「The Art of Collecting」From Private Collection to Public Sharing: The Inheritance Philosophy of the Father of Antiques

The father of Chinese antiques is actually an American! When an American Jewish collector donated his entire collection to a Chinese museum, the ultimate meaning of collecting became clear. The essence of collecting is not the private hoarding of items, but the transmission of civilization.

At the age of 19, he entered the field of Chinese art and followed Alice Boney to understand the true meaning of business and art. With a forward-looking perspective, he gathered the “Chunhua Pavilion Inscription” and established a museum-level collection system of Chinese antiques.

He did not keep these treasures for himself but sold the “Chunhua Pavilion Inscription” to the Shanghai Museum and returned the stolen antiques without charge, using his actions to break the stereotype of “collectors hoarding wealth”.

In Robert Hatfield Ellsworth’ eyes, the ultimate value of collecting is not being locked in a private safe, but in the cross-cultural discussions among scholars from the East and the West. He proved with his entire life that true inheritance is to transform the collection from “being possessed” to “being understood”, allowing a thousand-year-old civilization to continue to grow in the hearts of people of different eras and different skin colors through an object.

There is much more to collecting. That’s all for today. We’ll continue next time.