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Christie's says auction of Chinese relics to proceed

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-12 15:30

BEIJING - Auction giant Christie's has denied a possible private sale of two Chinese relics, saying that the auction will go on as scheduled despite criticism from China.

In an e-mail to Xinhua, Christie's clarified reports in Taiwan's Economic Daily and European Journal, which said Christie's would conduct a private sale of the Yuanmingyuan rabbit and rat head sculptures, saying that the reports "are not true".

Related readings:  China not to buy stolen relics at Paris auction

The two artifacts, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) bronze rabbit and rat head sculptures, will be auctioned by Christie's in Paris from February 23 to 25.

The rabbit and rat head sculptures currently belong to the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) Foundation and were put up for auction by Pierre Berge. They were expected to fetch 8 million to 10 million euros (about US$10.4 to 13 million) each.

"The YSL collection holds firm legal title to the heads and so we respectfully believe the auction will proceed," the auction house said in the e-mail.

The two bronze head sculptures were housed in Yuanmingyuan, Beijing's Imperial Summer Palace. They were stolen when the palace was burnt down by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War in 1860.

Christie's carried a detailed introduction of the two bronzes on its website, saying that the two formed part of the zodiacal clepsydra that decorated the Calm Sea Pavilion in the Old Summer Palace of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795).

"Constructed between 1756 and 1759 under the supervision of the famous Jesuit priest Giuseppe Castiglione, the heads are characterized by a distinctly western style," Mathilde Courteault, head of the company's Asian Department, was quoted by the website as saying.

Christie's announcement that it would auction the two relics has aroused great public concern in China. Many online forums were flooded with angry demands for the return of the looted relics.

A team of 81 Chinese lawyers has written to Christie's in an effort to stop the sale.

Liu Yang, one of the lawyers working on the case, was unavailable to comment Thursday, but he told Xinhua on Tuesday that they hoped Christie's could reconsider the sale of the Chinese relics, withdraw them from auction and persuade the owner to return them to China.

Liu said the lawyers had also written to Pierre Berge, asking him not to auction the relics and return them to China.

He said his team would sue Pierre Berge if there were no "positive feedback from them (Pierre Berge and Christie's) within a reasonable period". Christie's would be involved in the lawsuit as the third party. But he declined to say how long his team would wait for the "positive feedback".

Christie's public relations officer in China Chen Yan confirmed that the company's Beijing office had received the letter.

China and France signed the 1995 Unidroit Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, which stipulated that any cultural object looted or lost because of reasons of war should be returned without any limitation of time span.

China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) said last month that Christie's auction of the two stolen relics was unacceptable and China would not try to buy them back.

Song Xinchao, director of the museum department with the SACH, said the best way to deal with the issue was to ignore it, because some business people might exploit the patriotic concerns of the Chinese people to raise bidding prices for their own monetary gain.

The American auction house Sotheby's tried to put a bronze horse head for auction in 2007. But Macao billionaire Stanley Ho bought the relic at a price of 69.1 million Hong Kong dollars (about US$9 million) before the auction and donated it to the Chinese government.

So far, five of the 12 bronze animal heads have been returned to China, while the whereabouts of five others is unknown.