A treasure-appraisal maniac

After the murals were installed, there was only one box left unopened in the entire darkroom.

The treasure in the first box, which Liu Peiwen was going to take away, was obviously extremely valuable.

The second box contained Dunhuang murals, which was a big surprise.

From this point of view, the last box should not be the same. .??.

Lu Fei was inexplicably excited and opened the box with great anticipation.

Sure enough, the contents inside did not disappoint Lu Fei.

Not only was he not disappointed, but he was so shocked that he sat down on the ground.

The objects here are so awesome that not only Lu Fei and Xu Maochen recognized them, but everyone present recognized them.

"Oh my god!"

"I go!"

"This, this can't be the big dragon head of the twelve zodiac signs in the Old Summer Palace!" the little milk dog exclaimed.

Lu Fei stood up and shouted excitedly.

"Yes, that's it, that's it!"

"The Great Water Method, the twelve zodiac signs of the dragon head."

"Why is this thing here?"

"How come this thing is in Liu Jianhua's hands?"

In the 25th year of Qianlong's reign, Emperor Qianlong ordered Castiglione, a foreign court painter from Italy, to build a Baroque-style European garden landscape in the Changchun Garden.

Lang Shining lived up to expectations and designed and built the famous Haiyan Hall.

The main building of Haiyan Hall faces east and west, with eleven rooms on the top and bottom.

Symmetrical stone steps and stacked fountains are built on the left and right sides of the building gate.

The wall of the trough is the handrail wall. The water on the wall pours down in stages, forming a folding waterfall, which flows directly into a large fountain under the stone steps.

This is the famous Haiyantang Dashu Dharma.

The photos of the ruins of the Old Summer Palace in middle school history textbooks are part of the structure of this great water method.

At that time, the twelve zodiac bronze statues were arranged in a figure-eight shape on both sides of a pool in front of Haiyan Hall in Yuanmingyuan. They were called "

"Hydraulic Clock".

On the south bank are Zishu, Yinhu, Chenlong, Wuma, Shenhou and Xugou respectively.

On the north bank are the Chou Ox, the Mao Rabbit, the Si Snake, the Wei Sheep, the Unitary Rooster, and the Hai Pig.

Every day, the zodiac bronze statues will take turns spraying water.

The first twelve zodiac signs represent different times.

At noon, fountains gushed out from the mouths of the twelve portraits at the same time, creating a spectacle.

Originally, the twelve zodiac signs were just a decoration on the Great Water Clock and did not have much value.

But with the course of history, the fate of these twelve zodiac animal heads has undergone earth-shaking changes.

The British and French forces jointly created the inhumane catastrophe of the Old Summer Palace.

The extremely luxurious Haiyantang and Dashuifa were reduced to ruins, and the heads of the twelve zodiac animals were robbed.

In 1985, an American antique dealer accidentally discovered a bronze statue of a horse head from the Old Summer Palace in a private residence in California.

Also included are bronze statues of ox heads and tiger heads.

The antique dealer bought these three bronze heads at a low price of US$1,500 each.

From 1987 to 1989, these three bronze animal heads and monkey heads from the Old Summer Palace successively appeared at auctions in New York and London. At that time, the highest transaction price was a horse head, which was only US$250,000.

At the beginning of the new century, China's economy recovered greatly, and a large number of wealthy people emerged one after another.

People have money and their horizons have broadened.

At the end of April and early May 2000, at the auctions of Christie's and Sotheby's on Hong Kong Island, bronze statues of cow heads, monkey heads and tiger heads appeared.

At that time, the two auction companies' practices of auctioning lost cultural relics aroused great indignation from all walks of life in Hong Kong Island and the mainland.

Countless patriotic bigwigs gathered on Hong Kong Island, vowing to bring this beast head, which represents shame and dignity, back to China at all costs.

In the end, Poly China resolutely participated in the auction and bought the cow head for HKD 7.745 million, the monkey head for HKD 8.185 million, and the tiger head for HKD 15.44475 million.

The reason why these three animal heads fetched such high prices is because unscrupulous merchants took advantage of the patriotic feelings of Chinese bosses to maliciously hype them up.

But these big guys are upright and have no regrets.

Unfortunately, their righteousness did not impress the merchants, but became a bargaining chip for them to do more.

In early September 2007, Sotheby's auction company announced that it would auction a bronze statue of a horse head under the title of "Eight-Power Allied Forces - Relics of the Old Summer Palace".

When the news spread, all walks of life were in an uproar and public resentment boiled.

The businessman used the horse head to tie it to the catastrophe of the Old Summer Palace, just to arouse the passion of the Chinese patriots. It is simply shameless.

The China Special Fund to Rescue Lost Overseas Cultural Relics took the lead in issuing a statement that it "firmly opposes the public auction of bronze horse head statues" and proposed that the return of horse heads should be achieved in a public welfare manner.

At a critical moment, Dr. Stanley Ho, consultant for the Hong Kong and Macao National Treasure Project, purchased the bronze horse head statue for HK$69.1 million before the auction on September 20 and announced that it would be donated to the country.

In July 2008, the French auction house Christie's followed Sotheby's success.

A communiqué was issued announcing that a special auction of "The Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge" will be held in February 2009.

These include lost cultural relics from the Old Summer Palace, including rat and rabbit head bronze statues, that were looted by the British and French forces during the war and lost overseas for many years.

This news reached China and caused a strong response.

February 25, 2009 at 8 pm.

"Yves Saint" held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France

At the special auction of "Collection of Roland and Pierre Bergé", the rat head numbered 677 started at 9 million euros.

No one raised a sign at the 1,200-seat venue, and only three phone buyers were vying to bid.

The auctioneer calls the phone agent "Doma."

After three rounds of extraordinary bidding, the rat head was finally sold for 14 million euros.

After that, the rabbit head numbered 678 started bidding at 10 million, and was finally sold at a sky-high price of 14 million euros.

This time, the big bosses in China were unanimous in their opinions, and no one took action forcefully.

But the result was that we missed the two beast heads.

These two animal heads later fell into the hands of the French Pinault family.

Fortunately, on April 26, 2013, the Pinault family announced in Tiandu that they would donate the rat and rabbit heads to China for free.

When the news came out, the whole country was in a state of uproar.

Kong Fanlong rushed back from Hangzhou Nursing Home to attend the donation ceremony in person.

So far, seven bronze statues of lost animal heads from the Old Summer Palace, including ox heads, monkey heads, tiger heads, pig heads, rat heads, rabbit heads, and horse heads, have returned to China in different ways.

The whereabouts of the remaining five animal heads are unknown.

However, Treasure Island collector Wang Du said in an interview that the remaining five dragon heads are on Treasure Island.

According to Wang Du's description, Longshou was in good condition in the 1980s, and he had seen it with his own eyes.

At that time, the value was four to five million Yuan Baodao coins.

The holder of the dragon head originally planned to have the dragon head appear at the auction, but due to the turmoil encountered by the rat head and the rabbit head, the holder will not take it out in the short term.

At first, everyone thought Wang Du was bragging.

Unexpectedly, the dragon head is really on the treasure island, and it is in the hands of Liu Jianhua.