The Tang dynasty poet who in the ninth century wrote, "I who love antiquity was born too late," would be pleased if he were here today to visit the Chang Foundation Museum. Located off a tree-lined street in central Taipei, the small museum houses a collection of many rare pieces of Chinese art dating from 3000 B.C. to the eighteenth century. Graceful hands, an eye for beauty, and careful thought have put together the museum's exhibitions. It is as if the museum's sole purpose is to delight lovers of antiquity.
The museum is so far the only endeavor of the Chang Foundation, which was set up by the Horng Shii Group. The business conglomerate is owned by the Chang family, headed by seventy-eight-year-old Chang Tien-ken, or T.K. Chang, as he is better known. A native of Taichung in central Taiwan and the son of a scholar, T.K. Chang is one of the world's top twenty collectors of Chinese art. He acquired the first piece in his collection when he was nine.
A peddler, with his wares distributed between two baskets hanging from a bamboo pole, had stopped by the gate of the family home. The father turned him away, and the young boy was very disappointed. When his father asked him why, T. K. Chang said, "I felt sorry for him. He had so many things, yet you couldn't find one thing to buy." Encouraged by his father, the boy used his pocket money to buy a small Swatow porcelain vase from Kwangtung province. T.K. Chang has kept the vase to this day.
His four sons have inherited his passion for collecting. The oldest son's collection spans many ages and types of art, the second son favors coins, while the third and the youngest part ways at the Yuan dynasty, the older collecting Yuan, Ming, and Ching, and the younger Tang and Sung. H.C. (Hsu-cheng) Chang, the third son and the chairman of the Horng Shii Group, says their father had encouraged in them what will be a lifelong passion for collecting Chinese art. Their art education began early, and the lessons served the sons well. Says H.C. Chang, "I never had to struggle through the night preparing for history tests. It wasn't even difficult to memorize the order of the dynasties. Because my father collected art, history was very much a part of our lives."
The Chang Foundation Museum displays the diverse collection of the Chang family and its main purpose, as T.K. Chang wrote in the museum's inaugural catalogue, is "to promote and encourage the study and appreciation of Chinese art." He goes on to say that China's turbulent history has led to the destruction of much of the nation's artistic heritage. And because the importance of Chinese art has been recognized by many foreign museums and collectors, many pieces are no longer in Chinese hands. He concludes, "We ourselves should strive to the utmost to protect our great cultural heritage and use all our power to reacquire that part of our heritage which has gone overseas."
Indeed, a considerable number of the pieces in the museum have travelled long journeys across seas before finding their way to the Chang collection through auctions. Other collectors have also been willing to return their treasures to China for a fair price. According to H.C. Chang, buying back valuable Chinese art is one of the family's goals. "I appreciate Japanese collectors for understanding that a treasure must be returned to its place of origin," he says.
H.C. Chang himself was successful in acquiring a blue and white vase from a Japanese collector; it took four tries before the collector gave in. The vase, painted with banana trees, bamboo, and rocks, dates back to the reign of the emperor Yungle (r.1403-24) of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Extremely fine blue and white porcelain was produced during this emperor's reign.
Another important acquisition is the famille rose hexagonal vase, which bears the imperial seal of emperor Chienlung (r.1736-95) of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911). Chienlung is still recognized as one of the greatest collectors of Chinese art. The vase is lavishly painted with a black and gilt floral design, and latticed panels in famille rose colors offer a glimpse of the blue and white core. It was part of the collection in the imperial summer palace outside Peking, which was sacked in 1860 by British and French troops during the Second Opium War. It travelled to England, and only a few years ago entered the international auction market, where it was acquired by the Chang family.
According to James Spencer, the museum's curator, the story of how valuable imperial art found its way overseas differs depending on which side of the ocean the storyteller is from. "It is commonly believed that a lot of the pieces were lost during the Boxer Rebellion [1898-1901]," he says, "but actually many of the best and most important things were lost in 1860, during the Second Opium War. In Taiwan, the general feeling is that they were simply stolen by the soldiers. And the stories one sometimes hears in Europe is that the soldiers bought them from eunuchs and servants."
A blue and white ewer decorated with flowers has also spanned seas and centuries. The shape is reminiscent of Islamic metalware, and it is hardly surprising that engraved on its spout in fine Islamic script is the name of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, and the Muslim date corresponding to 1625 A.D. The ewer was probably exported to Persia in the early 1400s, before finding its way to Jahangir Shah, who ruled the Mughal empire out of Rajasthan from 1605 to 1627. A Scotsman acquired it in India in the early 1800s, and the vase remained in his family until it appeared in the international auction market about eight years ago. It was bought by another collector. It again came on the market three years ago, finally becoming part of the Chang collection.
Even the individual histories of the pieces tell of the high regard that Chinese ceramics for so long commanded not only within China but also in the West. "They emphasize that ceramics in China was way ahead of the rest of the world, from the Tang dynasty to the eighteenth century," says Spencer. "Chinese porcelain was exported and highly valued centuries ago."
Spencer, however, is a recent British import to Taiwan. He is the former director of the Chinese department of Christie's in London and in Hong Kong. After working at Christie's for eighteen years, he came to Taipei two years ago to help set up the Chang Foundation Museum and be its curator. Spencer speaks fluent Chinese, and his field of specialty covers Chinese applied arts, except painting. He says that he had long wanted to take on the role of curator, and use the experience he gained as an auctioneer in a less commercial position.
The museum itself does not own anything, and does not have an acquisitions program. Rather, part of Spencer's job is to advise the Chang family in building its collection. "As an auctioneer, I had the chance to see a lot of good things and a lot of bad things," he says. "It was very good training for the eyes—differentiating the genuine from the fake. I have come to understand the relative rarity of things. Many collectors are very much aware of beauty. I hope this is where I can make a contribution, pointing out the rarity of things."
In fact, rare is a word that can often be used to describe the museum's displays, particularly in the area of ceramics. One of the pieces Spencer points out as the museum's rarest is a green-glazed pillow, or footrest, with three-dimensional ducks and lotus flowers. To late twentieth-century eyes the pillow from the Ming dynasty looks somewhat unexceptional and rough, and Spencer admits, "It is not outstandingly beautiful, but it's rare. It's the only one of its kind in the world."
The pillow's rarity is attributed to its unusual colors, to its sculpturelike form and, above all, to the informative inscription on the top of the pillow. It reads: "On a lucky day of the first month of autumn in the first year of the Chenghua period, Chieh-chun, the eleventh-generation grandson of Duke Changching of the Chingle Pavilion, of the Cheng family from Tungshan, Chingtechen, had this made for the use of his wife Chuchen." In other words, a nobleman lived close enough to Chingtechen and was affluent enough to have a pillow made for his wife in the autumn of 1465. From the fourteenth century to today, Chingtechen has been the major porcelain kiln in China.
The pillow was in the collection of Edward Chow. Based in Geneva and Hong Kong, Chow was a well-known and highly respected collector of Chinese art. Upon his death in the early 1980s, his collection was dispersed in the auction markets in London and Hong Kong. The pillow was bought by the British Rail Pension Fund, which was then investing in art. The company kept it in London, and three years ago it was acquired by the Changs at a Hong Kong auction.
Another extremely rare piece is a large underglaze-red bowl, reverse-painted with chrysanthemums, lotuses, and lingchih, a fungus representing long life. It dates back to the reign of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, Hungwu (1368-98). It is the only known bowl of its size in which the floral designs have been kept white, against a background painted red. The technique was seldom used since it was with utmost difficulty that potters could control the copper-red color. A much smaller version is now in the Matsuoka Museum in Tokyo.
The museum has an extensive collection of ceramics from roughly-molded Han dynasty (206 B.C.-221 A.D.) pottery like the green-glazed architectural model of a lookout tower, to the serene and intricately sculpted blanc-de-chine Kuan Yin produced in the Tehua kiln in Fukien province during the Ching dynasty. But current exhibits also include snuff bottles, gold and silver coins, and scholar's desk items. Past exhibits have featured stone seals and teapots produced in Yihsing county in Kiangsu province, east China. Future exhibits will include jade from Neolithic times to the Han dynasty, and blue and white porcelain from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
One room is devoted to a revolving exhibit of traditional Chinese paintings. Currently on show are the works of ten artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some eloquently reflect changes in Chinese society at the close of the Ching dynasty, and also indicate a growing accommodation of Western concepts in painting. Says James Spencer: "From an international point of view, the most prominent form of Chinese art is Chinese ceramics. And that's why we hope to maintain a very good show of Chinese ceramics. But our visitors live predominantly in Taiwan, so we have regular changes in our exhibition of paintings, and leave ceramic exhibits on show a little bit longer. In traditional Chinese collecting terms, paintings are the most important because they are considered mei shu, or a fine art."
According to Liao Kuei-ying, assistant curator, the museum will also display collections not owned by the Chang family, and will loan exhibits abroad. An exhibition of paintings from the Chang collection is now on display at the Seoul Arts Center. And in April next year, four paintings will join an exhibit of outstanding Chinese paintings from the Ching dynasty at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona. Liao specializes in paintings of the Ming and Ching dynasties, and the Republic (1912-). In the 1970s, she developed a private museum in Taipei housing the Chinese painting collection of a Taiwan insurance and trust company chairman.
Liao sees her role in setting up the exhibits within the context of the museum's aim, which is to introduce Chinese art to people in Taiwan. ''There is a lot of good Chinese art in Europe and Japan," she says, "but here, apart from the National Palace Museum, there isn't much to see. I am particularly pleased when we can arrange to send some of our exhibits overseas for display."
The Chang Foundation Museum has approximately 16,000 square feet of exhibition space, divided up into five exhibition rooms. A waist-high ledge lines the length of the display cases in four of the rooms, allowing viewers to rest their elbows and look closely at the exhibits without kissing the pane. One of the five rooms, which now displays an exhibit of snuff bottles, items from the scholar's desk, bamboo carvings, and Ming inlaid lacquer behind glass panels, is ingeniously designed. The ledges and the glass panels can be disassembled to accommodate an exhibition of paintings.
Much careful planning has been put in the museum's design. The architects visited state-of-the-art museums in Tokyo and Osaka, and implemented a design technology and concept that not only makes viewing a great pleasure, but also assures the preservation of the art works. The walking spaces are wide, the display cases are well-lit, and the rooms are humidity and temperature controlled. Noticeably too, unlike in many museums, the walls do not reverberate with the sound of footsteps and the echo of whispers.
At the heart of the museum is a large hall in which majestic bonsai preside. The oldest is a pine, more than two centuries old. The visitor can take a seat on one of the black leather-upholstered benches and gaze through a glass wall at an outdoor Chinese garden that includes more bonsai, a miniature stream, and tall bamboo rustling in the soft breeze.
The viewer is very much left to his own thoughts and pleasure at the Chang Foundation Museum. It will never equal the breadth of the collection of the National Palace Museum. And neither does it aspire to. As H.C. Chang says in the inaugural catalogue, "Private collectors can never hope to catch up... However, private collectors can, and should, concentrate on acquiring objects which are not represented in the National Palace Museum."
That is what the Chang family has done. And that they wanted to share their collection of rare and excellent examples of Chinese art with the public elicits deep appreciation. Unlike the Tang dynasty poet who feared he had been born too late, a visitor to the museum will appreciate living now as he crosses through the exhibition rooms and leaps back through hundreds, even thousands, of years.
The Chang Foundation Museum is located on 63 Jenai Road, Section 2, Taipei. Hours are 10:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., Tuesdays through Sundays. The museum is closed on Mondays and on public holidays.