Originally a bronze statue of Dashuifa in front of Haiyan Hall in Yuanmingyuan, it was looted and lost overseas after 1860, and was bought back by China Poly Group Company. Now it is collected in Beijing Poly Art Museum.
Around May 2000, several pieces of Yuanmingyuan cultural relics were auctioned in Hong Kong cultural relics auction, among which three pieces were bronze heads of cows, monkeys and tigers on the fountain of the zodiac in Haiyan Hall of Xiyang Building.
Tang Haiyan Zodiac Fountain is a fountain clock designed according to China Zodiac. Every hour, the zodiac clock that belongs to the engraving will automatically spray water, and at noon, the zodiac will also spray water at the same time.
The design is extremely exquisite. When Britain and France were robbed, they also regarded it as the most precious treasure. You also get people with special identities.
At the auction, the bronze tiger head sold for 6.5438+0.4 million, the bronze bull head sold for 7 million and the bronze monkey head sold for 7.4 million. It is a little gratifying that these three treasures of Yuanmingyuan were bought by two domestic companies.
The bronze statues of pig's head and horse's head were bought back by Dr. Stanley Ho, a famous patriotic industrialist in Macao Special Administrative Region, for more than 6 million yuan and 60 million yuan, and donated to Poly Art Museum.
2. Bronze statue of pig head
The bronze statue of pig head was originally placed in front of Haiyan Hall in the West Tower Scenic Area of Yuanmingyuan, Beijing. At that time, there was a head of the zodiac in front of Haiyan Hall, which represented 12 hours of a day. Water was sprayed in turn every day on time and at the same time at noon. The scene is spectacular.
The bronze statue of the animal head is the crystallization of the blending of eastern and western arts, with vivid image and fine workmanship, which occupies an extremely important position in the history of sculpture art in China.
The bronze cast dog head was originally juxtaposed with the other eleven bronze statues of the zodiac in the Yuanmingyuan in Beijing, but when the British and French allied forces invaded and burned the Yuanmingyuan, they stole the bronze statues of the zodiac.
This spring, the bronze statue of "Pig's Head" was visited by a private collector in the United States by people from the China Special Fund for Saving Lost Overseas Cultural Relics. After repeated identification by experts, it is considered that the bronze statue belongs to the same series as the three bronze statues previously collected by Poly, and it can be confirmed that it is one of the bronze statues of the Twelve Zodiacs in Dashui Law of Yuanmingyuan.
After arduous negotiations, the American collector finally agreed to transfer this precious cultural relic. After receiving this news, Mr. Stanley Ho quickly got in touch with the China Special Fund for Saving Lost Overseas Cultural Relics, and invested in the purchase of national treasures for the fund and donated them to the Poly Art Museum for collection.
As for how much it cost to recover the national treasure, Poly did not disclose it. Unfortunately, there is also a pit on the top of the pig's head, which is estimated to be made by the butt of a gun.
China Poly Art Museum once spent HK$ 33010.7 million to buy three bronze Yuanmingyuan cultural relics from Christie's and Sotheby's.
3. Jinyou Gu Yong Cup
"Jin 'ou Gu Yong Cup" is a special wine glass for the opening ceremony held by the Qing emperors on New Year's Day every year. There are seal characters of "Jin Ou Gu Yong" and "Qianlong Year System" on the rim of the cup.
According to the records in the archives of the Qing Dynasty's internal affairs office, Qianlong attached great importance to the production of the "Golden Ou Yonggu Cup", not only using precious materials such as gold, pearls and gems in the library, but also carefully drawing patterns before each process in the production process until the emperor was very satisfied.
According to records, during the Qianlong period, * * * made four "Golden Ou" cups, one for four years, two for five years and one for sixty-two years (the second year of Jiaqing).
The bronze cup in the Armed Forces Museum of Wallace Collection should have been made in Qianlong for four years, and the top of this cup is not inlaid with pearls. Five years of dry dragon, aiming at setting beads on the top of Solanum nigrum. The gold cup in the armament hall of Wallace Collection is filled with pearls, which should have been made in Qianlong for five years.
Another five-year "Jin Ou Gu Yong" cup is in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, while the 62-year "Jin Ou Gu Yong" cup is in the National Palace Museum in Beijing.
4. Gu Jun Map
Gu Jun is a paper ink painting created by Gong Kai, a painter in Yuan Dynasty. It depicts a hungry horse. It is skinny and can hardly lift its head, but it can still feel its indomitable spirit from its torch-like eyes. ?
"Gu Jun Map" combines words and dyes to describe the bones, muscles, tail, hooves and wrists of horses, which is quite rough.
In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), the British and French allied forces looted the Yuanmingyuan. This painting was looted from the Yuanmingyuan and then transferred to Japan, and was collected by Fukujiro Abe (1868- 1937).
Abe Fukujiro was a Japanese textile giant in the early 20th century. He was deeply influenced by Kansai sinologist Naito Hunan (1866- 1934) and Gao Na Yushan (1864- 1942) at that time, and bought paintings and calligraphy from Japan and China.
1May, 937, Jiro Abe died of illness. Before he died, he entrusted the collection collected from the society to his family, namely the Angelica Society. 1943, his eldest son, Jiro Abe, donated 160 pieces of ancient China paintings and calligraphy to Osaka City Art Museum, which became the pillar of the museum's early collection. This painting is still preserved in Osaka City Art Museum, Japan.
5. Atlas of Return Speech
The Return of the Native is an ancient painting of China created by painter Qian Xuan at the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty. In the picture of returning home, the left half is a slope with a yard; The right half is full of smoke and water, and you can see the faint mountains in the distance.
There is a wooden boat in the water on the slope bank. Tao Yuanming stood at the bow in a robe with big sleeves, and a teenager paddled at the stern. Look at the rippling waves. The wooden boat broke through the water and headed for the shore.
On the other hand, there are six willows on the green bank of shallow island, with dense branches and leaves; Between a raised courtyard wall, there is a Chai Men open, and several bamboo sticks stick out of the wall, which is probably Tao Yuanming's residence. There are two children and a woman in front of the door, who seem to be welcoming Tao Yuanming home.
In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), when the British and French allied forces robbed Yuanmingyuan, because of the cultural differences between China and the West, westerners did not recognize paintings and calligraphy works, so few allied officers and men robbed paintings and calligraphy works.
But this painting still hasn't escaped the fate of being robbed. After the withdrawal of the British and French allied forces, from the fifth day of October in the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), the Qing government, headed by Sheng Bao and others, went door to door to search for the cultural relics of Yuanmingyuan near Sanshan.
Among them, on the fifth day of 10, at a bandit den in Changping, six paintings and calligraphy works were found, such as The Return of the Native, The Axis of Daoguang Emperor's Happy Autumn Pavilion and The Axis of Floating Jade Mountain. The bandits took advantage of the British and French allied forces to rob and enter the garden. "Answer Atlas" was re-entered into ouchi.
This scroll was later acquired by John Calvin Ferguson, an American senior at Huiwen College (the predecessor of Nanjing University). John Calvin Ferguson became more and more interested in China culture, especially cultural relics. After the Revolution of 1911, he began to devote himself to studying China culture, especially keen on identifying and collecting China antique calligraphy and painting. John Calvin Ferguson died on 1945 at the age of 79.
19 13, John Calvin Ferguson donated the Atlas of Returning Words to the Metropolitan Museum of America.
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