Lang Jingshan 1892-1995

Important Photo Collection of Lang Jingshan (Lot 579-580)

The host of Dongtian Shantang, Zhuang Yan (1899-1980), Shangyan, styled Muling, and Da Yi Weng, had devoted his whole life to the protection, preservation, and research of the Palace Museum collections since 1924, when the new graduate from Beijing University entered the special committee to sort and count the treasures left behind by the deposed Qing court. He was appointed to escort treasures from the Beijing Palace Museum to be exhibited in Britain in 1935 and in the United States in 1961. During the Anti-Japanese War, Zhuang Yan along with his colleagues shepherded the cream of the Palace Museum collection then stored in Nanjing to Guizhou and Sichuan provinces, southeast of China, to escape the battlefront from 1937 to 1947. At the end of 1948, once again Zhuang escorted the Palace treasures on the move. This time the destination was Taiwan. When Zhuang Yan retired from the deputy director of The National Palace Museum, Taibei, he had been serving at the Palace Museum collection for nearly half a century.

Zhuang Yan's expertise lied in the appraisal of antiquities and Chinese painting and calligraphy, in the meantime, he was also a famed painter and calligrapher himself, whose shoujin-style calligraphy is greatly recognized nationwide. On top of his artistic pursuit, Zhuang Yan was a dedicated educator. For decades, he tirelessly lectured on the connoisseurship of Chinese painting and calligraphy as well as the practice of calligraphy at all major institutes in Taiwan, including National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, Donghai University, Chinese Culture University, millions of students have benefited from his endeavor.

Neither fame nor wealth interested Zhuang Yan, nothing could entertain him better than the ancient treasures and his never-ending addition for Chinese art. His collection is consisted of, in a large proportion, scholars' works, gifts from his friends, who were talented and of great celebrity such as Zhang Daqian, Pu Ru, Tai Jingnong, and Lang Jingshan.