Qing Dynasty Chinese five-panel screen up for sale at Bourne End Auction Rooms, Buckinghamshire – Looted Goods?

Posted: September 25th, 2025 | No Comments »

A brazen posting of what appears to be a looted Chinese five-panel screen up for sale imminently at an auction house in Buckinghamshire, England. Not uncommon to see such an item but with more information, “provenance”, than usual:

“A circa 1900 Chinese carved hardwood five-panel screen, reputedly from Peking Palace…

Provenance: Acquired in China at the turn of the 20th century and brought to England by Admiral Osborne. As recorded in the local newspaper article “Peking to Slough in three easy moves,” the screen was taken from the Palace in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion and shipped to the UK shortly thereafter”

So, “acquired” really means “looted” by Osborne in the rampage and destruction by the Eight Powers Allied Army through Peking in the wake of the 1900 Boxer Uprising. Presumably Osborne brought his share of the loot (as did everyone else – divvied into amounts and volumes according to rank) home to England in the hold of his ship. Of course the item was looted “c.1900”, but is obviously considerably older.

So who was Osborne? Well in 1900 he was pretty much nobody – Edward Oliver Brudenell Seymour Osborne. Seventeen years old, from South Kensington, the son of a minor Raj official. In 1897 he was accepted as Naval Cadet and then assigned to HMS Centurian, commanded by Sir Edward Hobart Seymour |(not sure if the Seymour in Osborne’s name denotes any relationship?). Seymour was important as he also commanded the entire naval component of the Eight Powers Allied Army (2,000 sailors and marines from Western and Japanese warships) in 1900 as Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s China Station.Seymour did well out of the war in China – appointed an Ordinary Member of the First Division, or Knight Grand Cross, of the Military Division of the Order of the Bath, “in recognition of services rendered during the recent disturbances in China” and promoted to Admiral.But Osborne was just a lowly Midshipman, a rank of officer in the Royal Navy, above naval cadet and below sub lieutenant. Though so on track for better things. And he did rise up through the ranks until he retired in 1937 as a Vice-Admiral. He died in 1956.

And all that time it seems he had his China loot. Though later it starts changing hands. In 1971 a Mrs Robinson acquired the screen from the Osborne family. As you can see the letter below (that the auction house considers “provenance” though has no sourcing worthy of consideration) rather disingenuously says Osborne was “given” the screen while the legend of its belonging to “the emperor” and coming  from “the palace of Peking” (the Forbidden City presumably) is thrown in for good measure with no particular evidence. It then seems that sometime later in the 1970s, or early 1980s a Mr Barrie Smith of Slough, Berkshire, acquired it from Mrs Robinson. He is noted in the local paper retelling the story of the “royal screen” (below – and also strangely offered as some sort of “provenance”)…

And now it’s up for sale in Bourne End Auction Rooms, Buckinghamshire where the listing very carefully neglects to mention that it is unlikely the emperor of China (that would be the Guangxu emperor forced to evacuate Peking during the sacking and looting by the foreign armies), was in the habit of giving junior midshipmen of the Royal Navy who turned up in his capital city to sack and loot it, ancient wooden screens as souvenirs!! Unless of course any of the screen’s owners  – Mrs Robinson, Mr Smith, Bourne End Auction Rooms – could ever turn up a receipt from the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu) of the Qing Dynasty to show it was purchased from them or was a gift – something distinctly unlikely to happen!

So…your thought for the day…. Who really owns this screen? Can we still consider it stolen, looted, property from China? I’d say yes, we can. It was taken, as was so much, in the organised and sanctioned looting by the Eight Power Allied Army in the wake of the relief of the Siege of the Legations. But surely this should now be returned, to be evaluated in Beijing and returned to the Forbidden City and the Palace Museum from whence it probably came. It was never really Osborne’s to own or sell – he stole it, even if his superior officers and the British Government unfortunately sanctioned that looting at that time. And so Mrs Robinson and Mr Smith, as well as whoever buys this item at Bourne End Auction Rooms on October 1 2025 (see here) is effectively receiving China’s heritage in the form of stolen goods?

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