the 1938 war, transported it from Tianjin to Shanghai, and then transported it to new york, USA. He has lived in new york since then. It is estimated that Weng Tonghe never imagined that the cultural relics he spent his whole life collecting would eventually end up in foreign museums. Maybe it's passed down from generation to generation. At the beginning, Weng Tonghe could delay the Beiyang Navy for the sake of feud with Li Hongzhang.
In 2000, Weng Wanghua collected more than 80 ancient books from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties and sold them to Shanghai Library for 4.5 million dollars through an auction company. There is nothing to buy. After all, hiding in someone's house. However, to everyone's surprise, Weng Wanghua turned to donate a batch to the United States for free. 20 18 12 13 The Boston Museum of Art announced that it would accept the largest and most meaningful donation of calligraphy and painting in the history of Weng.
This batch of cultural relics is 183 pieces, including painting 130 pieces, calligraphy13 pieces, rubbings 18 pieces and embroidery. These cultural relics have different values, basically covering the 13th century and the 5th generation. Weng Wanghua himself is a long-term patron of Boston Museum, and he also gave away the map of the Yangtze River that Weng Tonghe bought at 1875. Weng Tonghe liked this painting very much after buying it. He spent four hundred and twenty pieces of silver and gave it away for free in an understatement. I wonder if Weng Tonghe would be angry if he knew that his hard-earned collection was given to foreign countries by Weng Wange.