It happened again, another looted piece of Chinese art that was stolen by the British and French troops from the Summer Palace in Beijing went to auction and was sold for 1.68 million Euros. This time, the piece of art is a jade imperial seal with two dragons carved in the top. The winning bidder was Chinese, but claimed to be representing a French buyer.
The art piece itself came from a descendant of a French general who was at the Summer Palace. The Chinese government also protested this sale, as they did the auction of the zodiac bronze animal heads from the Summer Palace, which 8asians covered in an earlier blog post.
The Chinese government also failed to stop this auction. While this auction doesn’t feature as highly visible art pieces as the animal heads, it does put another thorn in French – Chinese relations.
While some pieces of stolen and looted art are finding their way home, such as the recent news about a painting stolen during the Holocaust being returned to surviving family, there’s still a lot of work to be done to set things right.
