China hopes to send experts to foreign museums to build a more complete catalogue of the Chinese artefacts looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace in foreign museums (many of which are not on public display).

From:
Agence France Presse

China experts to search abroad for looted relics
(AFP) – 2 days ago

BEIJING — China will send a team of experts to museums around the world in an effort to record more than a million cultural relics it says were looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace, state press reported Monday.

Museums, libraries and private collections in the United States, Britain, France and Japan will be the primary targets, the China Daily reported, citing the director of Beijing’s Yuanmingyuan, or Old Summer Palace.
Read the rest of this entry »

An exhibition of Chinese artefacts in Taiwan is opening as planned, but it is overshadowed by Taiwan’s unwillingness to reciprocate the loan for fear that artefacts will be seized by China because there is no law in place to give legal protection that they will not be. This is however, unlike some similar cases, as much a reflection of the nature of the tensions between China & Taiwan as it is on the relative risk of the exhibition taking place.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Taiwan and China at loggerheads over treasured artworks
The opening of a historic exhibition of Chinese cultural artefacts in Taiwan has been overshadowed by the refusal of Taiwanese authorities to allow its own collection to be displayed in China.
By Jonathan Liew
Published: 9:36AM BST 12 Oct 2009

The Palace Museum in Beijing has lent 37 pieces to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, for an exhibition of artefacts belonging to the 18th-century Chinese emperor Yongzheng, which opened this week.

However, the director of the Taipei museum said that it would not reciprocate, for fear that any works that it sent to China would be seized.
Read the rest of this entry »

The opening of the New Acropolis Museum is proceeding towards the main event on 20th June. Although Greece is waiting until after the opening before announcing any new initiatives for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures, most press reports are still (rightly) observing that the buildings raison d’etre is the creation of a new home for the marbles.

From:
Xinhua

New Acropolis Museum to showcase complete Parthenon sculptures
2009-06-19 12:20:41
by Liang Yeqian

ATHENS, June 19 (Xinhua) — Visitors from across the world will admire the complete sculptures of the famous Parthenon Temple for the first time when the new Acropolis Museum officially opens on June 20.

Dimitros Pantermalis, director of the new museum, told Xinhua that all of the Parthenon Temple sculptures owned by Greece will be displayed on the third floor of the new museum.
Read the rest of this entry »

In recent weeks, there have been a number of controversial auctions involving looted artefacts. The attention that these auctions have attracted highlights how strongly many people feel about cultural property cases.

From:
Digital Chosun ilbo (Korea)

Updated Mar.30,2009 12:59 KST
Efforts for the Return of Our Heritage Must Continue

Gandhi’s personal effects went up for sale at auction in New York on Mar. 6 and were bought by an Indian billionaire. Among his belongings were also a pocket watch, his sandals, and a bowl. Gandhi had presented the iconic round spectacles to a British colonel during the 1930s, telling him that they had given him the vision to free India. The leather sandals were given to a British officer before a roundtable meeting on Indian independence in 1931 because the officer took photographs of Gandhi.

News that these memorabilia were being auctioned off sparked outrage among India’s 1.1 billion people. The government and Gandhi’s descendents expressed their objections, saying it was an insult to Gandhi’s memory. The American seller responded he would cancel the auction if the Indian government sharply increased its spending on the poor by cutting its defense budget in half.
Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst there may be a solution to the issue of the Chinese bronze sculptures being sold by the partner of Yves Saint Lauren, it is clear that there is not an easy option that will not leave one side feeling cheated. The sculptures have changed hands many times since leaving China, so the current owners feel that they hold no responsibility for occurrences long ago in the history of the artefacts.

From:
Economic Observer Online

CULTURE
A Sober Look at Sorting out the Cultural Relic Scandal
From Lifestyle, issue no. 409, March 9, 2009
Translated by Zhang Junting

A rabbit and a rat removed from the Old Summer Palace; twenty-eight million euros in compensation; an invasion of Anglo-French into imperial Beijing, a Chinese legal team descending on Paris; a mysterious buyer’s irresistible offer and sudden refusal to pay; an auction and a demonstration; an heirloom, art-room, and nationalism abloom…

But before we delve into the heart of what may have been the most drama-packed auction in history, let’s rewind to its lengthy preface:
Read the rest of this entry »

Evidence suggests that an artefact currently on loan to the British Museum for a temporary exhibition may have been illegally excavated. It could be argued that although the museum does not own the artefact, it is going against its own loan guidelines in accepting it for the exhibition.

From:
The Art Newspaper

Bronze at British Museum may be loot
Drum stand now owned by Shanghai Museum but origins unclear
By Martin Bailey
Posted online: 11.3.09 | From Issue 200 (March 2009)

LONDON. The centrepiece of the Chinese bronzes exhibition, “Treasures from Shanghai”, at London’s British Museum appears to have been illegally excavated within the past few years. However, it is now legitimately the property of the Shanghai Museum. The British Museum show is the first time the bronze has been exhibited.

Dating from 770-476 BC, the drum stand is decorated with three intertwined dragons. It probably comes from the tomb of a ruler, from a site that is unknown to archaeologists, possibly in Shanxi Province. Other important finds, such as musical instruments, may well have been looted from the tomb.
Read the rest of this entry »

In an increasingly globalised economy, auction houses are finding themselves caught in the middle of disputes over cultural property.
This is not something that they can easily ignore though, as te disputes often involve countries as well as individuals – countries that these same auction houses also want to operate within.

From:
The Independent

Auctioneers ‘hit in China bronzes row’
By James Pomfret and Ben Blanchard, Reuters
Tuesday, 10 March 2009

The heated row over Christie’s sale of looted Chinese bronze animal heads in Paris is being closely watched by key art market players for possible signs of a broader fallout.

Since Christie’s ignored protests from Beijing and last month auctioned off a pair of bronze rat and rabbit heads which were stolen from the Old Summer Palace in 1860, Chinese authorities have slapped strict checks on all future imports and exports by Christie’s, making it potentially more difficult to source top relics.
Read the rest of this entry »

This piece on the Chinese Bronzes identifies Cai Mingchao as China’s Melina Mercouri – someone who will spearhead the fight to reunify cultural property with its homeland. Events such as the ones involving the bronzes often re-expose fault lines in international relations that people had thought were long forgotten, by highlighting the inequities of the past.

From:
Financial Times

Beijing bronzes expose faultline with west
By Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: March 6 2009 19:15 | Last updated: March 6 2009 19:15

Mention the Earls of Elgin and one notorious holder of the title springs to mind – the one-time British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (and 7th earl) who, in 1801, removed the marble sculptures from the Parthenon that are now housed in the British Museum.

His son is less well-known, but he was also responsible for what many view as an infamous act of cultural vandalism. In the aftermath of the second opium war in 1860, it was the 8th Earl of Elgin who ordered French, British and Punjabi soldiers to destroy the Old Summer Palace in Beijing.
Read the rest of this entry »

Two recent auctions of disputed cultural property have drawn media attention to items that few people knew about previously. In both cases though, an added dimension has been created by attempts by the selling party to agree some sort of conditions under which they might be able to solve the dispute. This could be seen as an implicit acknowledgement that the restitution claims carry a level of validity, but in each case it has been used as a means to try & push a political agenda.

Standing back from the cases & temporarily setting aside the way in which the artefacts were acquired, it comes across as artefacts being taken, but then they can be returned to the original owners if they meet certain conditions. One has to ask, whether it is right for these selling parties to try & grab some small chunk of moral high ground (that they are prepared to negotiate – return the artefacts) where in reality they are holding the pieces to ransom as a means of trying to resolve other entirely unrelated issues. Whether or not the issues need to be resolved should not be the question & the setting of arduous preconditions to negotiations is merely a means of avoiding discussions that the sellers were never really interested in in the first place. The British Museum has in the past tried to attach similar preconditions to entering negotiations on the Elgin Marbles – as a barrier to prevent any sort of negotiations taking place.

From:
MSNBC

Chinese bronzes, Gandhi’s glasses in art tussle
updated 8:47 p.m. ET March 8, 2009
Art auctions becoming battlegrounds over rights to world’s culture

LONDON – A bronze rabbit’s head was the first to go under the hammer, then came Mohandas Gandhi’s glasses and sandals.

Auctions are becoming a new battleground for art dealers, activists and aggrieved countries dueling for plundered antiquities and lost pieces of heritage.
Read the rest of this entry »

Many disputed artefacts only appear above the radar during the rare moments when they change hands. As a result, it is hardly surprising, that the relatively light regulation of auction houses is also brought to the fore when various parties are making claims that they are dealing in potentially stolen property.

From:
The Times

March 7, 2009
Richard Morrison on art auctions
Chinese sabotage at Christie’s is a warning to every owner of antiquities

One man’s terrorist, it’s often said, is another man’s freedom-fighter. Happily, there was no violence at Christie’s “auction of the century” in Paris last week. But the fury of the reactions to an act of sabotage by an incensed Chinese bidder has rocked the arts world.

The sale was of the late Yves Saint Laurent’s art collection. It went for a cool £330 million. But £28 million of that won’t be paid. It was the winning bid for two 18th-century bronzes, once part of a set of 12 animal figureheads on a water-clock in the Summer Palace outside Beijing. The fountain must have been rather cute in its prime. Each animal in turn spouted water for two hours a day. Then at noon all 12 would effusively spray in aquatic unison.
Read the rest of this entry »

Different countries have in recent years used a wide range of techniques to try & secure the return of disputed artefacts. Some of these approaches have had more success than others.

From:
South China Morning Post

Countries go to greater lengths to get looted treasures back
5 Mar 2009
South China Morning Post

China is not the only nation that wants missing relics back and many countries employ different means to retrieve them, write Tim Johnson and Julie Sell

Cambodia, are barely able to halt the plunder of sites like the ancient Angkor temples complex.
Read the rest of this entry »

The auctions of Chinese bronzes & of Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles have both stirred up controversy, leading many commentators to highlight how many other similar unresolved cases there are.

From:
My Sinchew

They Are Auctioning Their Ancestors’ Shame
2009-03-04 12:35

When Chinese people are protesting against the auction of the two rabbit and rat bronze sculpture heads, the news of Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic spectacles, which he once said gave him “the vision to free India”, are to be sold at an auction in New York on 5 March, has caused public revulsion in India.

India, China, Egypt and Babylon are the world’s four great ancient civilizations. Sadly, in the human warfare history which is full of killings, a large number of relics from these ancient civilizations have become the victors’ bloody war trophies and are now losing abroad.
Read the rest of this entry »