C. T. Loo

He did well working under Zhang Baoshan, a successful merchant, whose son, Zhang Renjie, was appointed to the Chinese Embassy in France.

This was the first of its kind in France, and employed, among others, C.T. Loo, who was to become one of the most influential dealers of Chinese art.

In 1925, Loo bought and substantially remodeled a townhouse in the 8th Arrondissement, which came to be known as "Pagoda Paris."

Loo also arranged for a group of Buddhist sculptures to be removed from Xiangtangshan Caves in Hebei, North China.

A number were sold to the American collector Charles Freer by the art dealer C.T. Loo, who is suspected of arranging for their removal from China without permission.

T. Loo''' (1February 1880 – August15, 1957), was a controversial art dealer of Chinese origin who maintained galleries in Paris and New York and supplied important pieces for collectors and American museums by illegally exporting a large amount of significant state cultural relics from China.

He was born Lu Huanwen in Lujiadu 卢家渡 (Lu Family Ford) a village in Huzhou, Zhejiang, China, some 300 km west of Shanghai.

He was born Lu Huanwen in Lujiadu 卢家渡 (Lu Family Ford) a village in Huzhou, Zhejiang, China, some 300 km west of Shanghai.

Orphaned at age ten, he raised by his uncle, but he decided as a teenager to try his luck in Nanxun, a center of the silk trade.

Orphaned at age ten, he raised by his uncle, but he decided as a teenager to try his luck in Nanxun, a center of the silk trade.

He did well working under Zhang Baoshan, a successful merchant, whose son, Zhang Renjie, was appointed to the Chinese Embassy in France.

Few Chinese were living in France at that time, but Zhang Renjie invited Loo to work as doorman at his teahouse and then in his family Chinese goods import business, the gallery Ton-ying, in the Place de la Madeleine.

On his return to China, Zhang became an early financial backer of Chiang Kai-shek.

When Loo arrived in Paris, he wore the traditional Chinese gown and sported a queue, but soon became a Parisian dandy.

Profits were not reinvested but instead used for the anti-Manchu revolutionary activities of his boss, who subsidized a circle of Chinese philosophical anarchists.

The reports of the French archaeological mission on the Central Asian caves at Dunhuang made the taste for Chinese things fashionable, and Loo supplied high quality works to fit the new tastes.

He developed scholarly understanding and expanded public taste in Asian art, particularly sculpture and early jades, by becoming friends with such eminent Sinologists as Edouard Chavannes, Victor Segalen, and especially Paul Pelliot, director of the Dunhuang expedition, whom he commissioned to write catalogs (as he did later with Berthold Laufer in the United States).

He developed scholarly understanding and expanded public taste in Asian art, particularly sculpture and early jades, by becoming friends with such eminent Sinologists as Edouard Chavannes, Victor Segalen, and especially Paul Pelliot, director of the Dunhuang expedition, whom he commissioned to write catalogs (as he did later with Berthold Laufer in the United States).

He developed scholarly understanding and expanded public taste in Asian art, particularly sculpture and early jades, by becoming friends with such eminent Sinologists as Edouard Chavannes, Victor Segalen, and especially Paul Pelliot, director of the Dunhuang expedition, whom he commissioned to write catalogs (as he did later with Berthold Laufer in the United States).

He developed scholarly understanding and expanded public taste in Asian art, particularly sculpture and early jades, by becoming friends with such eminent Sinologists as Edouard Chavannes, Victor Segalen, and especially Paul Pelliot, director of the Dunhuang expedition, whom he commissioned to write catalogs (as he did later with Berthold Laufer in the United States).

He developed scholarly understanding and expanded public taste in Asian art, particularly sculpture and early jades, by becoming friends with such eminent Sinologists as Edouard Chavannes, Victor Segalen, and especially Paul Pelliot, director of the Dunhuang expedition, whom he commissioned to write catalogs (as he did later with Berthold Laufer in the United States).

Wealthy collectors were learning about Asian art, as were well-endowed museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In Europe, interest in collecting art from the Orient was such that the major dealers, such as Loo, the Duveen brothers, and the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., could hold exhibitions almost every year, sometimes both in New York and in Paris or London.

Wealthy collectors were learning about Asian art, as were well-endowed museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In Europe, interest in collecting art from the Orient was such that the major dealers, such as Loo, the Duveen brothers, and the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., could hold exhibitions almost every year, sometimes both in New York and in Paris or London.

Wealthy collectors were learning about Asian art, as were well-endowed museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In Europe, interest in collecting art from the Orient was such that the major dealers, such as Loo, the Duveen brothers, and the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., could hold exhibitions almost every year, sometimes both in New York and in Paris or London.

Wealthy collectors were learning about Asian art, as were well-endowed museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In Europe, interest in collecting art from the Orient was such that the major dealers, such as Loo, the Duveen brothers, and the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., could hold exhibitions almost every year, sometimes both in New York and in Paris or London.

Wealthy collectors were learning about Asian art, as were well-endowed museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. In Europe, interest in collecting art from the Orient was such that the major dealers, such as Loo, the Duveen brothers, and the Japanese dealer Yamanaka & Co., could hold exhibitions almost every year, sometimes both in New York and in Paris or London.

Works which he sold to museums and collectors at this time are on display at the Freer Gallery, the Fogg Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, among others, including the Yixian luohans, Emperor Taizong's horses, and a Sui dynasty altarpiece from the collection of the imperial collector Duanfang.