Among the bronze statues of the animal heads of the zodiac in Yuanmingyuan, there are five that have returned to the motherland at present, namely the bull's head, the monkey's head, the tiger's head, the pig's head and the horse's head. Among them, except the pig's head, the return of the other four bronze statues is related to the auction.

At the end of April and the beginning of May, 2000, bronze heads of cattle, monkeys and tigers appeared at Christie's and Sotheby's Hong Kong Spring Auction. The auction of lost cultural relics by these two auction companies has aroused great indignation from all walks of life in Hong Kong and the Mainland. In the end, China Poly Group participated in the auction, winning the tauren with HK$ 7.745 million, the monkey head with HK$ 8.65438+0.85 million and the tiger head with HK$ 6.5438+0.54475 million.

In September 2007, Sotheby's announced that it would auction bronze horse heads. Dr. Stanley Ho, a patriotic entrepreneur, bought the bronze statue of Horsehead for HK$ 696,543.8 million before the auction and donated it to the country.

The only thing that returned in a public welfare way was the bronze statue of pig's head. At the beginning of 2003, China's special fund for rescuing lost overseas cultural relics searched for the whereabouts of pig head in the United States. After efforts, American collectors agreed to transfer the pig's head to the fund. In September 2003, Stanley Ho donated more than 6 million yuan to the fund to buy back the bronze statue of pig's head.

Except for the five returned pieces, the bronze statues of dragon head, snake head, sheep head, chicken head and dog head are missing, and the bronze statues of mouse head and rabbit head are probably the last two.