PARIS – A bronze dragon head, one of the six missing heads from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace “Zodiac Clock” fountain, is speculated to have been sold December 17 at auction house Tessier & Sarrou et Associés for $3.4 million. PARIS – A bronze dragon head, one of the six missing heads from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace “Zodiac Clock” fountain, is speculated to have been sold December 17 at auction house Tessier & Sarrou et Associés for $3.4 million. PARIS. Предполагается, что бронзовая голова дракона, одна из шести недостающих голов из фонтана «Зодиакальные часы» Старого Летнего дворца в Пекине, была продана 17 декабря на аукционе Tessier & Sarrou et Associés за 3,4 миллиона долларов. The bronze dragon head, believed to be one of six missing heads from the Zodiac Clock fountain at the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, sold for $3.4 million at the Tessier & Sarrou et Associés auction on December 17.巴黎——据推测，12 月17 日在Tessier & Sarrou et Associés 拍卖行以340 万美元的价格售出一尊青铜龙首，它是北京圆明园“生肖钟”喷泉中丢失的六个龙首之一。 Paris——林推星，12 月17日在Tessier & Sarrou et Associés sold at auction at a price of 3.4 million US dollars a piece of 青钓龙首, which is one of the six 龙首 missing in Beijing圆明园 “生肖钟” 海泉. PARIS. Бронзовая голова дракона, одна из шести отсутствующих в фонтане «Часы Зодиака» в Старом летнем дворце в Пекине, продана 17 декабря за предположительно 3,4 миллиона долларов на аукционе Tessier & Sarrou et Associés. A bronze dragon head, one of six missing from the Clock of the Zodiac fountain in the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, sold for an estimated $3.4 million at the Tessier & Sarrou et Associés auction on December 17. It is 18 inches tall.
The lot was commissioned by the family of Count Marie-Joseph-Claude-Édouard-Robert Semari, secretary of the embassy in Beijing from 1880 to 1884.
The heads designed by Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) for the Qianlong Emperor have become a point of cultural pride in recent years after Christie’s auctioned Yves Saint Laurent’s merchandise in 2009, including rat and rabbit heads. At this auction, Chinese businessman and art dealer Cai Mingchao offered 31.4 million euros (about $40 million) for two portraits, and Cai Mingchao later announced that he would not pay for them and would instead demand that they return to China voluntarily. . The heads were then bought by the Pinault family, owners of Christie’s, who returned them to China in 2013, shortly before the auction house was allowed to operate there.
The fountain was looted during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War in 1860. The heads and their loss have become a symbol of China’s centuries of humiliation.
Although the auction house was aware of the rumors about this piece, they believed it to be from the Qing Dynasty.