Old palace columns coming home
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E-mail China Daily, February 12, 2014
A Norwegian museum will return seven marble columns, taken about 150 years ago from western Beijing's Imperial Yuanmingyuan Garden, or the Old Summer Palace.
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The seven marble columns looted from the Imperial Yuanmingyuan Garden, or the Old Summer Palace, about 150 years ago were on exhibit at the Kode Art Museum of Bergen, Norway. The museum will return the columns to China in September. [Photo/China Daily] |
The deal was reached under a trilateral agreement made by the museum, Chinese tycoon Huang Nubo and Peking University. The columns will return to China in September and be publicly exhibited at Peking University after maintenance and restoration work.
Huang, chairman of Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, will donate 10 million Norwegian kroner ($1.63 million) to the museum.
Huang told China Daily that the museum donation is not a trade or "throwing away money", but "a very meaningful action that shows patriotism, as well as a way of repaying back the mother country, which made me rich".
Karin Hindsbo, director of the Kode Art Museum in Bergen, told China Daily that "the donation shall be used on academic research and the general care of our collections of Chinese art".
"A donation like this makes a world of difference for Kode," Hindsbo said.
Huang said he was invited to visit the art museum in Bergen, Norway's second-largest city, by then-director Erlend G. Hoyersten when Huang was at a Sino-Scandinavian poets' exchange event in Norway last year.
"The moment I saw the columns, my eyes teared up. After all, the lost relics from Yuanmingyuan represent an indelible history for all Chinese," Huang said. "I told the museum staff the relics should not be on show, and they were sympathetic to my feelings."
During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), British and French expeditionary forces invaded the garden in 1860, removing its precious imperial collections and burning the rest.
Norwegian cavalry officer Johan W.N. Munthe got some of them from unknown sources and donated 2,500 Chinese artifacts to the Kode museum in the early 20th century.
According to Zheng Lihong with the Yuanmingyuan park, the marble columns, representing a combination of old Chinese stone arts and Western artistic influence, were originally installed in the Western-styled part of the garden.
Zheng has not commented on the return of the columns.
Huang said the relics were not in good shape when he visited.
"I heard the museum was robbed twice. And they came to me in hope of getting a sponsor for better protection and maintenance," Huang said.
"The museum is in possession of 21 columns, and has for decades only showed seven. So transferring seven of the 21 columns to China will not be a loss to the museum," Hoyersten told China Daily.
Knowing that Huang is an active philanthropist, especially in culture, Hoyersten, now director of the Aros Museum in Denmark, said: "We know the importance of the columns both culturally and symbolically, and are convinced that the cooperation will benefit all parties involved."
After discussion under terms of no trading and no personal collecting, they decided to have Peking University, Huang's alma mater, take possession of the columns. In return, the university will send a team of experts to help sort out the remaining Chinese relics in the museum.
Hoyersten hailed the agreement as "an academic, ethical and practical solution". Hindsbo, the museum's current director, agreed, saying, "This is a unique opportunity for Kode to have an extensive collaboration with Peking University and to raise our academic research to a much higher level than we would else have been able to".
Peking University spokesperson Jiang Langlang expressed faith in the plan and said university officials are working out the details.
"We're glad to be part of the great deed our schoolfellow brings about, to return relics to safe and professional hands," he said.
Hoyersten also believes that the collaboration opens up a new mode for cultural relics to go back to China, and "takes it to a higher level. The importance of the three parties involved cannot be underestimated".
The lost cultural treasure of China often makes headlines. In 2013, Francois-Henri Pinault, representing the Pinault family, created a sensation by returning the bronze Rat Head and Rabbit Head, also from Yuanmingyuan.
Yuanmingyuan has launched campaigns to retrieve relics scattered worldwide. According to some estimates, Yuanmingyuan alone lost more than 1.5 million relics, according to some estimates.
Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, told Guangming Daily in a June interview that the Chinese government encourages the unconditional donation of lost relics from overseas as a sound way of returning them.
Song said China follows the international conventions on lost relics and reserves the legal right to retrieve them.
To Huang, the returned columns represent "dignity returned to Chinese people". Huang said he will further promote via the "National Treasures Coming Home" campaign he's to launch when the ceremony for the marble columns is held in September.
"I feel the donation makes my hard-earned money worthy, at least worthier than buying a private jet," Huang said. "Because the marble columns are educational and historic to the young people.
"They were our disgrace. And their returning indicates we're a stronger country now. I hope people are proud of them," Huang said.
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