The two beautiful Qing bronzes head were sold tonight at Christie’s. China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage last week ask to Christie’s not to sell the heads.
The 1995 United Nations Unidroit Convention limits claims on stolen cultural artifacts to within 50 years of their theft. China seems to not want to respect that.
I download two videos about the sale on Youtube and got a lot of comments from chinese.
I decide tonight to erase all of them. I did not think it was right to keep all the insults people wrote about Pierre Bergé or about the French and the Western World.
They did not seem to know that these sculpture have been designed by an Italian Jesuit missionary Giuseppe Castiglione. They were among 12 heads representing the zodiac animals from a water-clock fountain in one of the Imperial summer palaces. The building was set ablaze and its treasures plundered and scattered by British and French troops in October 1860 at the end of the second Opium War.
The China I know is full of nice and hearted people. I understand that today China would like to have the heads back. I think that this auction platform could have provide an opportunity for these works to return to their home country.
Let me know what you think about it. Please no insult.
