Chinese Junk Flag, c.1839 – More Looted Goods on Sale

Posted: November 15th, 2025 | No Comments »

I posted some months back about a Chinese screen being sold at auction in the UK despite being suspected looted goods (from the Boxer Uprising and the subsequent violent suppression of Peking). Now the following has appeared for auction at Trevanion Auctioneers and Valuers in Whitchurch, on the Shropshire and Cheshire borders. The description for the item (up for sale 26/11/25) is as follows:

“A large and rare Chinese silk painted green-ground ceremonial ‘Dragon’ banner, Qing Dynasty, 19th century, of triangular form with orange-ground flame cut edges, painted to both sides in gold coloured pigment to depict a scaly four-clawed dragon, chasing a flaming pearl, amidst clouds, 274cm x 243cm

Footnote; The family, by repute, always thought that this had been removed from the Summer Palace, Beijing, in 1860 under the leadership of the 8th Earl of Elgin.”

The description makes sense as does the origin of the flag, taken during the Second Opium War. Banners of the Lord of Suiyuan (a deity worshipped in Hunan Province) – sometimes known as “Junk Flags” (a common name for imperial Chinese dragon flag or a Chinese junk boat flags – were not official items of the Qing imperial army but rather had ritual and ceremonial purposes. It is possible that it came the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) and the family/auctioneer have the Yuanmingyuan and the Yiheyuan (Summer Palace) confused. The Yuanmingyuan was indeed looted and burnt by a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force in October 1860. The exact total number of items looted from the Old Summer Palace in 1860 is unknown, but over a million objects are estimated to have been looted

A couple of similar flags are part of the collection of the Royal Museum at Greenwich – here and here….

As with the Chinese screen I noted back in September this flag should of course be returned to China and not sold on for profit by the descendants of the looter and the auction house.

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