The hero of this story is a moral and patriotic Chinese man named Cai Mingchao who
... seeks to bring looted artifacts back to China, and said he had acted out of patriotic duty.In the same spirit, China should return the land it looted from Tibetans and stop its attempt to loot Taiwan from Taiwanese. Failure to do so is essentially a statement: mine is mine; yours is also mine.
[If the picture shows only one head, please right click the picture and view image.]
Two Qing dynasty bronze heads on display last month for an auction in Paris. Beijing says they rightfully belong to China.
HONG KONG — A Chinese man’s assertion that he sabotaged the auction of two Qing dynasty bronzes at Christie’s in Paris last week handed Beijing a wry public-relations coup on Monday after it battled for months to block the sale.
The man, Cai Mingchao, a collector and auctioneer, said at a news conference in Beijing that he had submitted the two winning $18 million bids for the bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit on Wednesday, but that he had no intention of paying for them. He described himself as a consultant for a nongovernmental group that seeks to bring looted artifacts back to China, and said he had acted out of patriotic duty.
Beijing had vigorously protested the sale of the heads, saying they were looted from an imperial palace outside Beijing in the 19th century and should be returned to China. A group of Chinese lawyers tried to block the auction, but a French court allowed it to proceed. Several Western experts on cultural property said that whatever moral arguments might favor Beijing, it had no legal claim to the bronzes.
Christie’s declined Monday to confirm whether Mr. Cai, 44, had submitted the winning bids, saying it did not identify anonymous sellers or buyers. Edward Dolman, chief executive of Christie’s International, emphasized that because the auction house did not release property without payment, the bronze heads were still the property of Pierre Bergé.
Mr. Bergé was the companion and business partner of Yves Saint Laurent. Over all, the auction of the personal collection of Mr. Bergé and Mr. Saint Laurent was considered a success.
“Pierre Bergé was exercising his legal rights to sell them,” Mr. Dolman said. “We had a number of interested buyers who bid to significant levels.” The next-highest bid for each bronze was around $17 million.
Months earlier, Mr. Dolman pointed out, Christie’s privately offered the heads to the Chinese government at a price “significantly less than the underbidder was willing to pay” on Wednesday. “They rejected the offer because they thought the price was too high,” he said.
Still, the latest twist suggests that Christie’s and Mr. Bergé may have underestimated China’s determination to foil the sale. Mr. Bergé even seemed to goad Chinese officials before the auction, declaring he would give the heads to China if it would “observe human rights and give liberty to the Tibetan people and welcome the Dalai Lama.”
If Mr. Cai is indeed the winning bidder, his strategy raises the possibility that other well-heeled citizens sympathetic to China or other countries’ cultural restitution battles could disrupt sales of other disputed objects.
On the surface, it appears that the auction house would have had little reason to doubt Mr. Cai’s bona fides in advance of the sale. The general manager of Xiamen Harmony Art International Auction Company in Fujian Province in southeastern China, Mr. Cai paid a record $15 million in 2006 for a Ming dynasty bronze Buddha statue, for example.
At his news conference in Beijing, Mr. Cai said he submitted Wednesday’s bids for the bronze heads on moral and patriotic grounds. “I think any Chinese person would have stood up at that moment,” he said, adding, “I want to emphasize that the money won’t be paid.”
He said that in any case he did not have the $40 million for the two bronzes, the amount due when commissions are included, although details of his financial situation could not be confirmed.
Kate Malin, a spokeswoman for Christie’s in Hong Kong, said all potential bidders at major auctions were required to submit bank and credit information as part of a registration process.
“You can’t just call up and say, ‘I want to buy a $20 million Picasso,’ ” she said. “You have to provide satisfactory credit and bank information.”
The two bronzes, which date from 1750, were part of a 12-animal water-clock fountain configured around the Chinese zodiac in the imperial gardens of the Summer Palace outside Beijing. In 1860 the palace was sacked by British and French forces during the Opium Wars. Around that time, the heads disappeared.
Mr. Bergé suggested Monday that the Chinese government was behind the apparent collapse of the deal. Speaking on French radio, he said he was “not very surprised” by the latest twist, Agence France-Presse reported.
“The Chinese for a long time would have done anything to recover these pieces,” he said. “They didn’t recover them, so I imagine they pressured a potential buyer not to buy them.”
Mr. Bergé could have asked Christie’s to approach the bidders who were outbid at the auction and to sell the bronzes privately. But he told France-Info radio that he would keep them if Mr. Cai did not pay, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Dolman, when asked if Mr. Cai would be allowed to take part in future Christie’s auctions, said: “He certainly won’t be allowed to bid if it is determined that this was a deliberate act to spoil the auction. Then he has acted unlawfully.”
Aside from the auction dispute, China has also been at odds with the French. In December, Beijing protested a meeting between the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting unrest in Tibet.
Although China failed in its restitution quest, it may have succeeded in delivering a strong message. The spectacle of the Saint Laurent sale proved a riveting stage for its claim. The collection of paintings, sculpture, furniture and knickknacks attracted bidders from around the globe. Parisians lined up for hours to view the objects before the three-day sale at the regal Grand Palais in central Paris.
Of the 12 original bronze fountain pieces taken from the Summer Palace gardens, 7 have been located; the whereabouts of the other 5 are unknown.
The China Poly Group, an arms dealer with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, bought the tiger, ox and monkey heads in 2000.
In 2003, the National Treasures Fund of China, a quasi-governmental group, brokered a deal that brought another of the bronze fountain pieces — a pig’s head — back to China. With about $1 million donated by Stanley Ho, the real estate and casino billionaire from Macao, the head was bought from an American collector, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.
Mr. Ho bought another — a horse’s head — for $8.84 million at an auction by Sotheby’s in 2007. He gave it to China Poly, which owns a museum where it displays the Qing bronzes.
