China bronzes will likely remain in France (Update on YSL auction)

Source: Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Beijing -- The bronze heads of a rat and rabbit that ignited an intercontinental bidding war will likely return to the Paris home of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent after a attempt to auction them was sabotaged by a Chinese art dealer.

"I will be thrilled to keep them," Saint Laurent's partner, Pierre Berge, was quoted as saying in the French newspaper Le Figaro. "These heads were with me and they will return, and we will continue to live together next to my Picasso."

The auction house Christie's has not disclosed what action it will take against the Chinese dealer, Cai Mingchao, who revealed Monday that he had submitted the winning $40-million bid in an auction last week as a patriotic gesture to block the sale. The bronze heads in question had been looted during the second Opium War in 1860 by French and English troops from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing.

Art experts have warned that Cai could be subject to civil and even criminal charges for submitting a fraudulent bid in the auction, which was conducted anonymously by telephone. However, Christie's might be loath to prosecute Cai, who has become overnight a Chinese national hero.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-web-bronze3-2009mar03,0,5940969.story

""I will be thrilled to keep them," Saint Laurent's partner, Pierre Berge, was quoted as saying in the French newspaper Le Figaro. "These heads were with me and they will return, and we will continue to live together next to my Picasso.""

Of course Yves Saint Laurent's Picassos were auctioned off. Along with quite a bit else. About $500 million worth.

It's nice to know there are silly mindless people who continue to get rich off of other silly mindless people whose only sense of existence is their stolen Chinese antiquities and their Picassos.

"I have, therefore I am..." While millions around the world starve to death. Tossed crumbs instead of cake. While others loot the bakery.

The antiques collector who says he placed the winning bid for two disputed bronze sculptures and refuses to pay for them acted without the support of the Chinese government, Bloomberg News reported. Cai Mingchao, a collector and auctioneer, has said he submitted the two winning $18 million bids for the bronze heads of a rat, above right, and a rabbit, above left, last week in Paris at a Christie’s auction of the Yves Saint Laurent collection. The sculptures, from the Qing dynasty, were looted in the 1800s from an imperial palace outside Beijing. But Mr. Cai has said that out of patriotism he will not pay for the works. His statement prompted speculation that the Chinese government, which has demanded that France return the objects to China, had encouraged Mr. Cai’s actions. In a report in China’s state-run Xinhua news service, an official from the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage said Mr. Cai had acted alone. At a news conference Li Zhaoxing, the spokesman for China’s legislature, said: “The auction will not add anything positive to the good tradition of the country in which it was hosted. It will only have the opposite effect.”

on edit: link -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/arts/design/05arts-BIDDERFORSCU_BRF.html?ref=arts