Friendship of Two Scholars

Xu Bangda, one of the most prominent authenticators of ancient paintings and calligraphy in China, is now 100 years old. He stopped authenticating and writing a few years ago. Now he is quietly enjoying his evening years in Beijing. Huang Yongquan, his best student, passed away nearly five years ago at the age of 78. Huang was a researcher at Zhejiang Museum specialized in authenticating ancient paintings and calligraphy. In an interview published in “Chinese Painting and Calligraphy” in 2004, Xu Bangda is quoted as declaring that Huang Yongquan in Zhejiang was his best student.

I happen to know the friendship between the two masters and I have their letters and inscriptions of theirs in my collection. Reviewing these letters and an essay Huang wrote at my request the other day, I decided to write about their master-disciple relationship.

Xu Bangda and Huang Yongquan spent theirlives as authenticators. They got the jobs largely because they had a passion for fine arts and had acquired solid knowledge of ancient masterpieces and their creators and partly because the government urgently needed to bring order to the market of fine arts and sort through the large quantities of artworks it had on hands. In 1950, Xu Bangda came to work for the State Bureau of Cultural Relics at the invitation of Zheng Zhenduo (then bureau director) and later he was transferred to work for the Palace Museum. Huang Yongquan started his job in August 1953 when he was transferred to the Zhejiang Bureau of Cultural Relics and later transferred to Zhejiang Museum.

The two met in July, 1955 in Beijing when a course was held jointly by state authorities in Beijing. Huang came to attend the training course. In his 20s and with only a two-year experience of working in this field, Huang Yongquan came to visit Xu Bangda with a letter of introduction by Sha Menghai, a great modern calligrapher based in Zhejiang. Xu Bangda warmly received Huang. The two hit off immediately. At the end of the talk, Xu Bangda asked him not to hesitate if he had any questions. During his two-month stay in Beijing, Huang visited the palace museum and studied hundreds of paintings and calligraphic works on display at the painting gallery. One day toward the end of the course, Huang was summoned to the home of Zhang Heng, an authority in the field and leader of the State Bureau of Cultural Relics. To his great surprise, Huang had a special one-on-one lecture from the master. Later Huang learned that Zhang offered the detailed lecture after Xu Bangda mentioned Huang to him.

Over the past decades, Xu Bangda has visited Hangzhou several times. All these visits are minutely recorded in great detail. In 1962, Xu Bangda held a lecture in Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, elaborating his way of examining the history of Chinese painting from the exhibits at the painting gallery of the Palace Museum. Huang attended the lecture. In November 1974, Huang Yongquan and a colleague went to Beijing on business. They stayed there for nearly two months. Huang was able to visit his teacher on various occasions and talked about artworks in Zhejiang. In September 1979, Xu Bangda came to Hangzhou and examined dozens of artworks at Zhejiang Museum. The master also visited Ningbo. In 1981 and 1983, Xu Bangda came to Hangzhou three times. In December, Xu Bangda authenticated artworks in Fujian Province, with the accompaniment of Huang and Huang’s student Zhou Yongliang.

Xu Bangda and Huang Yongquan were in a master-to-student relationship. Xu taught and Huang learned and studied. But more often than not they discussed academic issues on equal footing. On the trip around Fujian Province in the winter of 1983, Xu Bangda ran into a painting presumably by Chen Hongshou, a master of Ming Dynasty (1358-1644). Xu Bangda thought it was an authentic masterpiece. However, Huang, an expert on Chen, reexamined the painting and thought it was a fake. Xu and Huang had a thorough discussion and Xu changed his mind on the authenticity of the painting. He admitted to Huang and other younger authenticators present that it was a fake and explained how he had got it wrong in the first place. Huang was touched. Xu remembered this too. Years later he mentioned it in a poem to Huang and he said he followed the teaching of Han Yu, a Tang essayist, who wrote “a student is not necessarily inferior to the tutor and the tutor is not necessarily as knowledgeable as the student is.”

In his last years, Huang mentioned to his family and to his student Zhou Yongliang on many occasions how he admired Xu Bangda as an exemplary tutor.

Huang Yongquan was an authority on ancient paintings and calligraphic works in Zhejiang. Over decades, he examined more than 100,000 artworks and authenticated more than 1,000 of them. And he published his research results in academic papers and books. His “A Chronicle of the Life of Chen Hongshou” is widely recognized at home and abroad as an authoritative guideline on the Ming artist’s life and work.