Auction finds enrich museum’s bamboo carvings collection

Tang Min and Qian Tong

JIADIng Museum has acquired five bamboo carvings by Jiading artists at auction.

One is of two figures, one with a basket of lotus flowers and the other with a round box, representing har-mony and peace.

The carving belonged to a collec-tor from Jinshan District in southern Shanghai who had bought it in Japan.

A couple of years ago, when he real-ized it was a fine example of Jiading bamboo carving, he contacted Jiading Museum but the parties failed to reach a deal.

Then, in October this year, Jin Rong, director of the museum’s culture relic protection department saw the carving at auction and the museum was able to buy the piece.

Jiading native Jin has developed a keen eye for the cultural relics of Jiad-ing in 35 years’ experience.

Having acquired the relics at auction is the first step, the next step is even more important — getting them back to the museum.

“The security guards must keep a close eye on the relics all the way until their safe arrival at the museum’s warehouse,” Jin said.

Among the other four bamboo carv-ing works is a tobacco pipe, which is 87 centimeters long and 1.3cm in diameter.

On the stem of the pipe there in-scribed a famous article “The Orchid Pavilion” by great calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303-361AD) and hand written by Xu Fu (1838-1907), a Jiading scholar in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It was bought at an auction in Japan for 20,000 yuan. (US$3,175).