Chimera Tomb Guardian
- 229
With C. T. Loo & Co., stock card no. 14507, by 1933-1944 [1];
Purchased from C. T. Loo & Co. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.
NOTES:
[1] Loo lent these chimeras to the Nelson-Atkins for the museum's opening exhibition in 1933. Often referred to as ‘lions’ in correspondence, the museum’s staff was enamored with these large limestone figures and advocated for their purchase, but the museum's trustees and Loo could not agree on the price and the chimeras were returned to Loo in December 1937. The matter was set aside until 1943, when Lindsay Hughes (1908–1997), assistant to Curator Laurence Sickman (1906-1988), who was serving in his stead during his wartime absence, took the opportunity afforded by her temporary role to revive a dialogue with Loo regarding their purchase. Despite her vehement advocacy, however, Trustee President J. C. Nichols and Loo still could not agree on the price. However, when Loo stopped in Kansas City during a cross-country trip in July 1944, an intense, late-night discussion at Nichols’s home resulted in Nichols acquiring the chimeras at Loo’s initial asking price. Afterward, Nichols wrote to Sybil Brelsford, the trustees's secretary, confirming the purchase, to which he added a handwritten postscript: "I hope you are pleased and Lindsay can sleep nights." Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG 01/01, box 1, folder 28 and C. T. Loo/Frank Caro archive, Musée Guimet, Paris, copy of stock card in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
Osvald Siren, Kinas Konst Under Tre Artusenden (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1942-1943), I, pl. 93 (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 148 (repro.).
Judith Burling, Arthur Hart Burling, Chinese Art (New York: Studio publications in association with Crowell, 1953), pl. 237 (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1956, 1960), pl. 17b (repro.).
E. Ewing, Our Widening World (New York: 1958), 5 (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 183 (repro.).
René Grousset, Chinese Art & Culture, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Orion Press, 1959), pl. 21 (repro.).
Enciclopedia Universale Dell’Arte, Cina Storica (Rome: 1960), pl. 279 (repro.).
Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. 3 (Rome; New York: 1960), pl. 241 (repro.).
Capolavori Nei Secoli: enciclopedia di tutti le arti, di tutti i popoli, in tutti i tempi (Milano: Fratelli Fabbri, May 19, 1962), 35 (repro.).
Peter C. Swann, Art of China, Korea, and Japan (New York: F.A. Praeger, 1963), no. 67, 77 (repro.).
Hugo Munsterberg, Sculpture of The Orient (New York: Dover, 1972), pl. 71 (repro.).
Bradley Smith and Wan-go Weng, China: a History in Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pl. 88 (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 26 (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, “Monsters and Elegance: Nine Centuries of Chinese Sculpture” Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973), 4, pl. 4, 32, pl. 1 (repro.).
William Watson, L’Art De I’Ancienne Chine (Paris: Éditions d'art Lucien Mazenod, 1979), 410, no. 360 (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 302 (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 308, pl. 81 (repro.).
Colin Mackenzie, with contributions by Ling-En Lu, Masterworks of Chinese art: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2011), 34-35 (repro.).
