American Fortune Life

"...three pieces of red sandalwood inlaid jade, one wishful handle, yellow thread tassels, two coral beans, well preserved.

This is a pair of copper cloisonné enamel cranes with intact enamel bases. . .

The photos at the back of the album are a Zhou Pan Kui tripod, a copper cloisonné enamel animal-face double-ring statue, a half-walled moon vase with blue and white ground, a green and Han jade hanging wall, and a pair of copper-bodied enamel square vases. , a pair of copper-bodied enamel double-tube statues, and a pair of glass flowers. One piece of Ding porcelain with flat feet, one piece of Han Baiyu immortal screen, one side of pine flower stone warming inkstone, and one piece of sapphire jade vase with square cover. . . "

In the library of Highclere Castle, Andy was sitting on a chair, his eyes slightly squinted, and he was already standing beside him. Christian kept flipping through a color photo album on the table, and introduced every antique on it to him. The name.

"How many pieces did you find in total this time?" Andy reached out to take the album, looked at each of the exquisite, dusty, or defective Chinese antiques in the photos above, and asked with a slight frown.

"A total of 411 pieces cost a total of 47.9 million euros..." Christian reported the figures and costs, seeing Andy looking at him with indifferent eyes, he couldn't help explaining hastily.

"Boss, the reason why it cost more than 40 million yuan is mainly because three of them are extremely precious antiques, one is a well-preserved cloisonné unicorn, and the other is a bronze ware about 3,000 years ago, a tiger-shaped kettle. According to my I understand, even the Celestial Dynasty has only five pieces. There is also a jade booklet of Qingbaiyu shallow engraved and filled with gold Qianlong Imperial Brush, which is in good condition, and comes with a red sandalwood box."

Hearing the explanation, Andy nodded slightly. He was not worried that Christian would lie to him. After all, when Andy asked Christian, an expert-level antique dealer who has a lot of research on ancient Chinese art, to set up his own antique acquisition team , so financial and legal personnel were deployed for the purpose of prevention and supervision.

The reason why Andy formed this team is to allow them to search and collect enough antiques in the UK and even Europe. This team was left by Andy in London, because London is the third largest art market in the world.

One of Andy's missions to the team was to buy as many antiques as possible from the Celestial Dynasty. The UK should be the largest distribution center for Chinese antiques in Europe. There are many reasons. Of course, apart from trade, the most important thing is that in the modern history of the Chinese Dynasty, wars brought more suffering. When the imperialist powers invaded China, they robbed a large number of cultural relics. In the Old Summer Palace, 1.5 million cultural relics were lost overseas, not to mention those illegally lost overseas.

Of course, the figure of 1.5 million pieces lost in the Old Summer Palace may be too exaggerated. According to the team's understanding and research, there are indeed not so many treasures, because there are less than 90,000 treasures in the records of the Old Summer Palace. Of course, if a set of tea sets, teapots If calculated separately from the teacup, the figure of 1.5 million is still very reliable.

And so many cultural relics landed in Europe,

How could Andy let go of the opportunity of acquisition, especially before the local tyrants of the Celestial Dynasty marched overseas in a big way, and before the whole world knew that the Celestial Dynasty people were not short of money, they had to plow it first?

In a few years, the antiques of the Celestial Dynasty will become more and more popular, and there will be few opportunities to buy antiques from the Celestial Dynasty cheaply. These shameless descendants of robbers are eager to sell the stolen goods of the robber ancestors at a high price.

As for worrying about not worrying about buying fakes?

To be honest, Andy did have doubts in this regard, but the team of experts convinced him.

They say that the antique market in the UK is like a pyramid. The antique market is only at the bottom of the pyramid. You can only buy popular things, even if they are genuine antiques. Really valuable antiques are traded in a small circle at the upper level of the pyramid.

To put it bluntly, that is, your spending power and professional level directly determine how the circle is. The higher the circle is, the more authentic the things are, and the inheritance is orderly. You can just negotiate the price directly. The lower the circle, the more fakes will come out. up.

Especially after the Christian in front of him recommended an idea to him, Andy became more determined to expand the antique team he formed.

Christian set his mind on the descendants of those "robbers" who participated in the Opium War and burned the Old Summer Palace. You must know that, in fact, overseas, especially in Europe, no collector would be willing to take the initiative to disclose the situation of the Yuanmingyuan cultural relics in his hands.

Whether it's shamelessness or hypocrisy, the British value family history and honor, and often have scruples about the fact that their ancestors once invaded the Celestial Dynasty and plundered the cultural relics of the Old Summer Palace, so they are reluctant to speak out easily. In France, however, many descendants of the invaders were worried that the Celestial Dynasty would directly take the cultural relics away after learning that they had collected the cultural relics of the Old Summer Palace, causing heavy personal losses to them. Therefore, even for the cultural relics of the Celestial Dynasty sent to the auction, very few of these collectors announced their identities.

And Christian proposed to find the roster of those soldiers who went to China at that time, and then search for their descendants according to their military rank. The two appraisal centers for cultural relics, all Yuanmingyuan cultural relics circulating in the French auction market need to be approved by these two appraisal centers. Therefore, mastering the information of these two is equivalent to knowing all the cultural relics of the Old Summer Palace in France.

And the reason why we were able to get 411 antiques this time was mainly from the French. You can just call the other party directly with the information. As for the authenticity and price, the professionalism of the team is enough to make Andy feel at ease.

"Boss, although there are many cultural relics from the Celestial Dynasty in the major cultural relics markets, the most precious ones are still in the Celestial Dynasty. Even if there are some precious ones, they have already been collected by major museums. Now there are very few, or extremely rare, living among the people. It’s not easy to spot. A few that might even be indistinct just disappear.”

Hearing Christian's emotion, Andy shook his head and laughed and said: "Don't worry, take your time, I don't want to resell, I am a private collection, mainly because of my personal liking for Chinese culture, by the way, this time I go back, Egypt The antiques are also included in the acquisition sequence. This manor of mine has a very strong relationship with Egyptian cultural relics. Although there are many Egyptian cultural relics, many of them are replicas. I want the Egyptian cultural relics showroom in my manor Fill it up and become worthy of the name!"

"Boss, if you want to exhibit Egyptian cultural relics, then we can only buy cultural relics from the market that have been brought to the UK through commercial channels. If the cultural relics are smuggled or lost overseas through war, once they are known to the outside world, Egypt is absolutely Recourse will be required under the framework of international conventions.

Of course, as long as the cultural relics stay in the UK, there is no need to worry about being traced back. For the UK’s own considerations, the UK does not support recourse, nor has it joined this international convention. Very tough, and often rises to the external level, very annoying and troublesome. "

Christian remonstrated, regarding his boss's idea of ​​acquiring Egyptian cultural relics and displaying them, he mentioned the possible troubles and difficulties in doing so.

As we all know, Egypt is a country rich in cultural relics, with a history of seven thousand years, leaving countless relics of civilization. However, the protection of more cultural relics becomes more difficult. The phenomenon of piracy, smuggling, and illegal trafficking of cultural relics has been repeatedly banned for a long time, making the whole world a trading market for Egyptian cultural relics. On the one hand, precious cultural relics are constantly unearthed, and on the other hand, a large number of cultural relics are lost abroad. The cause of retrieving cultural relics in Egypt is constantly advancing in pain, and at the same time, it has opened up a road of experience.

Egypt attaches great importance to the recovery of cultural relics lost overseas. In addition to joining the international conventions adopted by UNESCO, it is also actively seeking to sign bilateral agreements with other countries on the recovery of cultural relics, so as to cut off the underground chain of illegal trade in cultural relics to the greatest extent.

The main job of the Egyptian Antiquities Recovery Bureau is to track down Egyptian cultural relics scattered around the world. The Cultural Relics Recovery Bureau closely monitors 40 websites that mainly deal in cultural relics around the world. Once Egyptian cultural relics are found to participate in auctions, exhibitions, etc., they will immediately contact the institution or individual that owns the cultural relics and ask them to show the legal documents of the cultural relics. At the same time, Egyptian embassies and consulates around the world are also outposts in the search for lost cultural relics, paying close attention to activities such as auctions and transfers of Egyptian cultural relics in the host country.

Once it is determined that an institution or individual illegally possesses lost Egyptian cultural relics, Egypt will put pressure on the country where it is located through diplomatic channels to demand the return of the cultural relics. If the host country refuses to cooperate, Egypt will consider terminating all exchanges with the country in the excavation and exhibition of cultural relics.

Although the Egyptian government has made great achievements in the recovery, it is not so easy, because the recovery of registered cultural relics is relatively smooth, but it is quite difficult to recover the stolen and smuggled cultural relics. Since they are not registered, it is difficult to verify the ownership of these cultural relics, and the court even needs to go through legal channels to make a judgment in the process of recourse.

The most important thing is that the above-mentioned agreement does not involve cultural relics lost before the signing. More importantly, the United Kingdom, an important cultural relics trading market, did not sign this international agreement at the beginning.

You know, in the past few decades, everyone has used various methods, either implicitly or explicitly, to request the return of cultural relics to their original owners. In this regard, the hypocritical mask of the British who call themselves a gentleman I tore it up without hesitation, in the words of the British Prime Minister.

"There is no way to agree. If I promise, the British Museum will be empty!"

Maybe some people will complain, but they know it themselves!

certainly! Of course they knew, not only did they know, they were in a hurry, and museums like the British Museum, which had the most 'looted goods', directly tore their faces and spoke out.

"Artifacts are owned by the British Museum and we will never return any part of these collections!"