About The Rat & The Hare

Making it's rounds in Asian news now, is this duo Chinese bronze sculptures in the eye of the media-storm: both relics that had been "looted by invading Anglo-French expedition army in the 19th century, when the invaders burned down the royal garden of Yuanmingyuan in Beijing." [via XinHua.net] and have just been auctioned off in Paris, France, against the plea of the Chinese Goverment, who wanted it back in China from which it originated. [MORE]

Now, don't worry - the TRE-blog has not suddenly turned into a current world affairs-blog! But rather I reckon these two sculpts (which were a part of a series of Zodiac-themed sculpts by the garden's fountain) of a RAT and HARE (Rabbit / pics via CCTV.com) are actually pretty cute (cuter then their Horse and Boar brothers anyways, IMHO), and would make decent toys, dunnit? I'm sure some entrepreneurial folk would replicate this somewhere somehow, innit? Without incurring the wrath of the Chinese government, of coz.


Additional pics via XinHua.net & Time.com

Back to your regular scheduled blog-program. heh.