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Without saying if I agree or disagree, <\/em>here are t<\/em><\/a>wo interesting articles<\/a> which I picked up off the Museum Security Network<\/a> website (though one was originally from Bloomberg<\/a>) regarding last years controversial auction<\/a> of\u00a0 a bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit looted from\u00a0 Beijing’s Summer Palace\u00a0 in 1860<\/em> .\u00a0 Interesting perspectives – one must wonder if Cai Ming Chao simply “got caught up in it all?”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nChinese Art Dealer in Unpaid YSL Bronzes Furor Weeps as he realizes that his credibility is shot.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
March 10 (Bloomberg) — Cai Mingchao<\/a> (\u8521\u94ed\u8d85) the Chinese art dealer who is refusing to pay for the $40 million Qing bronzes he successfully bid for in the Yves Saint Laurent<\/a> auction, wept when he realized that his credibility was shot and he may now have to close his business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cai, 44, spoke in an interview after turning away hundreds of calls from reporters about the Feb. 25 sale. He was praised in China<\/a> for walking away from the bronzes, which were plundered by foreign troops, and has been condemned by other dealers. In the world of high-end art sales, where millions of dollars worth of items may sell on the basis of a phone call or handshake, defaulting is seen as unprofessional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis has damaged me: I have lost the business I love,\u201d said Cai, in his office in the southeastern city of Xiamen. Cai said he had bid with the intention of paying, then had second thoughts and decided it\u2019s wrong to do so. He again denied acting in concert with China\u2019s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Christie\u2019s International sale is renewing debate in art circles on the moral and legal right of auction houses to sell controversial items, including those that some nations regard as looted. Cai\u2019s default may also heighten calls for more checks on bidders. Art transactions were worth 43.3 billion euros ($54.5 billion) in 2006, according to a 2008 report by the European Fine Art Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
International Law<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christie\u2019s has always held that the sale of all of the Saint Laurent items, including the sculptures, was legitimate because the items had legal titles. Not so, said an ad hoc group of lawyers in China that in January threatened to sue Christie\u2019s for offering the animal-head bronzes, saying it contravened international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mid-18th-century sculptures of a rabbit and a rat were taken from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by invading French and British soldiers in 1860.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 1995 United Nations Unidroit Convention limits claims on stolen cultural artifacts to within 50 years of their theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Feb. 23 in Paris (Xiamen is seven hours ahead of France), a court ruled that the sale could go ahead. Hours later, Cai called Christie\u2019s<\/a> Shanghai-based business development director Wang Jie from his favorite leather couch on his dark-wood, second-floor office and registered to bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought to myself, \u2018It\u2019s impossible to find these items again,\u2019\u201d Cai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n