Looted Qing Dynasty Treasures Return to Beijing

Bronze Antiques Return to Beijing

Flashlights and welcoming cheers greeted the three pieces of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) relics at the capital international airport in Beijing Thursday, which came home 140 years after being looted from the Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace in suburban Beijing) by British and French troops during the Second Opium War.

The three cultural treasures - bronze heads of an ox, a tiger and a monkey - were purchased by the China Poly Group at auctions in Hong Kong earlier this month. They cost Poly approximately US$4 million.

Relics experts believe the three bronze animal heads were taken from the same water clock in front of a grand hall in the imperial garden that featured the heads of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

Starting next Monday, the rare relics will be exhibited at Poly Plaza for a month before they are placed in the Poly Art Museum with more than 100 bronze artifacts collected by Poly from overseas in the past few years.

A nine-day exhibition of the relics was held by Poly in the Hong Kong Art Museum before they were brought back to Beijing.

It is estimated that nearly 100,000 visitors attended the exhibition, said Chen Hongsheng, Poly's deputy general manager.

The hexagonal porcelain vase, the fourth piece of looted relics auctioned in Hong Kong, will be brought back to Beijing in June by its buyer, the Beijing Cultural Relics Company, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Sources with the company said the vase will be exhibited at the Capital Museum.