Lessons from the little water buffalo

Yesterday afternoon I took break from carving a woodcut and glanced across to my computer screen, I spotted a Tweet from @CambridgeNewsUK "Works of art stolen after break-in at Fitzwilliam Museum in #Cambridge - more details soon" – I felt a lump in my throat . . . if it's 'my' little buffalo, I'll cry!

The news was out that last Friday, 13th April, at round 7.30pm thieves had broken into the Fitzwilliam Museum and had taken 18 carved jade objects from the oriental gallery (on the ground floor just behind the atrium café) one of them was this green jade buffalo . . . 'my' buffalo.

Fitzwilliam Museum id object 167886

I remember the day I first met the little buffalo, it was a school visit to the museum with Mrs Slade, the pottery teacher. She pointed out the carved green jade water buffalo . . . she got us to look at his round tummy and serene face, the folds of soft flesh under his chin and the little whorl of hair on his forehead. I fell totally in love with him.

For nearly 40 years the little water buffalo has been part of my visits to the Fitzwilliam Museum and my visits home; he was there when I was on my way to my holiday job in the museum one summer (shuffling card indexes in the coins department); I took Cliff to meet him; I've stood in front of him when I was sad; I've shared a moment with him when I felt happy; and he was there when I went to see the Vermeers a few weeks ago.

But today . . . who knows where the little buffalo is? I hope he's not damaged. I hope he's safe. I hope I'll be able to see him again . . . but there's more I can learn from my buffalo . . .

When I looked at the Fitzwilliam Museum website yesterday, I read the 'History Note':

Taken from Qianlong’s Summer Palace by a Scotch subaltern,
when it was sacked in 1861.
At his death he left it to his sister, who died in 1907.
Oscar Raphael bought it at the sale of her effects.
Bequeathed: (Raphael, Oscar C.; 1946)

I thought about the 'life' of the little water buffalo; he began as a small boulder of green jade about the size of a man's foot, in a Chinese river . . .

photo borrowed from Friends of Jade

Then 500 years ago a craftsman sat the boulder on his work table, looked at it and saw a little water buffalo, sitting down and turning his head to sniff the air. I wonder how many hours work it took for him to 'release' the little buffalo's form form the rough stone?

In China, jade was precious, more special than gold or silver . . . where did the little buffalo spend the next 300 years? In a temple, a garden or palace? Who did he calm and inspire?

What is known is that in the early 1800s the little buffalo was one of the treasures in the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, Yuan Ming Yuan . . .

 

This beautiful complex of gardens and palaces was the Emperor's retreat from the summer heat of Beijing.

The next chapter in the little buffalo's life is dramatic and distressing . . . it was during the Second Opium War, it was 1860 and the French and British armies had marched on Beijing. Two British envoys, a journalist from the Times and their escort of troops went ahead to meet with Chinese officials for peace talks . . . it went horribly wrong and the British group were imprisoned and brutally tortured.

The British High Commissioner to China was Lord Elgin (the son of Elgin of 'The Elgin Marbles' fame) here he is arriving in Beijing . . .

Outraged by the atrocity he ordered the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan . . .

3,500 British soldiers attacked the palace and set it on fire, one of the soldiers was 27 year Charles Gordon (later to find fame as General Gordon in the Sudan), he wrote in his diary:

We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money...I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army.

There was much disapproval, Victor Hugo the French author, wrote:

Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain.

 

One of the objects stolen was a little green jade buffalo.


The last 40 years has been a short chapter in the life story of the little water buffalo. Who knows what the next twist in the tale will be? Where will the the next scenes take place? Will he return to China or to Cambridge? And what lessons will he teach to those who look?



Celia
x