The Great Chinese Art Heist by Alex W Palmer

"They never really care about culture. This is the nature of the communists. To destroy the sometime earth to rebuild the new one. They are not clear about what is almost important in the so-chosen traditional art classics. The zodiac is the perfect example to bear witness their ignorance on this matter."

Ai Weiwei in a video on his Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads .

Prc is rewriting its history to fit the ideas and calendar of its current political leadership. Part of that practise includes encouraging Chinese buyers to bring 'stolen' art dorsum to China.  Chinese newspapers and magazines feature claims that in that location are millions of "looted" objects in foreign museums taken during armed forces incursions against China in the 18th and 19th centuries. "Looted," in these semi-official contexts, means non but items taken after battles, or even sold during lengthy periods of political weakness in the 19th and early 20th century. Information technology can also refer to the millions of Chinese appurtenances, such every bit ceramics and textiles, that circulated for centuries effectually the earth as part of ordinary international commerce.

Some say that China's government may be looking the other mode when Chinese collectors acquire fine art stolen from foreign museums. A contempo commodity by Alex Due west. Palmer in GQ, The Bully Chinese Art Heist, raised the question, is the Chinese regime backside ane of the boldest art-crime waves in history?

Almost all art being imported into China is purchased legitimately, of course. Just equally 19th century Western consumers acquired Chinese decorative arts for their pleasure and ancient examples of China's culture for their growing museums, contemporary Chinese buyers are doing the same,  building major collections that supplement and enhance the vast collections of Chinese art in its government museums. With China's emergence as a world economic power, Chinese buyers take become the main consumers of Chinese art in the global market place. At the same time, the domestic Chinese art market has grown from nix in the early 2000s to currently effectually $1 billion per year, outpacing all other international markets. The majority of the artworks imported into China are sourced in Europe and the United States, both of which have experienced massive outflows of Chinese art over the last decade. (Run across: CPN's marketplace assay in: Will US Embargo on Fine art of China & Tibet be Renewed?, Cultural Holding News, April 10, 2018.)

Poster for the Chinese Dream.

There are multiple factors driving the return of art from the W to China. A billionaire form of Chinese collectors is eager to institute individual museums, and the close ties between major Chinese auction houses and members of the authorities encourage monopolistic behaviors. Beijing Poly International Auction Co., Ltd., the cultural arm of the arms manufacturer Poly Group is controlled by the family of quondam leader Deng Xiaoping. The second largest sale firm, Mainland china Guardian, is run by Chen Dongsheng, the grandson-in- constabulary of Mao Zedong. There is an underlying policy of glorifying China'southward heroic past, the "Chinese Dream" of President 11 Jinping and its promotion of Han cultural values.

Diplomatic efforts nether the guise of protecting Chinese archaeological sites have helped Mainland china to increase its market share. In 2009, the U.Due south. Land Department shepherded China'south asking to prohibit imports of Chinese fine art through a malleable advisory committee process. Communist china had sought import restrictions on virtually all fine art, textiles, antiques and antiquities from the Prehistoric period to 1912. The resulting understanding, which has been renewed and is still effective, was not as broad as requested past the Chinese regime, merely it covers all fine art through the Tang period and a limited range of items up to 1760.

Stealing it dorsum?

Cultural Property News has followed apparent thefts-to-order of Chinese art since 2015 in a series of articles that examined both monetarily and politically driven thefts from European museums. Between 2010 and 2015 there were major thefts of Chinese art from museums across Europe; from the Chinese Pavilion on the grounds of Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm, the China Drove at the KODE Museum in Bergen, Kingdom of norway, Durham University's Malcolm MacDonald Gallery at the Oriental Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University, at the China Collection at the KODE Museum in Bergen, Norway and from the grand Chinese Museum at the Château de Fontainebleau.

Police recovered this large jade basin with a Chinese poem written inside that dates dorsum to 1769 that was stolen from the Oriental Museum at Durham University.

The justification for bringing Chinese antiques "dwelling," even by stealing them, stems from a sense of loss and humiliation instilled by the Chinese government. Since the 1990s, the curriculum in Chinese public schools has focused on the idea that the plundering of Purple wealth betwixt 1839 and 1949 was a deliberate attempt to shell the spirit of the Chinese people. During this flow, dubbed the 'Century of Humiliation," the Western powers' removal of fine art and antiques was role of Western political domination. Specifically, the 1860 sacking of the Onetime Summer Palace and the looting of its cultural treasures continues to be seen as a crushing reminder of China'southward political weakness. The Yuanming Yuan, or Summer Palace, was never rebuilt, and its ruins were left as a reminder of what imperialist British and French forces did to China.

The international museum community is shocked by China'south credible lack of business organisation about the thefts and allegations that the regime and key corporate players may actually be behind them. Maybe they shouldn't exist. What museums regard as unconscionable thefts, many in China see every bit a justifiable taking of Chinese property back from thieves.

While Chinese officials accept never openly supported the thefts, Palmer quotes Jiang Yingchun, the CEO of Poly Culture, an offshoot of the Poly Group conglomerate: "Nosotros tin can't ignore that the art was taken illegally," even if it was being well cared for, he said. "If you kidnapped my children and then treated them well, the crime is nevertheless not forgiven."

Art in foreign museums accounted stolen

The super-wealthy in China who have helped to brand it the largest art market place in the world have accomplished great prestige as collectors; some are museum builders or supporters of scholarship, like major art collectors in the W. But in People's republic of china, art collecting represents more than than this: collecting ancient and antique art is a recognized expression of patriotism. Thus, some major acquisitions are more than about returning objects that accept political symbolism, than an human action of connoisseurship.

In a 2010 commodity in China Daily, high-ranking officials from China's major sale houses referred indiscriminately to items shipped overseas in the global Chinese export trade from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) on equally "looted." Zhao Xu, managing director of Poly International Sale Co Ltd. told China Daily that, ""Buying looted artwork has become high-street style among Red china'due south aristocracy, particularly in the past year." The same article stated blandly that, "as many every bit ane.64 meg looted Chinese relics are in the hands of 47 overseas museums, with some other xvi.four million owned by individuals, according to a Xinhua News Bureau written report in 2009 that cited statistics from the United nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization."

The British Museum responded to accusations that its collections were largely looted stating that,"There is clearly a serious misunderstanding,…There are effectually 23,000 objects in the museum'due south Chinese collection every bit a whole, the overwhelming majority of them peacefully traded or collected, many indeed made for export. Very few objects entered the collection in the context of, even less as a result of, [the Opium Wars]."

In 2016, CPN detailed how UK and European museums had been targeted for years by local criminal gangs that were hired by agents for Chinese buyers. The virtually sought after objects in the heists were those taken by French and British forces from the Summertime Palace.

Fourteen members of the Rathekeale Rovers gang convicted in 2016 for crimes in Cambridge, Durham, and Norwich.

In March 2016, fourteen members of a British gang known as the Rathekeale Rovers – veritable stock characters from a Horace Rumpole novel – were sentenced to prison for their roles in heists and attempted-but-bungled thefts from British museums. The gang stole small but extremely valuable Chinese objects made of jade, lapis, rhino horn and other materials highly coveted within Prc. Members of the gang targeted both the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and Oriental Museum in Durham. The Rovers are well known for crimes involving theft of objects made from rhinoceros horn – but also for their clan with the killing of a 4-year quondam rhino is a French zoo.

A porcelain sculpture and jade bowl were stolen in Apr 2012 from the Malcolm MacDonald Gallery at the Oriental Museum at Durham University. A judge termed the thieves "crassly inept" after they forgot where in a wasteland they had hidden their $3 million haul. The items were somewhen recovered from the swampy footing.

Eighteen exceptional Chinese jade and lapis objects were stolen in April 2012 from the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University; the stolen items were valued between $8-$23 million. The thieves were caught but the objects were not recovered.

Among those found guilty was London resident Chi Chong Donald Wong, who was described as having links to Hong Kong. Government believe that the £57 million worth of objects that were not recovered were sent to Red china, where some collectors are willing to acquire stolen objects despite their having been widely published and therefore identifiable.

The most sought-after objects are from the Summertime Palace

Map showing Eight Banners Brigade billet, temples, villages, bridges, mountains, and the Summertime Palace, Beijing, author unknown, after 1888. Library of Congress, Gift of Thomas Goodrich.

Many of the objects stolen from Western museums during the multi-year spate of fine art heists – and many of the objects most valued in the Chinese markets – take something in mutual: they were looted during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in October of 1860.

It is undisputed that the Anglo-French trek that destroyed the Yuanmin Yuan or Summertime Palace was an unashamedly imperialist venture. However, the Summer Palace was initially sacked, then burned, on the order of British High Commissioner Lord Elgin in retaliation for the torture and execution of European and Indian prisoners by the Chinese. A diplomatic deputation of European officials and their retinue to the Summertime Palace had been seized and then killed past Chinese officials and their mutilated bodies exposed; the murdered individuals included two official envoys and a journalist from the Times of London. Elgin decided that it would have lilliputian effect on Chinese government officials if he attacked the city of Beijing. He seems to accept fabricated a deliberate decision to damage Red china'south rulers where it hurt nearly.

The gardens were famously beautiful and what the English language and French saw as retribution for the murder of diplomats, the Chinese considered a flagrant corruption of foreign ability. Although Elgin ordered everything burned, the English and French soldiers disregarded his orders. They grabbed all they could and enormous numbers of looted objects came on the marketplace in both China and Europe soon after.

These losses withal rankled 150 years later, when in 2000, 4 objects from the Summer Palace were offered for auction past auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's in Hong Kong. Despite protests from the Chinese regime, the sales, which included the heads of a tiger, monkey and ox from the h2o clock at the Summer Palace, went forward. These were three of the twelve zodiacal forms that originally decorated an elaborate clepsydra, or water clock, in the Yuanming Yuan garden of the Old Summertime Palace under Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). The Poly Group Corporation, which had been officially separated from the Chinese military but the year before, was the buyer.

The 2009 Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sale in Paris

Bronze rabbit and rat, taken from the Yuanming Yuan 160 years ago. Featured in the sale of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. The heads were presented to China by François-Henri Pinault in 2013.

Fast forward to the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé drove auction afterward Yves Saint Laurent's death, which included a pair of bronze heads from the same water-clock, a rabbit and a rat. The sale of these heads from the Yuanming Yuan was already highly politicized considering of where the objects came from. Information technology became fifty-fifty more fraught with controversy when the possessor, Pierre Bergé, offered to bring the heads in person to China in substitution for a pledge by the Chinese government to honor human rights in Tibet.

Both Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé had been deeply concerned virtually the destruction of hundreds of Tibetan sites and monasteries in an endeavour by the Chinese government to eradicate Tibetan civilization. Bergé saw the European looting of 1860 and the Chinese destruction of Tibetan civilisation equally parallel events.

Chinese officials were infuriated. They said Bergé'south offer was "ridiculous."

The Chinese government did not transport an official asking to arbitrate in the sale, held at Christie'southward in Paris, but an independent team of Chinese lawyers did try to stop the sale. Their claim was rejected by a French court before the auction began. After the auction, the buyer, Cai Mingchao, a Chinese collector and auctioneer, refused to pay every bit a protest. He was lauded equally a hero in China.

It was made clear to Christie'southward that the Chinese government was unhappy with the auction of the zodiac heads. Christie'due south was sanctioned by the Chinese government inside hours of the sale. Christie's direction was probable aware that Chinese buyers would hesitate to purchase from the auction house if it was in disfavor with the Chinese government. In 2013, François-Henri Pinault, whose company, Groupe Artémis, owns Christie's as well as Chateau Latour, Gucci, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, and other loftier-stop consumer lines, presented the 2 heads to Communist china as a good-volition gesture.

Tv set and movies recharge and reinvent the trauma

Poster for the motion picture, Chinese Zodiac, starring Jackie Chan. "Twelve heads. Five continents. One man."

The political importance of retrieving the twelve zodiacal heads (which have also been 'recreated' in gold and bronze by contemporary artist Ai Weiwei), is complex and in some means contradictory. The original heads were really made past a Milanese Jesuit, Brother Giuseppe Castiglione. He was a young painter, trained in the Milanese way, who became a missionary and traveled to China in 1715, where he became enamored of Chinese painting. The Emperor Quianlong supported and encouraged Castiglione, who worked nether the Chinese proper noun Lang Shih-ning. The artist developed a syncretic style that composite both Chinese and Western artistic traditions. Thus, artworks made past an Italian have come to typify Chinese national heritage.

What makes these particular statuary objects important 'cultural holding' in part arises from their exposure in popular culture. In 2005, a 24-office Chinese goggle box series called "Palace Artist" was made virtually Castiglione, who was played by a pop thespian from Canada, Marker Roswell, known as Dashan in China. In 2011, Jackie Chan donated replicas of the zodiac heads for an exhibition in the southern branch of Taiwan'south National Museum. The exhibition was targeted by vandals for political reasons and as well criticized on the ground that replicas were not museum-worthy. In 2012 the museum removed the zodiac heads from exhibit. Chan also made a 2013 martial arts movie called Chinese Zodiac about hunting down stolen national treasures. Chan starred as Asian Hawk, directing a squad of relic hunters who raced confronting fourth dimension to find the bronze busts of 12 Chinese zodiac animals before the head of a ruthless corporation could destroy them.

Given the overwhelming attention paid to the looting of the Summer Palace, it should probably non surprise Western museums that their collections are seen as fair game. Or that some Chinese buyers encounter the render of artworks from colonial collections, even through theft, as a way of reclaiming their heritage. Items known to have come from the Beijing Summer Palace are particularly politically charged, and the cease justifies the ways, even if illegal.

The idea that you can correct history or settle a score past returning fine art is emotionally appealing to many. Yet, there was no legally sustainable claim for repatriation in the sales in Hong Kong or Paris; the objections raised were based either on the notion that all cultural property belongs in its country of origin or on the wrongful fashion in which these particular bronzes were taken. Perhaps the position of Pierre Bergé is the most straightforward; intolerance for domestic dissent and repression of minorities is far more consequential to a nation's cultural life than the temporary displacement of a few pieces of bronze statuary from a mechanical fountain.

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Source: https://culturalpropertynews.org/chinese-art-heists-purloined-treasures/

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