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SCMP Reporter

Auctioneer claims several sets of the animal heads may have been made

An auctioneer at the centre of a controversy over the authenticity of an antique bronze dog head yesterday claimed there could be more than one set of the animal heads lost in the looting of the Qing dynasty Summer Palace.

Lum Kwong, chief consultant of Hong Kong Auctions International, spoke for the first time after the Beijing-based Poly Art Museum last week cast doubt over the authenticity of the head.

The museum said the head was significantly different from the other four heads it purchased for more than $31 million from Christie's, Sotheby and a private collector in New York.

The controversy has forced the auction house to cancel the auction of the piece, placing it under intense media pressure to reveal more information about the item.

The bronze heads, representing the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, were looted from Yuanmingyuan, the Summer Palace in Beijing, in 1860 when Anglo-French forces invaded the Qing dynasty capital.

In a brief statement yesterday, Mr Lum said historians and cultural relic experts had suggested there could be more than one set of the 12 animal heads.

'According to close examination by experts both from the mainland and overseas, there should be more than a single set of the heads or even a number of sets in existence,' he said.

He named experts such as Zhang Enyin, a historian on Yuanmingyuan, and the former head of the Shanghai Museum, Ma Chengyuan, as the proponents of the theory.

'We have enough reasons to believe that the bronze dog head is a valuable and rare Chinese ancient cultural treasure,' Mr Lum said, but refused to offer more details.

He repeated that they had not come under pressure to call off the auction and they would not fight anybody who cast doubt on the authenticity of the dog head.

'Our company does not intend to wage an intellectual war with anybody over the bronze dog head and we don't want the interests of anybody hurt in a meaningless conflict,' he said.

'According to our auction rules, we just act as an agent for our clients. We will make an objective description about any items entrusted to us to sell and we don't guarantee the items' origin or authenticity.

'All auctioned items have to be examined by the buyers, who should also be held responsible for their purchase.'

Jiang Ying-chun, the chief curator of the Poly Art Museum, said he had never heard about the theory that there might be a second set of the animal heads.

'Things at the palace were treated differently from those outside the palace,' he said.

'For the emperor, if the making of a bronze head didn't meet his expectation, it would simply be destroyed. There should not be any back ups.'



Bronze relic 'genuine, but not unique'