Two Rare Bronze Fountainheads: $36 million

Final Day of the Saint Laurent auction in Paris:

Two rare bronze fountainheads - one of a rat shown above and one of a rabbit - which disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago and demanded back by Beijing, sold for $18 million each on the third and final day of the Christie's auction of the Yves Saint Laurent private collection.

The bronze fountainheads were part of a celebrated water fountain at the Imperial Summer Palace outside Beijing and disappeared from the Imperial compound near the end of the Second Opium War in 1860. They were looted along with the ten others, each fountainhead representing an animal of the Chinese zodiac, after the palace was burned down by French and British forces, and China insisted they belonged in a museum.

However Pierre Berge refused to return the two fountainheads to China, insisting he acquired them legally. At the weekend Mr. Berge stated he would agree to give them back if Beijing gave Tibet its freedom and improved its record on human rights.

PWP