Bronze Sculptures of YuanMing Yuan

For 150 years, Qing Dynasty’s emperors poured money, hearts, and talents into YuanMing Yuan (圓明園). By 1860, it became the most extravagant garden that ever existed. China, for all practical purposes, was the wealthiest and dominant country in the world during those centuries. It never occurred to Qing Dynasty that those babarians from the west have invented powerful weapons, learned to fight, and dared to invade. China lost the war, to their surprise, badly.

Solidiers from Britain and France marched into YuanMing Yuan and took whatever they could. When they were done, they set the garden ablaze. It burned for 3 whole days.

Qing Dynasty rebuit it. In 1900, soldiers from 8 countries (Brtain, France, Germany, Russia, USA, Japan, Italy, and Austria) repeated the larceny and the arson. This time, the damage broke the country’s heart and was beyond repair. In 2000, I visited YuanMing Yuan. I stood in the ruins and felt the shame, sadness, and anger from the whole China. This is not a place Chinese go for touristic reasons. They keep it around so that they will never forget this page of the history.

That 1860 loot included a dozen bronze sculptures (圆明园十二生肖兽首), one for each Chinese zodiac animals. Their hairs seem to move with pulses and eyes are alive with souls. When you touch them, you expect warmth of a live animal, instead of cold metal. They were manificantly done by one of the most revered Chinese artist known as 郎世寧 (LANG ShiNing), born in Italy as Giuseppe Castiglione.

These sculptures emerged, several at a time, gradually at international art auction scenes. Wealthy Chinese or government always tried to claim them back. I saw several of them in Beijing’s BaoLi (保利) Museum several years ago, as part of a private collection.

Recently, two more came to Christie auction: a rat and a rabbit. The winning bid was $18 millions. But the winner, Mr. CAI MingCao (蔡铭超), refused to pay. He was patriotic to sabotage the sales.

Whoever has those sculptures. Please just return them. It is not right to keep things that are not yours.