I just wrote a whole long thing on this subject and then WordPress decided to eat the post for lunch with a pickle and a nice shiraz. So I’m giving you the link to the NYT article and leaving it at that except to say check out the nitwit quote at the end of the article in which a Sotheby’s executive suggests that if the Chinese really want their stuff repatriated they’re more than welcome to buy it back from Sotheby’s.
I get your outrage, but it is misdirected. The auction houses are brokers. Other parties are the actual sellers, many of whom probably paid good money for the objects and rightly or wrongly feel like legitimate owners. Besides, there are international conventions governing these matters, and the objects in question, off the top of my head, were removed too long ago to qualify for their principal protections. But I could be wrong about the exact details of those conventions.
Double outrage: the auctioned objects and the long post lost. Sorry to hear that:)
Following previous comment, and form a selfish point of view, it is just as well if we let things be. Otherwise we might find that large chunks of the European capitals, including the Paris Concorde obelisc and half the British Museum might have to be repatriated.
I might have read wrong, but my impression is that the Chinese government isn’t even demanded that these objects be repatriated; they’re just demanding that they not be sold like this. That seems understandable to me.
Also, I find the tone of the article sort of amusing, as though the West having looted all kinds of stuff from China in the 1800 and early 1900s was some sort of CCP propaganda…
[...] stolen from China in the 1800s, auction houses suggest buying back the relics. (NY Times, h/t to Jottings from the Granite Studio for spotting this one) Share and [...]
I think Uln has the exact point here: if people were to start reconsidering things from the point of view of who stole what and when, it would mostly have to go. Since it can’t, obviously, go, we just have to shrug our shoulders and say, “well shit, we’ve got it now…”. Sometimes, doing the right thing seem simply impossible…
Why not repatriate those large chunks of the European capitals including the obelisk? Perhaps we’re at the stage where the pillaging of art during conflicts is no longer acceptable in the civilized world even to the point where items pillaged in the past would be returned. Or is the monetary aspects just too high?
Oh, Jeremiah, I enjoy your blog.
Maybe I should have tried to recreate the post…
A few points, abbreviated, from the deceased post and in response to the comment thread.
a) The original tone wasn’t “outrage” (we don’t do that a lot here) but more “bemused” by the addled way the exec tried to justify the sale.
b) “Removal of art treasures” was actually acceptable under most military codes of the mid-19th century. Doesn’t make it right, but it is what it is.
c) While “looted” is the word most often used in the Chinese press, and these particular pieces were certainly boosted, the bulk of the stuff overseas was actually sold to foreign collectors by unscrupulous dealers, impoverished families, and even avaricious palace eunuchs and officials. Not sure that makes it any better, but again, it is what it is.
d) Hate to say it, but having the stuff held in overseas collections probably preserved a number of items and documents that would likely have been lost/damaged in the chaos of the early 20th century or the wanton destruction of the Cultural Revolution.
e) Historical preservation in the PRC is improving, and it’s probably time for overseas collections, both private and public, to start discussing the possibility of repatriating important pieces of China’s cultural heritage.
f) (for “finally”) not sure about the terms or ramifications of the suit (Glenn’s the legal expert here) but I do think the case serves a purpose in bringing the issue to the attention of the international media.
It seems to me that anytime you talk about “cultural heritage” you’re bound to run into all sorts of problems, since it’s dangerous to bind “culture” to modern nation-states.
Recently I ran across a book called “Who Owns Antiquity?” by James Cuno, who is at the University of Chicago, that looks pretty interesting. He writes (from the flap): “Antiquities are the cultural property of all humankind, evidence of the world’s ancient past and not that of a particular modern nation. They comprise antiquity, and antiquity knows no borders.”
Of course, this viewpoint risks ignoring the ugly history of imperialism, which fostered the transfer of valuable antiquities to western countries. It’s really a complicated issue.
Sam G,
Excellent points and thanks for the recommendation of the Cuno book. Sounds like a fascinating read.
“…overseas collections probably preserved a number of items and documents that would likely have been lost/damaged… ”
I don’t think there’s much ‘probably’ about it. That said, I do feel that the claim for repatriation is a strong one, so long as Beijing resists the inclination to make tiresome
‘demands’ that really do nothing to aid its cause.
Far better for overseas collections to initiate a time frame and conditions for the return of artefacts. I suspect this may already be happening in some quiet back rooms, especialy given China’s present economic influence.
On a side note, an exhibition from the British Museum was doing the rounds in China a while back. CCTV’s Dialogue interviewed the curator, which amounted to a 30 minute scolding by the host, Tian Wei, who used the word ‘stolen’ 83 times before the interval.
I was surprised that the collection was ever let back out of the country.
Over the last few years more and more British museums have returned the heads and skeletons of Maori that were taken from New Zealand. The return of said remains follows a very strict protocol worked out by both parties involving Maori elders travelling to Britain and performing all the necessary ceremonies to bring the remains of their ancestors home- the remains of their ancestors are, of course, tapu and must be treated with the appropriate respect.
I believe similar things have happened with the remains of Australian aborigenes in British museums.
There is, of course, a very huge, fundamental difference between human remains stolen for research of very dubious value and artworks, documents and other relics acquired in a variety of dodgy but occasionally legitimate way. The first and most obvious is Sam G’s point about “ownership”. In the case of human remains, it would seem to me very easy to establish “ownership”- especially so when dealing with peoples like the Maori who have traditionally placed huge emphasis on genealogy. I’m sure more than a few of those elders who have travelled to Britain to repatriate the remains of their ancestors have been able to look at the ta moko and say, “Yep, that’s granddad.” But clearly there is a precedent for the appropriate and respectful return of things acquired dodgily.
I was trying to resist even reading this article, and I’m certainly not going to translate it- there’s not much worse than bureaucratese. But it’s tangentially related: The USA and China just signed an agreement to crackdown on the illegal export of Chinese cultural relics:
http://tinyurl.com/72ojg4
Of course, that doesn’t do much to help those poor relics already exported and about to go on sale….
You’re a bit unfair on the Sotheby’s guy, I think, J (although it is hard to take anyone with a name like Carlton Rochell very seriously – surely a pseudonym?). He wasn’t taunting the Chinese government with the suggestion they should try to buy back such antiquities, merely making the – possibly weak, but not invalid – point that the sense of cultural grievance might be slightly ameliorated by the fact that many of these sales are bringing antiquities back to China (albeit under private rather than state ownership).
The thing that bugged me more was the typical shrill, hectoring tone of the government pronouncement on the issue – presuming to speak on behalf of the entire Chinese people and conjuring the spectre of their inevitable outrage that such things should be done “before their eyes”. I wonder what percentage of the Chinese population (or even the literate, urban population) either knows about this sale, or gives a toss. Probably just about ZERO, I would guess – unless the state-run media have a big splurge on the story.
In an ideal world, cultural relics – whatever their present ownership – would be made available for exhibition to the public as freely as possible, all around the world. There might be a sentimental argument in favour of regarding the ideal venue for exhibiting certain relics as being their original geographic location; but I think that’s rarely a compelling argument, and should be balanced with the more pressing need for such relics to be sent on tour as much as possible (Cuno’s argument, I guess, that antiquities are a common cultural heritage of the world, not exclusive to any one place or people). Where you’ve got stuff that’s too big or too delicate to be moved easily, it probably makes the most practical sense for them to remain wherever they are now. (As an ardent Grecophile, I am somewhat uncomfortable about the number of ancient Greek art treasures that were brought to England in the 18th and 19th centuries; but it’s never going to be possible to display the Elgin Marbles in situ on the Parthenon again, and many more people get to see them each year in London than ever would in Athens.)
Governments trying to reassert ownership of such relics to atone for centuries-old grievances can discourage free cultural exchange of this sort. And, most of the time, I fear, it’s just ugly nationalistic posturing in pursuance of domestic agendas. I mean, really, do you think that even if Britain and France made abject apologies for the sacking of the Old Summer Palace, and every single Chinese antique in the world were voluntarily returned to China, would the CCP then stop banging on about the “century of humiliation” quite so much? Not on your life!
Good points all, Froog. Admittedly, I was being snarky about the Sotheby’s guy. (It’s an equal snark site.)
I had no idea when I posted this it would inspire so much commentary, makes me think that this is a subject worth following more closely.
Thanks all for your insightful thoughts on the matter.
[...] More commentary on the attempt by a team of Beijing-based lawyers to block the sale of two bronze statues looted from the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan). The group of 67 lawyers has filed suit in a French court in advance of the February 23rd auction of the items, currently owned by the estate of late French designer Yves Saint Laurent. [...]