With Carl Schuster, in search of folk-art motifs in China

Frank Liebenthal (1918 Berlin - 1991 Buenos Aires) was the eldest son of Prof. Walter Liebenthal (1886-1982), a German sinologist, indologist and philosopher who, in 1934, had to leave Germany for exile in Beijing, China because of his Jewish ancestry. Frank attended elementary school in Berlin-Tempelhof and high school at the Karl-Marx-Schule in Berlin-Neukölln. In August 1935, in face of his inability to pursue university studies in Germany due to Nazi-imposed restrictions, and seeing better opportunities in China, he and his aunt Irmgard Oenike travelled by the Trans-Siberian Railway to Beijing. During his last year in Germany, Frank had prepared for the entrance exams to Yenching University in Beijing. Having successfully passed them, he began his studies there in August 1935. In the summer of 1936, the American art historian Dr. Carl Schuster (1904-1969) invited Frank to join him on a study trip to Szechuan (Sichuan) Province. Dr. Schuster was one of the leading scholars in the fields of folklore and symbolism. This trip was the third trip that he undertook to collect old Chinese embroideries. At the time, China was in the midst of a civil war between the Nationalists (KMT) under Chiang Kaishek and the Communists under Mao Tsetung. There were also independent warlords in control of different regions. In addition, the Japanese invasion of China, launched in 1933 in northeastern China, had been gradually expanding into other areas. These aspects of reality were shaping the background throughout this study trip. Frank's travel diary recounts the very interesting and unique experiences he encountered during this 7-week journey into the Chinese hinterlands, between July 11 and August 29, 1936. Following the trip, he typed up his travel notes, carefully pasted in his own photos, and skillfully bounded the 96 pages into a neat little volume. A real treasure! The original photos are small, so we enlarged them and included them in the Appendix for a better appreciation, but you will notice that the quality of the photos is not always optimal.