Zhou Haisheng (pictured on the left, wearing a hat) and his friend, Taiwanese collector Hsiao Dun-jen, pose for a photo with the "dragon head". The picture on the right is provided by the family of the French diplomat Xie Manlu, and is a photograph taken by Xie Manlu when he purchased the "dragon head" around 1882. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
Heavy news came out of the cultural relics circle on both sides of the strait: the "dragon head", which has been lost for more than 160 years and is one of the 12 zodiac signs of the Old Summer Palace in the Qing Dynasty, has returned to Shanghai from France and has been tested and confirmed by experts. After years of speculation about the whereabouts of the dragon's head, the dragon's head collector has appeared - Zhou Haisheng, a Taiwanese antique family, and Sun Weizhong, a Canadian-born collector from Shanghai, jointly auctioned the dragon head for 3 million euros (about 24 million yuan) at an auction in France in 2018. The report of the initial inspection in Shanghai was positive, and Zhou Haisheng talked to me about the acquisition process with emotion... He sincerely hoped that the dragon head would return to its original place this year in the Year of the Dragon after the "verification of the body".
The source of the dragon's head France is a former French diplomat
As long as there are cultural relics lost in the Old Summer Palace, it will always attract great attention from the global cultural relics market. Seven of the 12 zodiac animal heads have returned to Chinese mainland, where is the "dragon head" of great significance to the Chinese? There has been no definite news for many years, and there are even rumors that the head of the dragon is in Taiwan, China. Mr. Zhou said he had received news of the auction two months before the Dec. 17, 2018, auction in Paris, but there was no information at the time that it was related to the Old Summer Palace.
"In the Paris Auction Guild building, there are all kinds of different auctions or upcoming auctions almost every day, and a friend in France at that time took many photos of the dragon's head and sent it to me, and I didn't think it was a Chinese dragon at first glance!" But with his years of knowledge and acumen in studying cultural relics, he decided to participate in the auction and discussed and confirmed the cooperation with Sun Weizhong in Shanghai, but neither was sure that he would be able to do so, Zhou said.
Xie Manlu is a young man of literature and art, who likes photography, travel and collecting. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
Two days before the auction, Zhou Haisheng arrived in Paris to get hands-on with the lots. The catalogue provided by the auction house does not mention the Old Summer Palace, but indicates that the dragon head is from the "Robert de Semallé" family. The most direct key figure is Xie Manlu, who served in the French Office in the Qing Dynasty, was a diplomat, and more importantly, the heads of "cows, horses, tigers, pigs, rats, and rabbits" among the animal heads that have returned to the Old Summer Palace were all in his collection.
The high price of the hammer forced the British and French family old photos and archives to explain doubts
It's understandable that the auction house didn't make a big deal about it, and even the estimate was only set at 30,000 to 40,000 euros, which may be due to the fact that the head of the Old Summer Palace was a highly controversial lot, which avoided protests from China's state cultural relics protection authorities and led to the withdrawal. Zhou Haisheng and Sun Weizhong's agents were both holding up signs at the scene, and the owner of a French auction house and representatives of the world's top antique dealer, Eskenazi of the United Kingdom, also participated in the bidding, showing that the auctioneer was well aware of the value of the lot and took the initiative to attract investment.
The auctioneer started at 20,000 euros and the price went all the way up, Sun Weizhong was worried that if he couldn't buy it, the dragon head would not be able to go home, until the auctioneer shouted 2.5 million euros and stopped for a while, and after confirming that no one raised the price, the hammer fell, and Sun Weizhong's agent bid for it, plus the commission, Zhou Sun bought the dragon head for 3 million euros (about 24 million yuan).
The export certificate that will be issued when the dragon head leaves France. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
After the news of the "suspected dragon head of the Old Summer Palace" auctioned by anonymous Chinese in France, it caused a sensation in the cultural relics market, because the dragon head had never appeared before the auction, and there were some voices questioning the authenticity, such as not like a Chinese dragon, there is no water spout, and it is not the same as copper engravings, etc. Zhou Haisheng said with a smile that each animal head of the 12 zodiac signs in the Old Summer Palace is quite "Westernized", because it was painted and designed by Lang Shining, a famous Italian court painter in the third generation of the Qing Dynasty, and the water outlet can be seen when you actually inspect the dragon's head... All kinds of discussions, when the management office of the Old Summer Palace held a special exhibition in 2021, the appearance of an old photo gradually clarified the doubts.
Xie Manlu loves photography and collecting, and the inventory of animals records animal heads
Born in 1849, "Robert de Semallé" is known in Chinese as Xie Manlu, and his family is very famous in France, and he served as the French envoy to the Qing State Office from 1880 to 1884, the equivalent of a secretary. Xie Manlu is a literary young man who loves photography, often travels with his friends to the north and south of the country, in the descendants of Xie Manlu's family provide a batch of old photos and negatives taken by Xie Manlu at that time, in addition to the scenery of the Old Summer Palace, Xie Manlu and his friends took photos with the dragon head appeared, shocking all walks of life, that is not the dragon head that appeared at the French auction?
Xie Manlu took a photo with his friends with the dragon head before returning to France. According to his diary, this photograph was taken in June 1884, and the appearance of this photograph clarified many people's doubts about the authenticity of the dragon's head at auction in France. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
According to Xie Manlu's diary and list of cultural relics he purchased, he bought seven of the 12 animal heads in Beijing around 1882, including a rat, a cow, a tiger, a rabbit, a dragon, a horse, and a pig, and he photographed each animal head. However, on the way back to France, pigs, rabbits, and rat heads were stolen, and only four animal heads, a cow, a tiger, a horse, and a dragon, were successfully brought back to France by him, and only the dragon heads had complete and detailed records, which shows that Xie Manlu attached great importance to the dragon heads.
At the age of 86, Xie Manlu compiled a list of his family's assets, including a breakdown of the antiques he had acquired, including a record of the head of the beast, which is clearly illegible in the original French:
Bronze dragon head (铜质龙首)Note: she... of the Yang Ming (注:她... 来自圆明园)of the 12 zodiac signs that (来自十二生肖中的12种象征)out the 2 hours at (每两小时)—这里应该是指兽首每2小时喷水...
Xie Manlu bought seven animal heads in Beijing around 1882, and he photographed each animal head, pictured with a horse head and a pig head, but on the way back to France, the pig, rat, and rabbit heads were stolen. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
The return of the beast head of the Old Summer Palace has a deep meaning, and the gambling kings and French billionaires have donated them
The documents provided by Zhou Sun's team to Chinese mainland officials also include a certificate of Xie Manlu's family sending the auction. Zhou Haisheng showed me this catalogue provided by the French auction house Tessier Sarrou, which shows that the consignor, including the dragon head, is Xie Manlu's maternal great-granddaughter, and these collections are part of the dowry that Xie Manlu gave to his daughter, and the family has preserved it to this day. Zhou Haisheng believes that because the beast head of the Old Summer Palace is a controversial topic, in order to make the auction go smoothly, the seller chose not to reveal his true identity, but to hint at his true identity in a roundabout way.
The seven animal heads that have returned to China, and several of them have been in turmoil during the return process, may indicate the seller's considerations. Animal heads first appeared in the antiquities market in the late 1980s, with the involvement of the late Taiwanese collector Tsai Chen-yang and others. Around 2000, China Poly Group acquired the heads of cows, tigers and monkeys at high prices through auctions, which was the first time that the heads of animals in the Old Summer Palace returned.
In 2003, the China Special Fund for the Rescue of Lost Overseas Cultural Relics learned that the pig's head was in the hands of an American collector, and after negotiation, the other party agreed to sell it but the price was not negotiated, and finally the Macau gambling king Stanley Ho bought it for 6 million Hong Kong dollars and donated it to the Poly Art Museum, so Poly has four animal heads of cows, tigers, monkeys and pigs. In 2007, the horse head to be auctioned at Sotheby's was still bought by Stanley Ho for 69.1 million Hong Kong dollars before the auction and donated to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, and the horse head was officially included in the Old Summer Palace in December 2020.
The story of the rat head and the rabbit head is more twisty. In 2009, Christie's auctioned the pika head despite the Chinese government's objections, and the original collector was the late French fashion master Yves Saint Laurent (Yves Saint Laurent) and his partner Pierre Berge (Pierre Berge), attracting heavyweight collectors from all over the world to bid, as a result, Chinese businessman Cai Mingchao sold the two artifacts at a high price of 31.49 million euros (about 246 million yuan) but refused to pay, causing an uproar, he said that this way to prevent the beast head from being auctioned. But some people think that he is simply spoiling the situation. The Pinault family of France, the world's third-largest luxury brand Kering, bought it and donated it to the Chinese government, and the two artifacts returned to Beijing in 2013.
Concerned about China's lost cultural relics, I once hoped that the dragon's head could go to Taiwan
The Old Summer Palace was built in the Qing Dynasty Kangxi, Qianlong expanded the scale, has the "garden of ten thousand gardens" said, the 12 zodiac animal head bronze statue is a part of the fountain outside the Haiyan Hall, designed by Lang Shining, made of special red copper material, the color is deep and elegant, the structure is ingenious, each animal head takes turns to spray water every two hours, and all the animal heads spray water at the same time at 12 o'clock at noon; In 1860, the British and French forces burned down the Old Summer Palace, and the bronze statues of animal heads were also lost overseas.
When the dragon head arrived at the Shanghai art vault from France, experts from the Cultural Relics Repatriation Center of Shanghai University went to the site to collect data for testing. (Photo/Provided by Zhou Haisheng)
Zhou Haisheng, who has been concerned about the loss of overseas Chinese cultural relics for many years, has successfully purchased from the United States the silk copy "Turkey Picture" cooperated by Lang Shining and Jin Tingbiao and the handscroll of Ming Xuande's silk book "Four Seasons Appreciation Map", and at the same time sponsored the publication of the book "Who Collected the Old Summer Palace", and has been invited to participate in the programs of China Central Television and Beijing TV many times. This time, he always hoped that the dragon head could be shipped from France to Taiwan, China, but unfortunately he failed to do so due to factors such as the epidemic.
At present, the dragon head is stored in the Shanghai art vault, and when it first arrived, Duan Yong, director of the China Overseas Cultural Relics Research Center of Shanghai University, and other experts went to the scene to collect data for testing, and compared it with the animal head that had returned, and put forward positive results, and experts from the National Museum on behalf of the Cultural Relics Bureau also carried out further testing.
Zhou Haisheng took out the catalogue and related evidence, and talked with the author about the purchase process; At that time, they were worried that if they couldn't buy it, the dragon head would not be able to return home, and Zhou Haisheng still felt very sorry that the dragon head could not go to Taiwan. (Courtesy of the author)
If the "Dragon Head" can return from Taiwan, China to Chinese mainland in the "Year of the Dragon", it will be of great significance! This may be the key to Zhou Haisheng's decision to participate in the auction in 2018 despite the lack of relevant information, which requires rich knowledge of cultural relics, courage and strong cross-strait feelings. At present, many entrepreneurs have paid great attention to this matter, and have actually seen the dragon head, and look forward to seeing the "dragon head" officially become the eighth return of the beast head of the Old Summer Palace in the near future, which will be a legendary story of cross-strait cultural exchanges!
*The author, Chen Xinning, is a curator and agent of cultural relics and art. The original article was published in Taiwan Wind Media on May 25, 2024, and is reprinted with the permission of the author, Chen Xinning.
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