The Tale of the Auctioned Chinese Bronzes: Part 2
The Tale of the Auctioned Chinese Bronzes continued Monday with a bizarre twist. (The two sculptures 鈥� a rat's head and a rabbit's head looted from Beijing in 1860 by British and French troops 鈥� were sold last week by Christie鈥檚 in Paris amid strong protest from the Chinese government. Read the Monitor鈥檚 previous coverage and .)
Five days after the auction, the anonymous winning bidder revealed himself to be a Chinese national 鈥� and refused to pay the $36 million pledged.
The Associated Press described the move as an "."
Cai Mingchao called it a patriotic duty. "What I need to stress is that this money cannot be paid," he said at a press conference in Beijing. "At the time, I was thinking that any Chinese would do this if they could.... I only did what I was obliged to."
Mr. Cai actually collects antiques and owns an auction house himself. But if Christie鈥檚 were on the lookout for this kind of stunt, it might have red-flagged Cai's other work 鈥� as adviser to the National Treasures Fund, a group "backed by the Chinese Ministry of Culture that pools donations to retrieve relics abroad," according to . A spokesperson for China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage said the foundation had no affiliation with the government.
Christie's claims to have聽 legal recourse to collect the money that was pledged, Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, Pierre Berg茅, the partner of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent, who owned the bronzes, said the relics will stay with him. "We will continue to live together in my home,鈥� Mr. Berg茅 said.
Will there be a Part 3? Stay tuned.
