Two bronzes from the Old Summer Palace have been sold for $18 million to two unidentified phone bidders. From Reuters:
Two rare bronze sculptures that disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago — and that Beijing now wants back — sold for euro14 million ($18 million) each on Wednesday at an auction of art works owned by the late designer Yves Saint Laurent.
The collection of Saint Laurent and his partner already had brought in more than euro300 million — and broken several world records — before the first drop of the gavel on Wednesday, the final day of the three-day auction.
The disputed bronze fountainheads — heads of a rat and a rabbit that disappeared from China’s Summer Imperial Palace in 1860 — were sold to unidentified telephone bidders.
For more, chinaSMACK offers some Chinese reactions to the auction.
