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Christian Living

chinaconnection 03/03/09

Will the Bronze Relics Return to China?

The sale of two bronze heads from the Qing Dynasty has overshadowed an art auction that would otherwise have been known for its astounding sales.  The art collection of Yves Saint Laurent grossed an astonishing $477 million dollars, far surpassing previous expectations.

But the $40 million bid for two zodiac heads from of a nineteenth-century water-clock fountain might not make it into the hands of Christie's auction house.  The winning bidder, Cai Mingchao, says that the pieces belong to the Chinese people, and should not be sold.   

So where do we go from here?  Here are the basics:

Around 1750, Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit missionary designed a water-clock fountain with twelve heads, representing each of the animals of the Chinese zodiac.  The fountain remained in an imperial summer palace outside Beijing until 1860, when French and English troops sacked the palace during the Opium Wars. 

The heads disappeared, and the whereabouts of five of them is unknown.   Of the remaining seven, the Chinese government has the boar, monkey, ox, and horse, and the dragon remains in a private collection.  The rat and rabbit were the two pieces owned by Yves Saint Laurent.

Months before the auction, Christie's offered the Chinese government the opportunity to purchase the heads at a price that was lower than what they fetched at auction, but they refused the offer, saying the price was too high.

Cai Mingchao, who consults for China's National Treasure Fund, refuses to pay out of his sense of patriotism.  Cai told reporters he "did this on behalf of the Chinese people. . .  I'm honored to have had the chance."  Cai, like the vast majority of Chinese citizens, feels that the bronzes were unfairly stripped from the country, and should be returned free of charge. 

Qin Gang, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman requested a return of the relics, and "urged everyone to pay attention to what is the essence of this issue.  These cultural relics belong to China, they were looted by the West in the time of war and illegally taken abroad."

Others maintain that the heads have been in the property of Western collectors for over a century.  Under the United Nations Unidroit Convention, there's only a fifty-year limit on stolen cultural artifacts, so unless the international standards change, China probably wouldn't have a very strong legal case in terms of returning the artifacts. 

In an ideal world, some wealthy philanthropist would purchase the heads from Cai, and then donate them to China.  In that scenario, Cai makes his political statement, the auction gets its money, and China gets its artifacts.  Of course, these situations don't often end that cleanly, so it's likely that we'll have to wait a while for this resolution.

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