American Fortune Life

“ Three-piece sandalwood embedded jade, yellow ear, two coral beans, well preserved.

This is a pair of copper pinched enamel cranes with a perfect enamel base...

The photographs at the back of the album are Zhou Panding, the copper pinched enamel beast surface double-loop respect one, blue flower white half wall baby moon bottle one, green Hanyu hanging perfect one, copper tire enamel square bottle one pair, copper tire enamel double-tube respect one pair, glass flower pair. One china flat foot wash, one Hanbaiyu cactus insertion screen, one pine flower stone warm yam side, one green jade trident square cap bottle... ”

In the library of Castle Hecklier, Andy sat on a chair with his eyes slightly blindfolded, standing beside him, Christian kept turning over a colored photographic album on the table, introducing him to each of the antique names on it.

“How many have you found this time?” Andy reached for the album and looked at one of the pictures above, either beautiful or dusty, or flawed heavenly antiques, frowned slightly and asked.

“A total of 411, at a total cost of €47.9 million...” Christian reported numbers and spending, and saw Andy looking at his indifferent eyes, he couldn't help but hastily explain.

“Boss, it cost more than 40 million, mainly three of them are extremely precious antiques, one is well-preserved Jingtai Blue Kirin, one is about 3,000 years old bronze vessel, tiger shaped kettle, even the Heavenly Dynasty, according to my understanding, there are only five. There is also a Mint Green and White Jade Shallow Engraved Gold Dry Royal Pencil Jade Book with Sandalwood Box. ”

When he heard the explanation, Andy nodded slightly, but he was not worried that Christian had cheated on him. After all, when Andy had asked Christian, an expert antique dealer with a great deal of ancient artwork in heaven and dynasty, to form his own team of antique acquisitions, he had placed financial and legal personnel in order to prevent and supervise them.

Andy formed this team to allow them to search for antiques in the UK and even Europe, a team that Andy left behind because London is the world's third-largest art market.

One of the tasks Andy gave the team was to acquire as much antiques as possible from the Tianjing Dynasty, and the UK should be Europe's largest collection of Chinese antiques. Apart from trade, of course, for many reasons, the most important of which is the recent history of the disastrous Heavenly Dynasty, the suffering caused by war has been particularly severe. When the imperialist forces invaded the heavens and dynasty, they stole a large number of antiquities, a Yuanming Garden, leaving 1.5 million objects abroad, not to mention those illegally lost abroad.

Of course, the 1.5 million pieces lost in the Yuanming Garden may be too exaggerated, and according to the team's knowledge and assessment, there is really not that much, because there are less than 90,000 treasures on the Yuanming Garden catalogue, and of course, this 1.5 million figure is very reliable if one set of tea utensils, teapots and cups is counted separately.

How could Andy let go of the opportunity to acquire so many cultural relics that they landed on the continent? Especially if the Tian Dynasties hadn't marched overseas and plowed them before the whole world knew that Tian Dynasties were not bad money?

In a few years' time, the higher the antiques will be, the less chances there will be to acquire them cheaply. The descendants of these shameless bandits will have to sell the thieves of the bandits' ancestors for a higher price.

As for worrying about buying fake goods?

To be honest, Andy did have some doubts about this, but the team convinced him.

They say that the British antique market is like a pyramid, like an antique market, but at the bottom of the pyramid, you can only buy popular things, even real antiques. Really valuable antiques are traded in a small circle at the top of the pyramid.

To put it bluntly, that is, your ability to consume and your level of professionalism directly determine how the circle is, the higher the circle, the more authentic the thing, the more orderly the inheritance, the more you can directly negotiate the price, the lower the circle, the more fake the goods come out.

Especially after Christian recommended him an idea before him, Andy was more determined to expand this antique team.

Christian struck down on the descendants of those ‘bandits' who had been involved in the opium war and the burning of the Circumferential Garden. You know, in fact, overseas, especially in Europe, none of the collectors would be willing to reveal what they had in their possession.

Whether true or false, the British value family history, family honor, and are often worried about the fact that their ancestors invaded the Heavenly Dynasty and plundered the cultural relics of the Yuanming Garden, and are easily reluctant to speak out. In France, however, a number of future generations of aggressors feared that Heavenly Dynasty would take cultural relics directly after learning of their collection in the Yuanming Garden, causing heavy personal losses. As a result, few of these collectors make public their identities, even if they are sent to auctions.

Christian proposes to find a roster of the soldiers who went to Heaven at the time and then, based on their rank, to find their descendants. Although the workload is a little heavy, it is not difficult to find them, especially in France, where there are two main centres for the identification of cultural relics, all of which need to be recognized by these centres for the circulation of cultural relics in the French auction market. Thus, having access to the information of the two families is tantamount to knowing all the information about the cultural relics of the Yuanming Garden in France.

And the reason we got 411 antiques this time, mainly from the French, was to call each other directly with the information, and the professionalism of the team was enough to reassure Andy about the real deal and the price.

“Boss, although there are many Tian Dynasty relics in the major cultural relics markets, the most precious is in Tian Dynasty. Even some of them are, after all, precious and have been collected by major museums, and few, if any, of the folk are now displaced, or extremely difficult to detect. Some of them may even disappear in vagueness. ”

When I heard Christian's sentiment, Andy shook his head and smiled: “Don't worry, slowly, I'm not going to resell it, I'm a private collector, mainly or I personally like the culture of heaven and dynasty. By the way, this time I go back, Egyptian antiques are included in the acquisition sequence. My estate, and Egyptian antiquities, have a very great source. Although there are many Egyptian antiquities, many are reproductions. I want my estate's Egyptian antiquities showroom to be enriched and become true! ”

“If you want to exhibit Egyptian monuments, we can only buy them commercially from the market, and if they are smuggled or lost abroad through war, Egypt will definitely demand recourse within the framework of international conventions once they are known to the outside world.

Of course, as long as the cultural relics remain in the UK, there is no need to worry about being pursued back. In the UK's own considerations, the UK does not support recourse and has not acceded to this international convention, but the Egyptian Government has a very strong attitude towards the pursuit of cultural relics, often rising to the level of external JIAO, which is annoying and troublesome. ”

Christian persuaded his boss of the trouble and difficulty of acquiring and exhibiting Egyptian antiquities.

As is well known, Egypt is a monumental power that has been precipitated by history for 7,000 years, leaving behind countless ruins of radiant civilization. However, many cultural relics have become difficult to protect, and the phenomenon of theft, smuggling and illicit trafficking has long been endless, making the world a trading market for Egyptian cultural relics. On the one hand, precious cultural relics continue to leave the soil, and on the other hand, a large number of cultural relics have been lost abroad. The Egyptian pursuit of cultural relics continues in pain, while also paving the way for experience.

Egypt attaches great importance to the recovery of cultural objects lost abroad and, in addition to acceding to the international conventions adopted by UNESCO, actively seeks to conclude bilateral agreements with States on the recovery of cultural objects in order to break the underground chain of illicit trade in cultural objects to the maximum extent possible.

The main task of the Egyptian Antiquities Recovery Agency is to trace Egyptian antiquities scattered around the world. ARB closely monitors 40 websites around the world that deal primarily with cultural relics and immediately contacts the institution or individual who owns the relic once it is discovered that an Egyptian relic participates in an auction, exhibition, etc., requesting it to produce legal documents for the relic. At the same time, Egyptian embassies and consulates in various countries around the world are also outposts for tracing lost cultural objects, closely following such activities as the auction and transfer of Egyptian cultural objects in their countries of residence.

Once it has been established that an institution or individual illegally possesses Egyptian lost cultural relics, Egypt will exert diplomatic pressure on its host country to return them. If the host country refuses to cooperate, Egypt will consider putting an end to all exchanges with that country on excavations, exhibitions, etc.

Although the Egyptian Government has achieved good results in recourse, it has not been so easy, as the recourse to registered cultural objects has been relatively smooth, but it has been difficult to recourse to stolen and smuggled cultural objects. Owing to the lack of registration, it is difficult to verify the attribution of these objects, and the recourse process even requires a court decision through legal channels.

And most importantly, the agreement does not deal with cultural objects that were lost before they were signed, and more importantly, the United Kingdom, which was an important market for trade in cultural objects, did not sign the international convention.

You know, over the past few decades, everyone has asked for the return of cultural objects to their original owners in a variety of ways, implicitly or explicitly, without hesitation to tear apart the false mask of an Englishman who claims to be a gentleman, in the words of the British Prime Minister.

“There's no way to say yes, the British Museum is empty! ”

Maybe someone can throw up. They know that too!

Of course! They know, not only do they know, they're in a hurry, like the British Museum, where the most ‘looted' museums tear their faces apart.

“The monuments belong to the British Museum and we will never return any part of them! ”