Gustav Ecke, Fruhe Chinesische Bronzen aus der Sammlung Oskar Trautmann, 1939

Posted: August 27th, 2026 | No Comments »

Gustav Ecke: Fruhe Chinesische Bronzen aus der Sammlung Oskar Trautmann (Early Chinese Bronzes from the Oskar Trautmann Collection), Beijing, 1939.

Gustav Ecke (1896-1971) was a German and later American art historian and curator. He is best known for his book Chinese Domestic Furniture, first published in wartime China in 1944. Ecke accepted an offer to be professor of European philosophy at the University of Amoy (Xiamen) in 1923, then after five years moved to Tsinghua University in Peking. He returned briefly to Europe but return to China to avoid fascism. He then taught at the Catholic Fujen University and was a researcher at the National Institute of Architecture, both in Peking. He was one of the founding editors of the scholarly journal Monumenta Serica. In 1945, he married the artist and scholar Tseng Yu-ho, who had been one of his students. The couple left China for Hawai’i in 1949. He was curator of Asian art at the Honolulu Academy of Arts (now Honolulu Museum of Art), until he died in 1971.

Oskar Trautmann (1877-1950) was a German diplomat and writer. After WW1 he filled positions that were related to the Far East. In 1921 he was appointed Consul General in Kobe and in 1922 he was appointed Councillor of the Embassy in Tokyo. Between 1935 and 1938 he served as Ambassador to China, serving in Nanjing. Trautmann was also a well-known collector of Chinese paintings and bronzes. During his time as Ministry of Foreign Affairs, collecting around 150 paintings and calligraphic works. He collected various contemporary art, meeting important Chinese artists at the time, such as Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, and Zhang Daqian.

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