BEIJING, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- China says two bronze sculptures to be auctioned in Paris were looted and their sale violates its cultural rights.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Tuesday in Beijing that the sculptures were plundered from the Old Summer Palace of Emperor Qianlong in 1860 by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
The sculptures -- a rabbit and a rat that were part of a zodiacal clepsydra decorating the palace's Calm Sea Pavilion -- were to be auctioned Wednesday at Christie's in Paris.
"It is the international community's consensus as well as the basic cultural rights and interest of the people of the original owning country of cultural assets to protect cultural relics and return them to the original owning countries," Ma said.
Five of the 12 bronze animal heads taken from the Old Summer Palace have been returned to China, while the whereabouts of five others are unknown, Xinhua said.
