China warns Christie’s of ‘consequences’ after Paris auction
By IANSFriday, February 27, 2009
LONDON - China warned of ‘consequences’ after two bronze artefacts taken from a Chinese palace 150 years ago were auctioned off by Christie’s in Paris Wednesday.
In an unusually strong statement, China said it condemned and did not recognise the sale of the bronze rat and rabbit, which were sold for $39 million as part of the estate of the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent.
‘The State Administration of Cultural Heritage resolutely opposes and condemns all auctions of artefacts illegally taken abroad,’ the statement said.
‘Christie’s must take responsibility for the consequences created by this auction,’ it said.
The Cultural Heritage department said it had ‘pressed for the withdrawal of these Summer Palace relics…But Christie’s took its own course and insisted on auctioning the relics looted from the Summer Palace in breach of the spirit of international pacts and the consensus on the return of such artefacts to their original countries’.
A French judge Monday rejected a request by a Chinese-backed group to halt the sale of the two bronzes, which disappeared from the summer Imperial Palace on the outskirts of Beijing when French and British forces sacked it at the close of the second Opium War in 1860.
The row comes amid increasing tensions between China and France over French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with Tibetan leader Dalai Lama last year.
The statement said: ‘The State Administration of Cultural Heritage does not recognise the illegal owners of the looted relics and will continue to utilise all… necessary channels to recover all relics stolen and illegally exported throughout history.’
It said the auction had ‘harmed the cultural rights and national feeling of the Chinese people’ and ‘will have a serious impact on its development in China’.
Christie’s said it regretted Beijing’s move to impose reprisal measures and stood by the sale, saying the pieces’ legal ownership had been ‘clearly confirmed’.
‘We continue to believe that sale by public auction offers the best opportunity for items to be repatriated as a result of worldwide exposure,’ the firm said in a statement.
