BEIJING — A Chinese art collector revealed himself Monday as the man behind the winning bids for two imperial bronzes auctioned at Christie’s over Beijing’s objections, then announced he had no intention of paying the $36 million.
The act of commercial sabotage exposes the tensions China and other countries, such as Greece and Egypt, face in trying to recover cultural objects plundered in war or stolen.
The pieces disappeared when French and British forces sacked and burned the imperial Summer Palace outside Beijing in 1860 at the end of the second Opium War. Chinese view the devastation of the palace as a national humiliation.
Auction house owner Cai Mingchao said he put in telephone bids for the bronze rat and rabbit heads — part of a collection owned by the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent.
Actually paying for the bronzes would equal paying ransom, some Chinese have said.
