Chinese man bids for but won’t pay for looted relics
Güncelleme Tarihi:
The Associated Press
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mart 03, 2009 00:00
BEIJING - A Chinese man said Monday he was the collector behind winning bids for two imperial bronzes auctioned at Christie's over Beijing's objections, and that he made bogus offers to protest any sale of the looted relics.
Auction house owner Cai Mingchao said he made the $36 million in bids for the bronze rat and rabbit heads by telephone last week when the pieces were auctioned in Paris as part of a collection owned by the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent.
"What I need to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Cai told a news conference in Beijing. "At the time, I was thinking that any Chinese would do this if they could ... I only did what I was obliged to."
The Chinese government had attempted to halt the sale of the relics, saying they should be returned, not sold. The dispute underscores the challenges China faces in trying to recover numerous cultural objects stolen more than a century ago, when plunder was a given in warfare.
The sculptures disappeared from the Old Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing when French and British forces sacked and burned it at the end of the second Opium War in 1860. Chinese view the devastation of the palace Ğ the country residence of emperors full of art treasures Ğ as a national humiliation.
Cai, an art collector and expert on relics, is the owner of Xinheart, an auction company in the southern Chinese city of Xiamen.
A transcript of his press conference was released by China's Lost Cultural Relics Recovery Program, a cultural body that Cai advises. The group is a division of the China Foundation for the Development of Folklore Culture.
China had angrily protested plans to auction off the relics, but Christie's stood by its right to sell them.
A French court rejected a legal challenge by a Chinese group calling for the sale to be stopped.
The sculptures, heads of a rat and a rabbit that once were part of a fountain, sold in telephone bids for 28 million euros and 14 million euros each.
"What I need to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Cai told a news conference in Beijing. "At the time, I was thinking that any Chinese would do this if they could ... I only did what I was obliged to."
The Chinese government had attempted to halt the sale of the relics, saying they should be returned, not sold. The dispute underscores the challenges China faces in trying to recover numerous cultural objects stolen more than a century ago, when plunder was a given in warfare.
The sculptures disappeared from the Old Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing when French and British forces sacked and burned it at the end of the second Opium War in 1860. Chinese view the devastation of the palace Ğ the country residence of emperors full of art treasures Ğ as a national humiliation.
Cai, an art collector and expert on relics, is the owner of Xinheart, an auction company in the southern Chinese city of Xiamen.
A transcript of his press conference was released by China's Lost Cultural Relics Recovery Program, a cultural body that Cai advises. The group is a division of the China Foundation for the Development of Folklore Culture.
China had angrily protested plans to auction off the relics, but Christie's stood by its right to sell them.
A French court rejected a legal challenge by a Chinese group calling for the sale to be stopped.
The sculptures, heads of a rat and a rabbit that once were part of a fountain, sold in telephone bids for 28 million euros and 14 million euros each.