After a lapse of 163, the five beast heads reunited for the first time Yuanmingyuan

The head, tiger head, monkey head, and pig head of the 12th beasts collected by the Poly Art Museum, on Wednesday (October 18), after 163 years, the first reunion with the head of Malaysia gathersYuanmingyuan.

Comprehensive CCTV News client and Beijing Evening News reported that these five beasts appeared together for a special exhibition of bronze statues of the "Five Reunion · Hometown New Words".The exhibition continued until October 29th and met the public at the Yuanmingyuan Museum (the most upstairs in Zhengjue Temple).

Twelve beasts were originally the component of the hydraulic clock fountain in the front of the Haiyan Hall in Yuanmingyuan. The group of fountains in this group will integrate the zodiac culture of the two zodiacs of the East and the Western fountain building.The production process and clever structural design, no matter today or more than a hundred years later, have high cultural connotation, artistic accomplishment, aesthetic level, and technological value.However, since the British and French coalition forces burned the Yuanmingyuan in 1860, many precious cultural relics including the twelve beasts were ruthlessly burned and illegally plundered, and the actions that recovered the dispersion of cultural relics began.

Niu Chove, Tiger Head, and Monkey Chief were purchased by Poly Group from the auction house in 2000 and stored in the Poly Art Museum.In 2003, He Hongzhang, former member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hong Kong Xinde Group, invested herself to buy back the pig's head from the US collectors and donated it to the Poly Art Museum.His head was also repurchased by He Hongzhang in 2007. In November 2019, He Hongzheng donated Malaysia to the National Cultural Relics Bureau of China for free.On December 1, 2020, the bronze statue of Malaysia returned to Yuanmingyuan.

As of now, seven beasts, such as Tiger Heads, Niu Shou, Monkey Shou, Pig Head, Rat Shou, Rabbit Head, and Malaysia, have returned to China.It is reported that on June 28, 2013, the rat head and the rabbit head were donated to China by the Pinotan family in France. It is currently collected in the National Museum of China.In 2018, a lot of the suspected lost dragons appeared in the auction; snakes, sheep heads, chicken heads and dog heads are still unknown.