Hugo’s former residence is located at No. 6 Place des Vosges in Paris. From 1832 to 1848, he lived and wrote here, leaving behind a large number of works about "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Les Misérables". He also left behind his manuscripts and illustrations, as well as a Chinese poetry room he decorated for his confidante Juliette Drouet (the initials of her first and last name are J and D).
Hugo’s former residence ▲ Picture | Hai Xia
The “Chinese complex” of European celebrities and nobles
Hugo had a special complex towards China. He had never set foot in China. After entering China, he was familiar with Chinese history and Chinese art, and was very obsessed with Chinese art. The antique Chinese poetry house he built for Juliet was the embodiment of his Chinese complex.
According to Hugo's "Six Volumes of Guernsey Notebook", in order to decorate his poetry house, he purchased Chinese works of art forty-eight times, spending more than three thousand francs.
Poetry House Living Room ▲ Picture | Haixia
The love poetry house created by Hugo has a more Chinese style than many Chinese homes. Chinese ocher tones, Chinese furniture, Chinese porcelain, Chinese palace lanterns, Chinese beds, and a large wall of blue and white porcelain. Everyone who comes to this room is stunned and amazed by everything. Juliet said in a letter to Hugo: "I want to thank you, my dear husband, for furnishing me with such a wonderful room, which will not only be enjoyed by every visitor, but will become as worthy of respect as a temple. Yours Creativity transcends art and gives every place a special emotion... That is to say, I must look back again to express all my admiration for this rich Chinese style, lyrical house."
This. In the Chinese Poetry House created by Hugo, countless literati and artists shuttled back and forth, including Lamartine, Alexandre Dumas, Mérimée, Flaubert, George Sand, Balzac, Berlioz, etc. It can be said that this place is one of the "ten The Drawing Room of French Literature in the First Half of the Ninth Century.”
Victor Hugo ▲
Hugo’s attachment to China is so deep that it cannot fit into a room of love poems. He is a person who truly loves Chinese culture and Chinese civilization from the bottom of his heart. After he learned that the British and French allied forces burned down the Old Summer Palace and looted Chinese treasures, Hugo stood up with grief and indignation and denounced the brutality and barbarity of the invaders. He accused his country and Britain of being bandits and barbarians, and demanded that the invaders return the cultural relics immediately. , and wrote a letter.
Partial translation of "Letter to Captain Butler on the British-French Allied Forces Expedition to China":
In a corner of the world, there is a world miracle. This miracle is called the Old Summer Palace. Art has two sources: one is ideal, which produces European art; the other is fantasy, which produces Eastern art. The Summer Palace is to fantasy art what the Parthenon is to ideal art.
This building as big as a city is the culmination of generations. Who was it built for? For the people of all countries. Because everything created by time belongs to human beings.
The miracle has disappeared. One day, two robbers from Europe broke into the Old Summer Palace. One robber was looting property, while another was setting fire to the house. What they did to the Parthenon in the past is what they did to the Old Summer Palace now. The difference is that they did it more thoroughly and more beautifully, so that nothing remains. The treasures of all the cathedrals of Europe, put together, may not amount to the great and magnificent museum of the East.
We Europeans are civilized people, and the Chinese are barbarians in our eyes. This is what civilization does to barbarism.
Manuscript of "Letter to Captain Butler on the British-French Allied Forces Expedition to China" ▲
"Blue and White Porcelain" in the Eyes of European Celebrities and Nobles
Victor Hugo's Love Poems There are many Chinese elements in the house, but only Chinese blue and white porcelain is his favorite. A large wall of the Shiwu living room is inlaid with blue and white porcelain that he purchased many times, and blue and white porcelain is also placed on many shelves.
Every piece of blue and white porcelain made Hugo pay more attention to it. Hugo even compared every piece of blue and white porcelain to "China". Once a maid accidentally broke a vase, Hugo was so heartbroken that he wrote a poem "The Broken Vase": "Oh my God, the whole 'China' fell to pieces on the ground!"
Hugo also compared blue and white porcelain to a beautiful girl, and wrote a poem: Your little girl from the tea country has strange and beautiful dreams. There is a big city in the sky. Cui Wei, China is a suburban girl in the city of heaven. We are in Paris and you are dim. Looking, innocently looking for the splendid garden and the wonder of the peacock in full bloom. You smile and look at our zenith. There is a dwarf happily tracing the pure blue to your porcelain white eyes.
Blue and white lotus Large bowl ▲ Picture | Palace Museum
In Europe, the great writer Victor Hugo’s obsession with and emphasis on Chinese blue and white porcelain is actually a norm. As early as a long time ago, European celebrities, nobles and all classes were extremely obsessed with Chinese culture and Chinese porcelain. They were proud to display Chinese porcelain in their halls, and it was fashionable to collect and exhibit Chinese porcelain.
It is said that at the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV wore Chinese clothes and appeared in a Chinese-style eight-carriage sedan when he held a ball at the Palace of Versailles in France, which aroused the envy of the whole audience; Portugal had a The royal family loved blue and white porcelain so much that they spent huge sums of money to embed 261 pieces of blue and white porcelain on the roof. You can see it every day when you look up. The spectacular sight is jaw-dropping.
The ceiling of the Portuguese royal palace inlaid with 261 pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain▲
Picture | Cheng Yong European celebrities and nobles’ love for blue and white porcelain
1. Crazy purchase of blue and white porcelain
According to statistics from relevant foreign archives:
From the establishment of the Dutch East India Company to the thirty-fourth year of Kangxi, 20 million pieces of Chinese porcelain were trafficked to Europe, mainly including Ming and Qing dynasties. Blue and white, five-color and Guangcai porcelain from the period.
In the twelfth year of Yongzheng's reign, 68,000 pieces of porcelain were shipped and sold.
In the 39th year of Qianlong's reign, about 400,000 pieces of porcelain were shipped to Britain.
From the 15th to the 46th year of Qianlong's reign, 1.1 million pieces of porcelain were shipped to Sweden. ...
Blue and white flower and bird pattern covered jar ▲ Picture | Palace Museum
2. Blue and white porcelain is a favorite of European royal families and nobles
After Chinese porcelain was introduced to Europe , was immediately loved by royal families, nobles and people from all walks of life in various countries. And blue and white porcelain became the best among many porcelains and became their treasure. There is a poem that goes like this: Come, look at this piece of porcelain. What attracts me is its splendor. It comes from a new world. I have never seen such beautiful art. How seductive, exquisite and transcendent, from China, its homeland.
1. Treat blue and white porcelain as a symbol of status. In Europe, blue and white porcelain is very expensive, but a bottle is still hard to find. Every time it comes in, it is snapped up by the royal family and nobles.
They placed blue and white porcelain in palaces, mansions, and showrooms to show their elegance and to show off as royal property.
According to relevant records: Among the more than 3,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain collected by the Spanish Royal Palace, most are blue and white porcelain; the famous Sintla Palace in Portugal has a main hall covered with blue and white porcelain, and the Queen of Portugal’s In the property list, Chinese porcelain is an extremely important item; French King Louis XIV loved blue and white porcelain the most. He built the Palace of Versailles in 1670 and later built the Palazzo Toriano in the palace. The palace is famous for displaying Louis XIV’s collection of porcelain. China is famous for its blue and white porcelain.
2. List blue and white porcelain as a valuable gift. Simply put, blue and white porcelain is the most extravagant national gift given to each other by European royal families. It is a very high-standard dowry for princesses when they get married, and it is also an object used by royal families to show off their wealth.
3. Imitate Chinese blue and white porcelain. Because Chinese blue and white porcelain is expensive and its output is scarce. It triggered the creative desire of the European royal family, and various countries decided to set up workshops to imitate blue and white porcelain. Among them, the "Royal Delft" factory in the Netherlands is the leader, known as "Delft Blue", and the blue and white porcelain they make has now become a national treasure and specialty of the Netherlands.
Dutch blue and white porcelain Delft blue ▲
Chinese blue and white porcelain, precious, really expensive!
The world is intoxicated by the preciousness of Chinese blue and white porcelain; the expensiveness of Chinese blue and white porcelain makes the royal families of various countries heartbroken.
When French King Louis XIV established the Chinese Porcelain Palace, the national treasury was frequently in crisis due to repeated purchases of blue and white porcelain.
There is also an even crazier king of Saxony - Augustus II. In 1717, in order to marry a queen who loved porcelain, he did not hesitate to exchange 600 personal guards and his good neighbor the King of Prussia for his collection of 127 blue and white vases from the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty in China. These blue and white porcelains exchanged for guards are still on display in the Zwinger Palace Museum in Dresden, Germany.
The reason why Augustus II is said to be crazy is because according to statistics from his collection list that remains to this day, at the peak of his collection, Augustus II owned as many as 24,100 pieces of Oriental porcelain. The Chinese Palace and the Japanese Palace were specially built to display these porcelains, which were numbered and stored in the warehouse. Therefore, he is called "one of the best collectors of oriental porcelain" by later generations.
Augustus II▲
China’s rare treasure - Yuan blue and white porcelain
In 2010, the Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain "Guiguzi goes down the mountain" picture jar was sold to the United States The antique dealer bought it for 230 million yuan, setting a record for the highest auction of Chinese cultural relics and even Asian art in history.
Yuan blue and white jar with the picture of Guiguzi going down the mountain ▲ Blue and white porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty, the main decoration is "Picture of Guiguzi going down the mountain", which describes Sun Bin's master Guiguzi, under the repeated request of the Qi envoy Su Dai, he agreed to go down the mountain to rescue and was rescued by Yan The story of Sun Bin and Dugu Chen, the famous Qi generals who fell into battle.
In 2011, another piece of Yuan blue and white was sold at a high price of 840 million (HKD) at CITIC Auction Company in Macau. This Yuan blue and white is very similar to the cultural relic "Xiao He Chasing Han Xin Under the Moon" that is prohibited from going abroad in China. According to cultural relic experts, there are three Yuan blue and white pieces, one is stored in the Nanjing Museum, and the whereabouts of the other are unknown.
Industry experts once estimated that the Yuan blue and white "Xiao He Chasing Han Xin Under the Moon" from the Nanjing Museum would be worth at least 1 billion if it appeared on the auction market. There are four reasons for the high price:
—— Gong Shi of the Qing Dynasty
A piece of blue and white porcelain has fascinated the whole world, causing European nobles to rush to buy it and regard it as a piece of blue and white porcelain. The object of showing off one's wealth and highlighting one's status is probably something that the ancients of our country did not think of. Perhaps this is the state-owned boundary, art has no boundaries, just like what Victor Hugo said: "Everything created by time belongs to mankind."
Chinese Garden/Boucher/1742▲
Medium ebony paint chip cabinet ▲
The famous French furniture master Jean-Henri Richner made it in 1783 for Marie Antoinette, Queen of Louis XVI.
Written by: Guan Ru
Note: Some of the pictures in this article are from the Internet and have been deleted!