Hong Kong Museum of Art
清代光绪年间的汝窑笔洗，香港艺术馆藏品，由敏求精舍会员罗桂祥捐赠。
敏
求精舍（The Min Chiu Society）是个声誉显赫的团体，成员都是香港的艺术品和古玩鉴赏行家。这个团体的门槛非常高，就连香港艺术界的许多圈内人士都不知道哪些人才是它的会员。如今，为了庆祝敏求精舍成立50周年，香港艺术馆（the Hong Kong Museum of Art）正在举办一次名为"博古存珍：敏求精舍金禧纪念展"（The Grandeur of Chinese Art Treasures）的展览，展览将持续到明年1月2日。
香港大学的中国古典艺术专家官绮云教授（Yeewan Koon）说，"这次展览非同寻常，因为它的展品来自一群收藏家，这些收藏家的品味和兴趣各不相同，但却因为对艺术的共同热爱而聚到了一起。有些敏求精舍会员已经是第二代或者第三代的收藏家了──他们的父亲或者祖父也曾经是精舍的会员。"
此次展览的展品包括340件精美的绘画和文物，全都是敏求精舍会员的收藏，要不就是曾经属于精舍会员──有一些展品已经被会员捐赠给了各家博物馆。目前的藏家偏好中国宫廷古玩，价格因之扶摇直上，而此次展览的许多展品都是精舍会员的旧藏，购买日期远在这股热潮兴起之前。
有一些展品带有皇家徽记（对于中国艺术品藏家来说，这是一个无比重要的特征），其中包括一件小小的汝窑笔洗（汝窑是专为皇家烧制瓷器的官窑，备受藏家珍视）。清代的一位皇帝对笔洗上的天青冰片釉赞赏有加，以至于为它题了一首诗。这件笔洗曾经属于已故的维他奶饮料公司（Vitasoy drinks company）创始人、敏求精舍会员罗桂祥（K.S. Lo），如今则是香港艺术馆的永久藏品。
敏求精舍的会员清一色都是男性，现有会员包括香港皮肤科专家叶承耀医生（S. Y. Yip）和苏富比拍卖行亚洲区总裁程寿康（Kevin Ching）。香港一些实业世家的子弟也是精舍会员，但却不愿意透露姓名，展览当中提到他们的时候用的也是收藏的斋号，比如"退一步斋"（Take a Step Back Collection）和"The Pisces Collection"。
官教授说，"敏求精舍是现代版的文人雅聚，由此而来的历史感和群体归属感让人们对收藏家的角色有了一种新的认识，不再局限于艺术市场上那些哗众取宠的报导。"
按照古玩及艺术品行家的说法，敏求精舍的会员身份不能继承，只能通过精舍的邀请获得。精舍会员定期聚会的地点是所谓的"俱乐部会所"，也就是香港半山区（Midlevels district）的一座公寓。
敏求精舍植根于中国文人千百年来的一种传统，用官教授的话来说就是"关于文人艺术（包括诗歌、绘画、书法和音乐，从事者是以男性为主体的知识精英）的一段理想化历史"，这段历史为中国的高尚趣味制定了一套标准。
1949年之前，这一类的收藏和艺术鉴赏团体在上海的富人当中十分普遍。
诸如纽约大都会美术馆（Metropolitan Museum of Art）之类的外国博物馆经常都会向敏求精舍的会员借取零星藏品，不过，香港艺术馆的这次"金禧"展却集合了许多会员的藏品，这样的情形只有在精舍做大寿的时候才会出现（最近的一次是在10年之前）。
展品当中的一个亮点是清代画家罗聘于1755年创作的《鬼趣图》手卷（Ghost Amusement）。罗聘是"扬州八怪"之一，后者是八位清代大画家的合称。这几位画家曾经发挥过关键性的作用，促使中国画转向了一种允许自我表现的形式。
《鬼趣图》手卷是从一位不愿透露姓名的精舍会员那里借来的，这还是第一次在香港公开亮相。去年，这幅画曾经在大都会美术馆的罗聘作品展当中露过面。
手卷上有许多18世纪中国文人的书法和印鉴。按照传统的做法，欣赏完作品之后，这些文人就把自己的感想写在了画幅的边缘。
对这幅画很有研究的官教授说，"这个手卷提醒我们，艺术曾经有过怎样的功用，将来又可以有怎样的功用──那就是让人们聚集到一起。画幅上的上百个题款就是这种功用的有力证明，随着时间的流逝，未来的欣赏者可以阅读前人的题款，其中的一些欣赏者还会跟它们产生共鸣。即便相隔80年，这样的对话依然可以进行。"
Alexandra A. Seno
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
The Min Chiu Society, a prestigious group of art and antique connoisseurs in Hong Kong, is so exclusive that even many of the city's art insiders couldn't tell you who's in the club.
Now the Hong Kong Museum of Art is celebrating the group's 50th anniversary with an exhibit called 'The Grandeur of Chinese Art Treasures,' which runs until Jan. 2.
Says Prof. Yeewan Koon, a classical Chinese art specialist at the University of Hong Kong: 'This is a show of a group of collectors, which is unusual, with varied tastes and interests, joined together through a shared love of art. Some of the members are second- and third-generation collectors─their fathers and grandfathers were former members.'
The exhibit features pieces now owned or once owned by Min Chiu members─some works have been donated to museums─and includes 340 fine paintings and objects. Many of the works were purchased well before the current craze for Imperial Chinese antiques pushed prices to record levels.
A number of items feature the Imperial seal─an all-important element for Chinese art collectors─including a small ink-brush washing bowl made of Ru ware (a category of highly prized, delicate ceramics made for the Imperial household). A Qing emperor was once so moved by the crackled light-green glaze of the bowl that he wrote a poem about it. It is now part of the Museum of Art's permanent collection and was once owned by the late K.S. Lo, the founder of the Vitasoy drinks company and Min Chiu society member.
Current Min Chiu members, all male, include Dr. S. Y. Yip, a Hong Kong dermatologist, as well as Sotheby's Asia Chief Executive Kevin Ching. Other members, including some scions of major Hong Kong industrialist families, prefer to remain anonymous and are referred to in the exhibit by names that reference their collections, such as the 'Take a Step Back Collection' and 'The Pisces Collection.'
'The Min Chiu Society is our modern-day version of a literati gathering. This sense of history and of community presents a different way of thinking about the role of collectors outside of headline-grabbing stories of the art market,' Prof. Koon says.
According to antique-art experts, membership in the society is not handed down and comes by invitation. The group meets regularly at its 'club house,' an apartment in Hong Kong's Midlevels district.
The society has its roots in a centuries-old Chinese literati tradition, that is according to Prof. Koon, 'an idealized history of scholarly arts ─ poetry, painting, calligraphy and music ─ pursued by the educated elite, usually men,' that set a benchmark in the country for refined taste.
In Shanghai before 1949, this kind of collecting and art appreciation society was quite common among wealthy Chinese.
Museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, often ask to borrow individual pieces from Min Chiu members but an aggregate show like this 'jubilee' exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art happens only on big birthdays for the society (its most recent was 10 years ago).
A highlight of the museum's exhibit is 'Ghost Amusement,' a handscroll painted in 1755 by the Qing Dynasty master Luo Ping, one of the 'Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou,' a cabal of Qing-era painting masters who were instrumental in shifting Chinese painting into a form allowing self-expression.
On loan from a Min Chiu member who would like to remain anonymous, the artwork is on public display for the first time in Hong Kong. Last year, 'Ghost Amusement' was part of a show on Luo Ping's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The scroll features the calligraphy and seals of a number of 18th-century Chinese cultural figures who, in keeping with tradition, wrote down their thoughts and feelings on the borders of the painting after seeing the work.
Prof. Koon, an expert on the painting, says: 'This handscroll reminds us about what art did and can do─which is to bring people together. The hundreds of inscriptions on the painting is a testament to this, and over time, later viewers would read what others had written and some would respond to these, carrying on the conversations maybe 80 years later.'
Alexandra A. Seno
Now the Hong Kong Museum of Art is celebrating the group's 50th anniversary with an exhibit called 'The Grandeur of Chinese Art Treasures,' which runs until Jan. 2.
Says Prof. Yeewan Koon, a classical Chinese art specialist at the University of Hong Kong: 'This is a show of a group of collectors, which is unusual, with varied tastes and interests, joined together through a shared love of art. Some of the members are second- and third-generation collectors─their fathers and grandfathers were former members.'
The exhibit features pieces now owned or once owned by Min Chiu members─some works have been donated to museums─and includes 340 fine paintings and objects. Many of the works were purchased well before the current craze for Imperial Chinese antiques pushed prices to record levels.
A number of items feature the Imperial seal─an all-important element for Chinese art collectors─including a small ink-brush washing bowl made of Ru ware (a category of highly prized, delicate ceramics made for the Imperial household). A Qing emperor was once so moved by the crackled light-green glaze of the bowl that he wrote a poem about it. It is now part of the Museum of Art's permanent collection and was once owned by the late K.S. Lo, the founder of the Vitasoy drinks company and Min Chiu society member.
Current Min Chiu members, all male, include Dr. S. Y. Yip, a Hong Kong dermatologist, as well as Sotheby's Asia Chief Executive Kevin Ching. Other members, including some scions of major Hong Kong industrialist families, prefer to remain anonymous and are referred to in the exhibit by names that reference their collections, such as the 'Take a Step Back Collection' and 'The Pisces Collection.'
'The Min Chiu Society is our modern-day version of a literati gathering. This sense of history and of community presents a different way of thinking about the role of collectors outside of headline-grabbing stories of the art market,' Prof. Koon says.
According to antique-art experts, membership in the society is not handed down and comes by invitation. The group meets regularly at its 'club house,' an apartment in Hong Kong's Midlevels district.
The society has its roots in a centuries-old Chinese literati tradition, that is according to Prof. Koon, 'an idealized history of scholarly arts ─ poetry, painting, calligraphy and music ─ pursued by the educated elite, usually men,' that set a benchmark in the country for refined taste.
In Shanghai before 1949, this kind of collecting and art appreciation society was quite common among wealthy Chinese.
Museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, often ask to borrow individual pieces from Min Chiu members but an aggregate show like this 'jubilee' exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art happens only on big birthdays for the society (its most recent was 10 years ago).
A highlight of the museum's exhibit is 'Ghost Amusement,' a handscroll painted in 1755 by the Qing Dynasty master Luo Ping, one of the 'Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou,' a cabal of Qing-era painting masters who were instrumental in shifting Chinese painting into a form allowing self-expression.
On loan from a Min Chiu member who would like to remain anonymous, the artwork is on public display for the first time in Hong Kong. Last year, 'Ghost Amusement' was part of a show on Luo Ping's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The scroll features the calligraphy and seals of a number of 18th-century Chinese cultural figures who, in keeping with tradition, wrote down their thoughts and feelings on the borders of the painting after seeing the work.
Prof. Koon, an expert on the painting, says: 'This handscroll reminds us about what art did and can do─which is to bring people together. The hundreds of inscriptions on the painting is a testament to this, and over time, later viewers would read what others had written and some would respond to these, carrying on the conversations maybe 80 years later.'
Alexandra A. Seno
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