© Klincksieck, 2016 Susan Naquin*
Paul Houo 霍 明 志 , A Dealer in Antiquities in Early Twentieth Century Peking**
The hero of our story was an orphaned youth from Tianjin who was educated by French Catholic missionaries and who created a new career for himself as a seller of antiquities in Peking. Through these transactions, his writings, and the goods that found new homes
Études chinoises, vol. XXXIV-2 (2015)
* Susan Naquin 韓 書 瑞 is professor emerita at Princeton University.
** This essay on a man who was a bridge between Chinese and French cultures has
been written as a small present for Pierre-Étienne Will. I do not intend to work further on the subject, and I hope that this sketch will invite further research by others on Paul Houo, and on the cosmopolitan marketplace in curios and antiques in early twentieth-century Peking. My thanks to the organizers of this celebratory project, to the editors of Études Chinoises, and to the anonymous reviewers.
