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From the Summer Palace 1860 47
4 For further details of the political background to the sales and for an exploration of the
debate around repatriation, see: R. Kraus, “The politics of repatriation: nationalism, state,
legitimation, and Beijing’s looted zodiac animal heads”, in Chinese Politics: State, Society
and the Market, eds. P.H. Gries, and S. Rosen (London: Routledge, 2010), 199–221.
5 J. David Murphy, Plunder and Preservation: Cultural Property Law and Practice in the
People’s Republic of China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 45.
6 Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Lost Treasures from the Qing Palaces, October 9, 2007. Sotheby’s
Press Release highlighting the bronze head was published in August. See: “Sotheby’s Hong
Kong to Hold Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Sales on 9th October, 2007”. http://
files.shareholder.com/downloads/BID/0x0x130049/A382A209–9028–4874-A6D6-
E9BFACCF73B6/130049.pdf.
7 Sotheby’s Hong Kong, September 2007, Dr. Stanley Ho Donates to China the Bronze
Horse Head of the Summer Palace Purchased at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The bronze was
purchased for £4.42M (US$8.84m), a record for a Chinese Qing dynasty sculpture.
8 “American Chinese collectors urge boycott of Christie’s”, People’s Daily Online,
25 February 2009.
9 Edward Wong and Stephen Erlanger, “Frenchman Will Return to China Prized Bronze
Artifacts Looted in 19th Century”, New York Times, April 26, 2013. www.nytimes.com/
2013/04/27/world/europe/frenchman-will-return-to-china-prized-bronze-artifacts-looted-
in-19th-century.html?_r=0.
10 Christie’s Press Release, June 28, 2013. www.christies.com/presscenter/pdf/2013/corporate
news_pinault_2013.pdf.
11 The Christie’s sale catalogue states: “It is possible that the bronze heads were taken to
Paris at that time and included in one of the Palais d’Été sales held at the Hôtel Drouot
between 1861 and 1863”. See Christie’s Hong Kong, The Imperial Sale, 2000, Lot 517.
The reference to 1861 is cited by Anne-Marie Broudehoux, again without a source. See
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, “Selling the Past: Nationalism and the Commodification of
History at Yuanmingyuan”, in The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing (New York
and London: Routledge, 2004), 84.
12 David F. Rennie, Peking and the Pekingese, 2 volumes (London: John Murray, 1865),
Vol.1, 272.
13 Hope Danby, The Garden of Perfect Brightness (London: Williams and Norgate, 1950),
105.
14 Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture (Indiana: Perdue
University Press, 2011), 126. I am grateful to Louise Tythacott for drawing my attention
to these parallel references.
15 http://english.cri.cn/7146/2010/08/04/164s586655_3.htm.
16 See Young-tsu Wong, A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanmingyuan (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 115–117, where a series of thefts over the decades
are documented, mostly by eunuchs and Manchu bannermen.
17 Broudehoux, “Selling the Past”, 61–64. For a detailed discussion of the successive
depredations suffered by the site, see: Wong, A Paradise Lost.
18 “Extract from Mr. Wylde’s Report, 8/12/1910”, file Ed 84/206 in the V&A Archive,
London. See also the Victoria & Albert Museum, Review of the Principal Acquisitions,
1912, (London: HMSO, 1913), 13.
19 Broudehoux, “Selling the Past”, 45. See also James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The
Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham NC and London: Duke
University Press, 2003), 340–343. Hevia also makes the point that the nationalist rhetoric
developed from an earlier manifestation of marking “National Humiliation Days”, which
had a more constructive purpose in building a stronger socialist state. See Hevia, 332–335,
and also Chapter 2 in this volume.
20 The blockbuster exhibitions mounted by the Palace Museum which toured the world in
the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s were with few exceptions of Qing material
(Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong periods). Only now are earlier dynasties being
promoted.
21 “Ai Weiwei: Interview Excerpts,” in Ai Weiwei, Circle of Animals, Zodiac Heads, ed.
Susan Delson (New York: AW Asia, 2011), 42.