Cultural relics on their way home
lovechina
China Daily 2003-11-19
Cultural relics, remnants of history, are regarded as records of the
rise and fall of a nation.
Many Chinese cultural relics, which have been scattered around the
world over the last century, have started to return home to the
collections of Chinese cultural institutions, enterprises and
residents over the past decade.
This wave of returning artifacts has aroused issues concerning the
protection of China's cultural heritage and the development of the
antique market in the country.
"The hot art market has contributed to the current 'tidal wave', among
other factors," said Kou Qin, assistant general manager of the
Beijing-based China Guardian Auction Co.
More than 30 per cent of the art works appearing at the company's
autumn auction were collected from overseas.
The coming Guardian auction couldn't be taking place at a better time.
The Chinese art market showed signs of heating up again a fortnight
ago, when an album of flower-and-bird paintings by Chinese artist Qi
Baishi (1863-1957) hit a controversially high price of 16.61 million
yuan (US$2 million).
The price was 10 times the record price Qi's work fetched in global
art circles in 1998.
"The rise in the price of artwork in its home country, and the
forthcoming return of the country's relics from overseas have been a
natural result of the economic boom," said Zhang Yongnian, director of
the non-governmental China Cultural Relics Recovery Fund. "It occurred
in Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) when Japanese and Korean art
pieces began to return from overseas in the 1980s and 1990s."
Like other ancient civilizations, China has seen many cultural relics
taken overseas when the country was subjected to wars and
international bullying, said Zhang.
In 1860, invading British and French armies looted and burned down the
Old Summer Palace, which was known then as the "garden of gardens."
In 1900, the invading British, American, German, French, Russian,
Japanese, Italian and Austrian troops sparked looting throughout
Beijing, including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, temples and
mausoleums, government offices and residential houses.
"Items housed in Beijing from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) to date,
from historical files to national treasures, have been swept away,"
according to official documents from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Of the numerous cultural relics that were taken out of the country in
the 100 years after the First Opium War (1840-42), a large number are
now stored at major public museums in Europe and the United States,
said Lin Shuzhong, a professor with the Nanjing Academy of Arts.
For instance, relics from the Old Summer Palace have been showcased in
the British Museum and the Fontainebleau Art Museum of France.
The relics that have returned mostly come from individual collectors
and private museums, said Zhang.
Zhang said there are three major ways for a country to recover
cultural relics from overseas collections: to apply international
conventions, to purchase them and to get them back as donations.
Difficult homecoming
Some Chinese experts argue that the country should stop buying
pilfered cultural relics and simply ask for them to be returned by
applying international conventions.
China signed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and
Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of
Cultural Property in 1970 and the International Institute for the
Unification of Private Law Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported
Cultural Objects in 1995.
Many signatory countries, such as China, Egypt and Greece, hope to
recover cultural objects stolen from their countries under those
conventions.
But unfortunately the countries with the most valuable cultural relics
from other countries, especially developing ones, including the United
States and Britain, have not signed the two conventions.
International institutions have made several major donations and
returned Chinese cultural relics to their home since 1949.
In 1951 and 1954 the Leningrad University, the Lenin Library and the
Soviet Union Academy of Sciences opened their collections and returned
64 volumes of the 600-year-old Yongle Encyclopedia to the Chinese
Government.
China has also bought cultural relics back, said Zhang.
Statistics provided by the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics show
that more than 3,000 cultural relics came from overseas in 2002 and
were sold in China, but no statistics were given on whether they
stayed in the country.
Among them a large part were brought to the Chinese market by
auctioneers, according to the society.
"The shortage in relics supplies spurred us to search overseas," said
Kou Qin.
Kou said that in 1993 and 1994, the first two or three auction houses
founded in Beijing sold art works which were mainly confiscated from
households during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). The owners of
the relics couldn't be found after the turbulent 10-year period.
Some senior collectors also had pieces in their collection auctioned
off so that they would be able to move out of their shabby quarters
into larger and better houses or apartments.
In 1996, the number of auction houses in Beijing was more than 20.
However, art collectors have declined to sell more pieces after they
had moved into large houses. The additional cash they earned from
auctions had found no ideal channels for investments.
Meanwhile, State-owned antique shops, a major supplier for
auctioneers, could provide less and less real relics.
As the supply problems became apparent, the auctioneers have turned to
parts of the country they had neglected, such as East China's Jiangsu
and Zhejiang provinces and Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, and
also to overseas.
Private contributions
Many collectors of Chinese art in Europe and the United States are
Chinese who left the country before 1949.
"As all are above 70, they have to decide the fate of their
collections - either to donate them to foreign museums, to leave them
to descendants or to return them to China," said Kou.
"Deep in their hearts, many of them would prefer to return the relics
if they can be well-preserved in the country."
Among the collectors is Weng Wan'ge, descendant of Weng Tonghe
(1830-1904). The latter, a renowned scholar, was a tutor of Emperor
Guangxu (1871-1908) of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The old man cried with happiness in 2000 when "Weng's books" - the
family's collection of ancient books and the most famous collection of
its kind in the last two centuries - were sold prior to auction to the
Shanghai Library.
"I wandered throughout the Americas, thinking of my family's books
which I have said goodbye to. I cannot help missing them, but feel
relieved as they are back in the motherland," said Weng in his
congratulatory letter following the deal.
The rise in prices of cultural relics in China has also helped
collectors to make up their minds, said Kou.
The price of ancient Chinese paintings and calligraphy works in China
has exceeded that in the New York or London art markets, but the price
in ceramics and jewelry still remains lower, he said.
The record price of Chinese paintings was set last year, when a
painting by 12th-century Emperor Huizong was sold for 23 million yuan
(US$2.77 million) at a Beijing auction.
But the painting, owned by a Japanese collector prior to the auction,
allegedly went to a US museum.
"Some Chinese institutions showed interest prior to the auction, but
they estimated the price would stay below 15 million yuan (US$1.8
million)," said Kou.
When the relics are pushed to the Chinese market, the booming purchase
power in art makes it possible for them to stay, said Kou.
A new generation of art collectors has appeared in China, said Yi
Suhao, general manager of the Sungari International Auction Co.
Meanwhile, business giants like the Poly Group and the Shide Group
have been buying cultural relics from abroad. The former is giving an
exhibition in Beijing of the four copper sculptures of animal heads in
its collection, which were looted by invading British and French
troops from the Old Summer Palace in 1860.
To encourage businesses to get involved in helping bring the relics
home, the China Cultural Relics Recovery Fund was founded last year.
Businesses making donations to the fund get tax exemptions, which are
approved by the central government. The fund has been the first and
the only art foundation in China that enjoys such a policy widely
adopted in Europe and the United States.
Chinese public museums have also delved into the market. In July, the
Palace Museum in Beijing bought the ancient calligraphy work of Eulogy
of Launching the Campaign (Chushi Song) for 22 million yuan (US$2.65
million).
However, Fu Xinian, a renowned researcher on cultural relics, pointed
out that the price of the four volumes of Model Letters from the
Imperial Archive in the Chunhua Reign (Chunhuage Tie) calligraphy
collection, which were bought by the Shanghai Museum from a US
collector in August, had been driven up in heated competition from
several Chinese public museums.
This is "a dangerous tendency of public museums in China of bidding
against each other with taxpayers' money when they buy back Chinese
cultural relics from overseas," Fu said.