圆明园七根石柱将从挪威'回家'

choi

Bree Feng, 圆明园七根石柱将从挪威'回家.'  纽约时报中文网, Feb 12, 2014
cn.tmagazine.com/culture/20140212/t12relics/

, which is translated from
Bree Feng, Despite Frigid Relations, Chinese Relics Coming Home From Norway. New York Times, Feb 12, 2014 (a Sinosphere blog).

Quote:

(a) "Seven marble columns 汉白玉 柱基 from the Old Summer Palace 圆明园 in Beijing, acquired more than a century ago by a former Norwegian cavalry officer who had settled in China, are set to return home this fall under an agreement between a Norwegian museum and a Chinese businessman.

"The columns are part of a 2,500-piece collection of Chinese artifacts in the KODE Art Museums of Bergen that were donated by Johan Wilhelm Normann Munthe between 1907 and 1935.

"Under the terms of the agreement reached in December, HUANG Nubo 黄 怒波 * * * will donate 10 million Norwegian krone, about $1.6 million, to the museum. In return, the columns will be sent back to China this September and displayed at Peking University, Mr Huang’s alma mater. The university * * * is adjacent to the grounds of the Old Summer Palace

(b) "'For many, many years the museum had 21 columns but was displaying only seven, due to space limits,' Mr [Erlend G] Hoyersten[, the former director of the KODE Art Museums,] said in an interview.

(c) "Mr Munthe [whose hometown was Bergen] began his career as a cavalry officer in the Norwegian army, but in 1886 made his way to China, where he worked in the Chinese customs service. He fought on the Chinese side in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War and was named a lieutenant general by Yuan Shikai, who would later become the first president of the Republic of China.

"Mr Munthe became an avid collector of Chinese sculpture, pottery and other artifacts, including the seven plinths. It is unclear how he obtained them.

(d) "The marble columns * * * were once part of the vast imperial compound * * * called the Old Summer Palace. The destruction and looting of the palace grounds by British and French forces in 1860, during the Second Opium War, is seen by many in China today as a pivotal event among the foreign incursions of the 19th and 20th centuries. * * * However, Mr Hoyersten and Mr Huang insist that theirs is a purely nongovernmental agreement. * * * The Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Svein A Michelsen said the government is not a party to the project

(e) "Although KODE has a significant collection, it is dwarfed by the vast holdings of Chinese antiquities, including from the Old Summer Palace, in some British and French museums.

(f) "The huge sums paid for such objects [from the Old Summer Palace] have led to a debate about whether their importance is overplayed. CHEN Lusheng, deputy director of the National Museum of China 中国国家博物馆副馆长 陈履生, once dismissed the bronze heads, part of a water clock designed by an Italian Jesuit, as 'water faucets made by foreigners' and not national treasures, according to Xinhua. Others, however, argue that they hold great symbolic value for China.


Note:
(a) 汉白玉
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/汉白玉
(就是纯白色的大理石; 从中国古代起，就用这种石料制作宫殿中的石阶和护栏; 河北省保定市曲阳县附近的太行山麓是盛产汉白玉的矿脉)
(b) Bergen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen
(section 1.2 toponymy)

KODE Arts Museums is occasionally spelled Kode. I can not find in the Web whether KODE is an acronym, or whether the museums are private or public. The website of the Museums are sparse. The English Wiki page for Bergen mentions Bergen Museum but not KODE.
(c)
(i) CHEN Lyusheng 陈履生, 不要忽悠圆明园的水龙头. 陈履生唯一授权个人官方网站, undated
chenlusheng.com/article_atc.php?id=349
(ii) 陶禹舟, 国博副馆长陈履生：把圆明园12兽首称作国宝欠妥. 新民晚报, Apr 27, 2013
www.chinanews.com/cul/2013/04-27/4772712.shtml
("铜首部分，由意大利籍清朝宫廷画家郎世宁 Giuseppe CASTIGLIONE [1688-1766] 设计，清宫廷匠师制作")

The Italian surname Castiglione is from "numerous places named with this word, from medieval Latin castellio (genitive castellionis) ‘fortification’, ‘small castle.’"
Dictionary of American Family Names