When Loo arrived in Paris, he wore the traditional Chinese gown and sported a
queue, but soon became a Parisian dandy. He thrived in Zhang's store but felt constrained. Profits were not reinvested but instead used for the anti-Manchu revolutionary activities of his boss, who subsidized a circle of
Chinese philosophical anarchists. In 1908, Loo, now dressed in elegant Parisian fashion and calling himself Cheng-Tsai Loo (Lu Qinzhai), opened his own store on Rue Taitbout under the name "Laiyuan and Company" with branches soon to open in Beijing and Shanghai. Loo realized that Westerners preferred later works such as Qing dynasty three-color porcelains, which he could supply in good quantities because of the political ties he formed. A friend remarked on Loo's sources in China: "being in touch with important people... he was able to know of precious works of art which had been hidden from the storms of many revolutions." Loo's timing was good. 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). The outbreak of war of 1914, however, meant that he could no longer travel to and from China through Siberia but was forced to return by way of the United States. He discovered a growing market for Chinese art in New York and decided to establish a new branch there in 1915. The move from war-torn Europe to the New World was prescient, since the United States became the dominant importer of Chinese antiquities from 1916 to 1931. Once established in galleries on Fifth Avenue, Loo's charm and connections in China proved effective and profitable. Loo, observes one recent scholar, lived in one of the most vigorous growth periods for the Asian art market. 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. Loo worked hard to establish personal relations with American museum directors and collectors. Between 1915 and 1917, he offered gifts to at least six museums. In July 1917, for instance, Loo wrote a postcard from Beijing to George Byron, director of the University of Pennsylvania museum, "Will write you if I have seen some fine things suitable for your honorable museum." 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, two
relief panels depicting Emperor Taizong's horses, and a
Sui dynasty altarpiece from the collection of the imperial collector
Duanfang. After the end of the war in 1919, Loo found himself competing with dealers such as Duveen for the attention of collectors. A revealing transaction took place in 1921. Loo offered what he thought to be a Tang dynasty bronze head of
Guanyin to
John D. Rockefeller, III for $40,000. Rockefeller, perhaps concerned that dealers would want to take advantage of his wealth, declined, offering $25,000. After further bargaining led nowhere, Loo sold the piece to University of Pennsylvania Museum for $40,000. Loo continued his attempts to develop a relation with the Rockefellers, however, hosting them in his Paris "pagoda," though they bought little of consequence from him. The decade long boom in Chinese art came to a close with the Crash of 1929, and by 1931, the volume of China's antique trade with the United States had fallen to about half what it had been in 1926. The years up to 1941 saw a change in the nature of Loo's market as tastes changed. In the West, the study of Asia and Asian art became more professional as museums acquired curators to deepen and widen their collections and universities developed graduate programs. In China, the beleaguered Chinese government viewed traveling exhibitions which visited the West as a way to promote China's image, and Chinese art became an occasion for national pride. Loo's business reached its peak in the second half of the 1930s as he adapted to a more sophisticated market, expanding his international art network to England, France, Germany, and America. Between 1933 and 1941 Loo launched at least one important exhibition or publication project every year. He continued to make major sales to his earlier museum clients, especially of bronzes and sculpture. Loo was instrumental in building the collections of the
Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, whose organizer,
Laurence Sickman, became a good friend. A series of catalogs and scholarly indexes displayed Loo's knowledge and experience. Among his most successful exhibitions was
Three Thousand Years of Chinese Jade, held in 1939 in New York as a fund raiser for China's wartime refugees. The war in China, however, made it nearly impossible to find or export artwork, especially the sculptures Loo so admired. Another problem for Loo was that many of his early clients either died or lost interest. One new client whose interest grew was
Eli Lilly, an Indiana pharmaceutical executive who assembled the basic works for the Asian collection of what became the
Indianapolis Museum of Art. In 1947 Loo offered Lilly a group of Song dynasty ceramics for $54,350 which he had listed in his 1941 catalog for roughly half that price. Lilly, perhaps reasoning that Loo should have lowered, not raised, the price for works which had not sold, offered $40,000. After an exchange of correspondence which did not bring the sides together, Loo shipped the pieces to the museum and went himself to Indianapolis, bringing with him five further pieces. When Lilly agreed to pay the original asking price, Loo compromised by including the extra pieces. All are now in the museum. After 1949, the new
Communist government gained control of China and cut Loo off from his sources. Some of Loo's associates were arrested, and Loo's nephew, who had been his agent there, escaped to Hong Kong. In 1950, Loo was forced to liquidate much of his stock, leaving the business to his long-time colleague and successor,
Frank Caro. ==Controversies over Loo's export of Chinese art==