720,000 euros!
From the Qianlong Jade Seal Auction to see the return of national treasures
Wen | Feng Zhao
On April 15, local time, at an Asian art auction held by the Drouå auction house in Paris, France, the Qingqianlong button jasper seal was sold for 720,000 euros (about 4.948 million yuan) and was bid by a Chinese collector.
It is reported that this is the fourth Seal of the Chinese Emperor to be auctioned in Europe in nearly a month.
The expected high price was not auctioned
Carved from green nephrite jade, the royal seal depicts a lion sitting and playing with a ball, the sitting lion above the jade seal is exquisitely carved, the left paw is placed on the hydrangea ball, and the seal below is engraved with the inscription "Treasure of Qianlong Qinxian", which was estimated to be between 300,000 and 400,000 euros before the auction.
On April 15, the auction site of Drouå in Paris, France
According to the information on the official website of the auction house, the auction house found during the inventory that the seal came from a private collection in France and was preserved for nearly a century, which was described as: "A rare work of art that perfectly illustrates the charm and importance of the seal culture of the Qing Dynasty." ”
After the news of the participation of this seal in the auction, it attracted the attention of many People in the French and Chinese collectors. However, everyone who participates in the auction must pay a security deposit of 100,000 euros. Some estimate that the seal will fetch a high price of more than 3 million euros.
However, there was no rush on the day of the auction. After bidding for 300,000 euros, only two telephone consignors, a French guy from the auction house and a Chinese woman, bid against each other. When the Chinese woman's telephone client called out the price of 720,000 euros, the French guy's client did not increase the price.
The auctioneer displays the seal of "The Treasure of Qianlong's Pro-Xian"
The expected high price did not appear, mainly because qianlong used too many seals in his lifetime, reaching more than 1800 square meters. Among them, 1,000 are preserved in the Palace Museum in Beijing, and two or three hundred have been lost around the world.
The seal of the Chinese emperor has repeatedly hit sky-high prices
In Europe, the Chinese emperor Yuxi has repeatedly sold for sky-high prices.
Qianlong jade seal in the shape of Kowloon
In 2009, Qianlong Yuxi's "Treasure of eight signs of old thoughts" was auctioned by Sotheby's In London for nearly 3.57 million pounds (about 40 million yuan), five times more than the starting price; in 2011, the Qianlong Jade Seal, a party at the toulous auction in Toulouse, France, was auctioned for 12.4 million euros by an unnamed Chinese buyer; in 2016, a Qianlong jade seal in the shape of Kowloon was auctioned at the Paris De Ruo Auction House. The auction was €21 million (about 150 million yuan), 20 times the estimated price, and the bidder was an anonymous Chinese buyer.
The recent auction of this Qianlong button jasper seal is the fourth Seal of the Chinese Emperor to be auctioned in Europe in the past month or so.
On March 4, an auction house in Monaco auctioned a seal with the inscription "Tongzhi Imperial Pen"; on March 26, a Guangxu seal engraved with the inscription "MaoqinDian Treasure" was auctioned in France for 1,098,260 euros; on April 5, an auction house in Paris auctioned off a blue jade seal engraved with the Manchu inscription "Treasure of Forgiveness".
Seal of the "Treasure of Destiny"
It is worth mentioning that the seals of the "Maoqin Palace Treasure" and the "Treasure of Destiny" are not as widely recognized as the Qingqianlong Button Jasper Seal.
The patriotic psychology that is exploited
According to the Statistics of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society, since the Opium War in 1840, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been lost to Europe, America, Japan and Southeast Asia, of which more than 1 million are national first- and second-class cultural relics. According to UNESCO statistics, about 1.64 million Chinese cultural relics have been lost outside Of China, scattered in 47 museums around the world, and the number of Chinese cultural relics in private collections is ten times the number of collections.
Ming Wanli jujube skin red blue flower tangled lotus plum bottle
Both of these statistics reflect that there are more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics overseas. A large part of them are the best of the best. Liu Wenjun, chairman of Hainan Zhongshi Group, photographed the "Ming Wanli Jujube Skin Red Ground Blue and Flower Tangled Lotus Plum Bottle" in New York, which was later included in the National South China Sea Museum as the first batch of collection treasures.
And some international auctions, whenever the auction of Chinese cultural relics, will also be hyped up, using the patriotic psychology of Chinese to raise the auction price, the most typical is the zodiac bronze head.
In 2000, Poly Group spent HK$7 million to buy back the head of the ox, 7.4 million Hong Kong dollars to buy back the head of the monkey, and 14 million Hong Kong dollars to buy back the head of the tiger; in 2003, the patriotic entrepreneur Ho Hongshen bought back the bronze statue of the head of the pig for more than 6 million yuan, and in 2007, he bought the bronze statue of the horse head for 69.1 million Hong Kong dollars and donated it to the country.
Zodiac bronze head
In 2009, Christie's auctioned rat heads and rabbit heads in Paris, and nearly 100 lawyers were organized to protest in France, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage also met and wrote to Christie's relevant responsible persons many times, but in the end failed to prevent the auction. The two animal heads were bid by Chinese businessman Cai Mingchao for 31.49 million euros, but refused to pay, and were later bought by the French Pino family and returned to the mainland.
Let overseas cultural relics "go home" as soon as possible
With the rise of Chinese collectors in the auction market, there have been repeated moves to buy back lost cultural relics overseas, but this approach is not worth advocating.
The large number and high price are destined to be repurchased, and the vast majority of cultural relics in circulation and auction on the market are private collections, while a large number of precious cultural relics collected by museums and research institutions are almost impossible to circulate in the market.
The Freer Museum of Art, USA, holds ancient Chinese bronzes, elephant statues (Shang Dynasty)
In addition, due to the problem of excessive import (inbound) taxes, the return of cultural relics has almost stopped in the past decade.
In this regard, Wan Jie, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, put forward the proposal of "in the import taxation link, it is clear that cultural relics collected by individuals are exempt from value-added tax; in the "Tariff Rules", 'works of art, collectibles and antiquities originating in China' are added to the "Tariff Rules" to give zero tariffs; and in the "Import Tax Rate Table of Imported Goods" to add 'works of art, collectibles and antiquities originating in China' to be given zero tax rates" and so on.
Obviously, in order to promote the early "homecoming" of cultural relics scattered overseas, new channels and methods should be explored.
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