Paintings Remain True

Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient and Genuine Chinese Paintings Compiled byF.St Kwen, containing60Chinese painting works, was distributed by The LaiyuanCompany，Shanghai, China in1916and targeted at Charles Lang Freer, the famousAmerican collector who collected Chinese paintings. The boss of the LaiyuanCompany was Loo Ching-tsai,"” who was well known as C. T. Loo and was the mostimportant Chinese antique dealers in Europe and America during the first fifty yearsof20th century. Corresponding with C. T. Loo’s role in the circulation and receptionof Chinese art in the western world, Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient and GenuineChinese Paintings also played a very important role in the traditional Chinese paintingart circulation in the west. By arguing from the circulating aspect, the circulatedobjects, the process and the reception aspect, the thesis will investigate what hashappened around the catalogue and the transaction, tell the true value of the catalogueitself, and find out where those paintings were gone. Therefore, the thesis tries toinvestigate how C. T. Loo and his fellows introduce traditional Chinese paintingconnoisseurship一"the pure Chinese taste" to the western world, what was the result,and what was hide behind all those things. Finally because Loo was not familiar withneither Freer nor the American market, the transaction was proved to be a failure.