In July 2008, the French Christie's auction house issued a communiqué announcing that it would hold a special auction of "The Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé" in February 2009, including During the war, the lost cultural relics of the Old Summer Palace in China were looted by the British and French forces and lost overseas for many years. The bronze statues of rat heads and rabbit heads were lost cultural relics. After this news reached China, it caused a strong response.
At 8 pm on February 25, 2009, at the special auction of "The Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge" held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, the rat head numbered 677 Bidding starts at 9 million euros. No one raised a sign at the 1,200-seat venue, and only three phone buyers were vying to bid. The auctioneer calls the phone agent "Doma." After bidding of 10 million, 11 million, 12 million, and 13 million, the rat head was finally sold for 14 million euros. After that, the rabbit head numbered 678 started bidding at 10 million, and was finally sold for 14 million euros. Buyers also participate in the auction by phone.
Faced with this auction result, Zheng Xinyao, deputy secretary-general of the China Auction Industry Association, said in an interview with reporters that from the $1,500 price of a bronze horse head statue in 1985 to the price of a bronze statue of a rat head and a rabbit head this time, The statues sold for 14 million euros each, and the bronze animal head statue in the Old Summer Palace increased 12,000 times in 24 years. From a pure art auction market perspective, today's prices are far greater than the intrinsic value of these two cultural relics. Therefore, he called on the Chinese people to be wary of people taking advantage of our national sentiments for malicious commercial hype.
According to Zheng Xinyao, the bronze animal head statue of the Old Summer Palace is also known as the Old Summer Palace bronze animal head of the twelve zodiac animals, and the Old Summer Palace bronze animal head statue of the twelve zodiac animals. The bronze animal head statue in the Old Summer Palace was originally part of the fountain outside the Haiyan Hall of the Old Summer Palace. It was a red bronze statue made during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. It was also the nozzle of the "hydraulic clock" in the original fountain of the Old Summer Palace. The full name of this "hydraulic clock" is "Zodiac Time Fountain". The bronze statues of the twelve zodiac animal heads are in the shape of an "eight" and are arranged on the human stone platforms on both sides of the fountain. Each animal is a fountain mechanism. Every hour, the corresponding animal's mouth will spray water for two hours.
It was only $1,500 in the 1980s.
Zheng Xinyao said that in 1985, an American antique dealer accidentally discovered a bronze statue of a horse head from the Old Summer Palace in a private residence in California. Along with it were bronze statues of an ox head and a tiger head. The antique dealer bought these three bronze heads at a low price of US$1,500 each. From 1987 to 1989, these three bronze animal heads and monkey heads from the Old Summer Palace appeared at auctions in New York and London. The highest price at that time was a horse head, which was only US$250,000.
The Hong Kong auction introduced the Chinese people to the animal heads from the Old Summer Palace
At the end of April and early May 2000, at the auctions of Christie's Hong Kong and Sotheby's Hong Kong, cow heads, monkey heads and tiger heads were sold. The first bronze statue appeared. At that time, the two auction companies' practices of auctioning lost cultural relics aroused great indignation from all walks of life in Hong Kong and mainland China. In the end, China Poly Group Company resolutely participated in the auction and bought the cow head for HKD 7.745 million, the monkey head for HKD 8.185 million, and the tiger head for HKD 15.44475 million (both prices included the auction company's commission).
In early September 2007, Sotheby's auction company announced that it would auction a bronze statue of a horse head under the name of "Eight-Power Allied Forces - Relics of the Old Summer Palace". When the news came out, people from all walks of life were in an uproar. The China Special Fund to Rescue Lost Overseas Cultural Relics took the lead in issuing a statement that it "firmly opposes the public auction of bronze horse head statues" and proposed that the return of horse heads should be achieved in a public welfare manner. At a critical moment, Dr. Stanley Ho, a patriotic entrepreneur from Hong Kong and Macao and a consultant on the national treasure project, purchased the horse head bronze statue for HKD 69.1 million before the auction on September 20 and announced that he would donate it to the country. The only one that did not involve the auction company and returned as a charity was the pig head bronze statue, but it was also related to Stanley Ho. The American collector agreed to transfer the bronze pig head statue to the special fund. In September 2003, Stanley Ho donated more than 6 million yuan to the special fund to buy back the bronze pig head statue.
14 million euros is far greater than the true value of the cultural relics
Zheng Xinyao said that the price of 14 million euros for the rat-head and rabbit-head bronze statues in Paris was completely different from a commercial perspective. Unbelievable. Xie Chensheng, a well-known cultural relic expert and honorary president of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society, said yesterday that the rat and rabbit head bronze statues are just architectural components. If they are not connected to the Old Summer Palace and the invasion of the British and French coalition forces, their value cannot be very high. of. Because of this connection, it has new value, and this value is a witness to national humiliation.
Li Xiaodong, vice president of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society, also believed yesterday that the price of the animal heads in the Old Summer Palace was completely hyped. As building components, their value will be greatly reduced if they leave the building. Therefore, they do not have independent value like a famous painting from the Song Dynasty or a complete bronze from the Shang Dynasty. The current hype has fueled businessmen’s need to make profits. Therefore, in the first auction, the three bronze statues were only about 30 million Hong Kong dollars. By 2007, one horse head was worth 69.1 million Hong Kong dollars, and it was all speculated in this way. From a commercial perspective, this Paris auction is naturally higher than the price of HK$69.1 million.
Therefore, the whole process is a kind of commercial hype and does not reflect the true value of these two cultural relics.