Page 59 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

44 Nick Pearce

Figure 3.2 Perfume Holder. Carved openwork nephrite jade with imperially composed poem
on the fisherman and the woodcutter. Qianlong period (1736–1795). Courtesy of
the Victoria & Albert Museum, Wells Bequest.

India may seem a strange source for supposed Summer Palace loot, but Indian
troops were a significant part of the British Expeditionary force—Indian army infantry
regiments and two troops of irregular cavalry, Probyn’s and Fane’s Horse—all of
whom were reported as being at the heart of the looting. Captain John Hart Dunne
of the 99th Regiment, who joined in the looting on the October 8, recalls:

. . . presently I saw a group of Seikh [sic] cavalry fall-in in the courtyard. Their
appearance was somewhat ludicrous, for each sowar had about twenty-four rolls
of silk piled up in front and behind their saddles. These silks were of every
description of colour, and the men could hardly get their hands over the pile in
front so as to guide their horses. 44

Following the war, as noted by Hevia in Chapter 2, looted items went to India with
the returning army. As the Illustrated London News reported: “. . . portions [of loot]
have found their way to India, carried thither by our troops. . . .” 45
India features in the history of a celebrated piece of loot, the so-called “Skull of
Confucius,” reported as taken from Yuanmingyuan by an officer of Fane’s Horse.