Old Summer Palace bronze heads

The Twelve Old Summer Palace bronze heads are a collection of bronze fountainheads in the shape of the Chinese zodiac animals that were part of a water clock fountain in front of the Haiyantang (pinyin: Hǎiyàntáng) building of the Xiyang Lou (Western style mansions) area of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Believed to have been designed by the Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione with fountains engineered by Jesuit Michel Benoist for the Qianlong Emperor, the statues would spout out water from their mouths to tell the time. The bronze-cast heads of the stone statues were among the treasures looted during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace by British and French expeditionary forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War. Since then, they have been among the most visible examples of attempts to repatriate Chinese art and cultural artifacts. Two of the heads, the rat and the rabbit, were formerly held by French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and were the subject of an international scandal (2009 auction of Old Summer Palace bronze heads). The Poly Museum (New Beijing Poly Plaza), a museum in Beijing owned and operated by China Poly Group Corporation, a state-owned Chinese business group enterprise, is filled with repatriated artworks, including several of the animal fountainheads. China Poly bought the tiger, monkey, and ox through auction houses in Hong Kong in 2000, w

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