The Yuanmingyuan, a royal garden of the Qing Dynasty, was built in 1759, that is, in the 24th year of Qianlong, and one of the most famous spots is the bronze statue of the twelve genera of the animal heads in the fountain outside the Taoyan Hall.
The bronze statue of the head of the twelve animals represents twenty-four hours, and each head of the beast will automatically take turns to spray water at the hour, and at noon, the beast head will spray water together.
The first statue of the twelve genera of the beasts was designed by lang Tuning, the Western painter of the court, supervised by the Frenchman Jiang Youren, and made by the palace craftsman. It is the crystallization of the art of combining the wisdom of the ancient Chinese dragon with the West, but the Qing Dynasty was still obsessed with the period of heaven and the closed country, and the West was indeed carrying out the industrial revolution.
The Qing Dynasty is far behind the West, backward will be beaten, in 1860 AD, the British and French coalition forces broke out the Second Opium War, the Qing government defeated the British and French coalition forces to attack the Yuanmingyuan, the coalition army went crazy to rob the Yuanmingyuan, can take away, can not take away with the car, and finally the coalition army set fire to the Yuanmingyuan.
The twelve genera of the beasts also could not escape the fate of being robbed, since then exiled overseas, after 160 years, eight of the twelve genera of the beasts have returned to China, and four are still unknown.
The returning monkey head, the cow head, the tiger head
Monkey Head was acquired by Hong Kong Poly Group for a huge sum of 8.18 million yuan in the 1980s and is now stored in the Poly Art Museum in Hong Kong.
NiuShou and Guanshou were bought by Poly Group in Hong Kong in 2000 and are now at poly art museums.
Horse heads and pig heads that have returned
Ma Shou was bought for HK$69.1 million in 2000 by Macau gambling king Stanley Ho, and Pig Shou was acquired for about 7 million yuan in 200 and donated to the state free of charge.
The dragon's head that has returned
Since the loss of dragon heads overseas, it has been transferred to Taiwan several times.
Rat heads and rabbit heads that have returned
In 2009, the French Bayou Jiatude Auction House auctioned the rat head and the rabbit head again in 2009, and the Chinese collector Cai Mingchao successfully sold it for 1.6 billion Hong Kong dollars and about 2.7 billion Hong Kong dollars, but refused to pay for the Chinese taking away what originally belonged to them, so that the French Pino family finally succeeded in the auction.
Fortunately, in order to show their friendship with China, the Pino family donated to China free of charge and is now in the collection of the National Box of Fighters.
Hong Kong Poly Group, Ho Hung Sun, France Pino family, Cai Mingchao have made great contributions to the rescue of Chinese cultural relics.
The possibility that the dog's head, which has not yet returned, is still in the United States
Chinese Andy Zheng had seen it in American thrift stores, but at that time he did not have the ability to distinguish the authenticity of the dog's head, let alone the ability to acquire, and should be missed.
The head of the snake, the head of the chicken, and the head of the sheep that have returned so far
As the British and French allies were the masterminds of the invasion of the Yuanmingyuan, the beast heads that have not yet returned are still the most likely to be in Britain and France, perhaps first collected by collectors, perhaps buried in the ground, but I am convinced that sooner or later it will be seen again, and the day when the other eight beast prime ministers will be reunited.
In addition, the animal head that has not returned may have been left in Japan
Japan committed the crimes of the September 18 Incident and the Nanjing Massacre in China, and In the face of its crimes, Japan does not admit it and does its utmost to cover it up, and if it is exiled in Japan, then the beast heads will neither be auctioned publicly nor easily admitted, you say?