ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the issues surrounding the provenance of objects to Yuanmingyuan and specifically the sacking of the Palace in 1860. "From the Imperial Summer Palace, Peking," was a convenient catch all for objects new to a Western market in the nineteenth century, but as a secure basis for provenance. Like the fountainheads and the architectural fragments acquired by Charles Wylde for the Victoria and Albert, a few objects have a clear provenance to Yuanmingyuan and 1860. The 2000 sales triggered a very public response from the Chinese Government concerning the loss of cultural patrimony, making explicit a situation that had been a running sore certainly since 1860. It combined incidents of China's political humiliation at the hands of foreign—largely Western—countries, with the overt and covert removal of artworks, books, and manuscripts by archaeologists, soldiers, and freebooters of all kinds.
