Trophies of War: Representing ‘Summer Palace’ Loot in Military Museums in the UK

Abstract

In October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War (1856-60), British
and French troops looted and then burnt the imperial buildings in the Yuanmingyuan
(known at the time by foreigners as the ‘Summer Palace’) in the north of Beijing.
This widespread destruction of China’s most important complex of palaces, and
the dispersal of the imperial art collection, is considered one of the most extreme
acts of cultural destruction of the nineteenth century. Over a million objects
are estimated to have been looted from buildings in the Yuanmingyuan, many
of these are now scattered around the world, in private collections and public
museums.1 This article analyses the display of ‘Summer Palace’ objects in five
military museums in the UK, exploring the meanings constructed around China’s
imperial artefacts at these particular sites of representation.