Recovering overseas cultural relics has always been an international problem. Successful recovery often requires current collectors to have a high degree of cultural relics ethics and international morality, which is also very related to the comprehensive national strength and international status of the country of origin of cultural relics.
There is a statue called "Venus of the East" on the mainland - the statue of the Eastern Wei Cicada Crowned Bodhisattva in Qingzhou Longhua Temple. This rare treasure, which was stolen by thieves after being unearthed and lived in a foreign country for 14 years, is a model of China's lost cultural relics returning to the embrace of the motherland.
The ruins of Longhua Temple, the god of beauty is present
In the last century, in a county town called Boxing in Shandong, copper Buddha cellars, stone carvings, brick and tile relics were found many times. The findings hint at archaeologists, who buried the ruins of a massive Buddhist temple.
The first time was in March 1976, 10 kilometers northeast of Boxing County, when farmers in Zhangguan's brigade stumbled upon a cellar while bulldozing the foundation of a house, in which a number of Buddhist statues were neatly buried. But when the cultural relics management personnel arrived, the site had been damaged and the excavated statues were lost.
However, after the collection of Boxing County Cultural Relics Management Institute, 72 statues were recovered from the people, including 1 statue monument and 25 relatively complete statues. Among them, 9 have clear inscriptions, and the year numbers are: Wuding, Tianbao, Qianming, Taining, Tiantong, and Wuping, all of which are from the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi periods.
Among the recovered artifacts is a statue of a bodhisattva broken into three sections, which is very beautiful. Because the bodhisattva crown is engraved with a cicada, it is called the "cicada crown bodhisattva statue".
The second time was in 1983, when a copper statue cellar was discovered in Chongde Village while extracting soil, and 101 statues were cleared. From 1981 to 1984, Li Shaonan of the Boxing County Cultural Administration Office conducted an investigation and found many related relics here.
The third time was in 1990, when the villagers of Zhangguan Village were digging a fish pond in the north of the village, they found statues, building components, ceramics, etc.
After reviewing historical documents, archaeologists determined that this was the site of Longhua Temple in Qingzhou, Shandong.
From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties, Hebei and Shandong ushered in the climax of carving Buddhist statues. Qingzhou was the center of statue creation in Shandong at that time. Qingzhou Longxing Temple, Boxing Longhua Temple, the style of statues is relatively similar, can be regarded as the "specimen" of Qingzhou stone carving statues in this period, is the artistic model of this era.
The statue of a cicada crown bodhisattva collected for the first time is 133 cm high, with a huge head light behind the head of the bodhisattva statue, wearing a cicada crown, the corners of the mouth are slightly upturned, and there is a smile on his face; The upper body is covered with a right garment and a shawl; The lower body is wearing a long skirt, and the dense folds are in line with the description of Cao Yi coming out of the water. Experts judged that its date should be Eastern Wei.
Such a slender, light and moving statue is not only an object of worship, but a high-level work of art. Because of its broken arm, it has the reputation of "Venus of the East".
However, we probably don't need this title of façade with Western beauty gods now, and we will still call it "the statue of the cicada crown bodhisattva".
Accidental theft, a long way to recover
The statue was widely acclaimed once on display and coveted by thieves.
In the late evening of July 4, 1994, heavy rain poured in Qingzhou, Shandong, and this precious heritage was stolen by criminals and smuggled out of the country.
The archives of this statue of the Cicada Crowned Bodhisattva at the Boxing County Cultural Administration Office clearly record that "it was unearthed in Zhangguancun in May 1976" and "stolen on the night of July 4, 1994."
After the theft, the statue disappeared.
In 1999, the Boxing County Cultural Administration Office received news from foreign friends that the MIHO Museum in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, had auctioned off a Buddhist statue from an art exchange in London in 1995, very similar to the statue of the Bodhisattva stolen in Boxing County, which is now on display at the Miso Museum.
Mishu Museum, Japan
The foreign friend, Mario Robert, is the president of the Misinés Foundation for Ancient Art, a Swiss NGO dedicated to recovering lost cultural relics from various countries. He showed the relevant atlas to the people of the Boxing County Cultural Management Office, and they exclaimed: This is ours!
The Boxing County Cultural Administration Office then reported the news from Mr. Robert to the Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau.
At the end of 1999, Mr. Yang Hong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences received a letter with the name "Su Bai" and sent a catalogue of the Mishu Museum in Japan, one of the pages was a photograph of a bodhisattva, and the words "National Treasure" were written on a piece of paper. It was identified that this bluestone statue of the Cicada Crown Bodhisattva was stolen in July 1994 and unearthed at the site of Longhua Temple in Boxing County. Mr. Yang Hong also asked the students to forward the contents of the letter to the Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau.
In 2000, based on the above situation, the Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau officially reported to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, hoping to recover cultural relics belonging to China.
In August of that year, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage visited the Mishu Museum in Japan and decided to negotiate the acquisition of this precious cultural relic back.
Smooth recovery and win-win results have been widely praised
The information and photographs of the excavation of this statue of the Cicada Crown Bodhisattva are recorded in archives and newspapers, and the theft is clearly registered in the archives, which is an irrefutable stolen cultural relics.
The evidence was conclusive, and many media in the United States and Japan at that time reported that they focused on the international ethics of returning lost cultural relics to their countries of origin, raising this incident to a moral level.
The Meishu Museum had to seriously consider what to do with the statue.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage is very resolute, and is also willing to establish a cooperative relationship with Meixiu Museum and negotiate with the Japanese side in the form of retention of ownership and limited lease.
Due to the sincerity of both sides, the consultations were relatively smooth. In April 2001, an agreement was reached whereby the Meixiu Museum would return the statue to China free of charge, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage leased the statue to the Meixiu Museum for exhibition until 2007.
In January 2008, the statue of the Northern Wei Bodhisattva that had been lost overseas for 14 years finally returned to his hometown of Shandong Province and was stored in the Shandong Museum. This year is also the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Shandong Museum.
The Meixiu Museum paid a huge amount of money for the statue in the British art market, and in order to compensate for its loss, according to the agreement, the statue of the Cicada Crown Bodhisattva was exhibited at the Meishu Museum every five years thereafter, and each exhibition lasted for half a year.
Domestic media praised the cultural relics recovery operation, and overseas media such as Japan's Kyoto Shimbun also reported on the incident from a positive angle, praising the internationalist spirit of the Meixiu Museum to return cultural relics free of charge, and on the other hand, praising China's just compensation for the Meixiu Museum.
The return of the statue of the Cicada Crown Bodhisattva is a typical success story in the recovery of cultural relics in the mainland, and it is a win-win situation in international reputation for both China and Japan.
At present, this statue is standing in the exhibition hall of the "Buddhist Statue Art Exhibition" of the Shandong Provincial Museum, welcoming the world who come to visit.
The past is more than a thousand years, under the focus of the light, the broken arms reveal the vicissitudes and heaviness of history; An eternal smile, silently telling the story of the past that has gone through the dust.