The princess stayed in Tianqu for three days and then returned to Yanjing.
Oddly enough, Gege really liked painting when she was young, but it was just a hobby. When she was in college, she did not choose a school like the Academy of Fine Arts to study painting professionally. But now that she is studying for a doctorate, she seems to have opened her mind and is devoted to painting.
Yang Jing was very happy that Gege had something she liked to do. If she wanted to go back, Yang Jing would naturally not stop her.
It will take a long time to preserve these treasures. The four masters and Master Zhao and Master Tong will have to stay in this temporary workshop for at least a month.
The cultural preservation of the three bronze sculptures needs some effort, but the preservation of those oil paintings and manuscripts is much more troublesome.
Compared to bronze sculptures, both oil paintings and manuscripts are very fragile. Although these things have not received much damage under the protection of two layers of oilcloth, they are a century old after all. If they are not properly maintained, these treasures will most likely be ruined.
Several experts are already elderly, but they cannot hand this kind of work over to others, so they can only grit their teeth and persevere.
Yang Jing became the main force. Under the guidance of several experts, he did a lot of cultural heritage protection work personally and could be called half a cultural heritage protection expert.
In Liu's words, Yang Jing has a solution for his thesis this year. The preservation of these treasures alone is enough for Yang Jing to write an extremely brilliant thesis.
Are you kidding me? How many people in the world can personally preserve Michelangelo's works? How many people can preserve Leonardo da Vinci's original works? How many people can preserve Shakespeare's manuscripts?
Even among the world's doctoral students, I'm afraid no one can do this kind of work of personally protecting treasures of this level. Mr. Guo even joked that after Yang Jing finished protecting these treasures, he would not even have to go to class for the whole school year.
Although the days were boring, Yang Jing really learned a lot of real things. These knowledge were things that could not be learned from textbooks.
However, this boring life did not last long. When the cultural protection work had been going on for more than 20 days, Cai Yi brought good news.
"Xiao Jing, the approval document we applied for you has been specially approved. The photos of the three bronze sculptures and the paintings played a big role. After seeing these photos, the higher-ups directly handed our application to the Ministry of Culture and the General Administration of Customs, and even alerted higher-ups. Yesterday, a friend of mine in the Ministry of Culture gave me a confirmed news that the tax-free approval document for the batch of treasures you obtained will be issued in the next two days."
Hearing this, Yang Jing was really delighted.
"Master Four, do you mean that these treasures can be born?"
"Well, after the official approval comes, these treasures can be seen. But these treasures cannot be bought or sold, otherwise you will need to pay heavy taxes."
"Oh, Master Four, how can I buy and sell treasures like these? I have already laid the foundation for my private museum. Once it is built, I will think that the collections in the Western Gallery of the museum are not enough. How can I sell these treasures? I won't sell them no matter how much money you offer me."
Mr. Xiao asked with a smile: "What if foreign museums want to exchange their collections of Chinese treasures for your treasures?"
Yang Jing chuckled, "Sure, but we have the final say on how to exchange it. For example, if they want to exchange it for the Bronze David, hehe, if they don't collect the Mogao Grottoes scriptures and murals that are scattered overseas for us, we will definitely not exchange it!"
Upon hearing what Yang Jing said, several old men happily gave him a thumbs up.
Mr. Guo laughed and said, "You are quite greedy. I think it would be difficult for them to exchange for a complete set of Mogao Grottoes scriptures and murals."
"Hey, whether to exchange or not is not their decision, it's mine! Do you want the bronze David? Do you want the original bronze discus thrower? Then they have to exchange it according to our requirements. I don't care how they exchange it, but if I'm missing one item, I won't bother with them!"
"Good disciple! The momentum of your words is something that we old men all like to hear!" Old Liu said excitedly.
Yang Jing said, "In fact, it's not just the treasures of Mogao Grottoes. For example, the Admonitions of the Court Ladies, the gilded pagoda in the Red Maple and White Dew Palace, and the Forty Scenes of the Old Summer Palace are national treasures. If you don't have seven or eight of them, don't even think about exchanging them for Da Vinci or Raphael's paintings from me."
Several old men were stunned when they heard it, and then they burst into laughter.
Cai Yi said with a yearning look: "It would be great if your treasures could exchange for all the treasures lost abroad!"
What Cai Yi said was really far-fetched. Foreigners are not fools. They may change within a certain range, but if it exceeds this range, they will not change.
However, as veterans in this industry, Cai Yi and his team still hope that this situation can happen. They know best how difficult it is to bring back Chinese cultural relics in recent years. Those foreigners are nothing. Their robber ancestors stole a large number of national treasures from China. As a result, in modern times, not only did they not return them, but they also used plausible excuses to control China and took the opportunity to hype up Chinese antiques and artworks to make a lot of ill-gotten gains.
In the past, the Chinese had no other options. If they didn't have any leverage over the foreigners, they really had no way to deal with the descendants of the robbers. But now it was different. Any item of the treasures that Yang Jing had obtained could cause a storm in the West.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
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