Art lovers and collectors in Shanghai are in for a feast over the next few weeks.

Twenty pieces of 3,000-year old oracle bones from Yin Ruins, four bronze head statues from Yuanmingyuan, or Old Summer Palace, and 13 French impressionist paintings will go on show.

The oracle pieces, to be exhibited on Monday and Tuesday in the Hilton Hotel, will be auctioned in July.

They are the best among a collection of 431 pieces that belonged to Meng Guanghui (1867-1939), a famous calligrapher who began to collect oracle pieces in 1899, a year after the pieces were excavated in Yin Ruins, Anyang, Henan Province.

The oracle bones date from the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC to 11th century BC).

The exhibition featuring four bronze head statues, which include an ox head, a tiger head, a monkey head and a pig head, will be held in the City Center in Hongqiao area from May 1 to May 14.

The four bronze head statues were taken abroad from Yuanmingyuan before it was burnt to the ground by the Western invaders in 1860 and three were recovered by the China Poly Group at a cost of US$4 million.

At the end of 2002, He Hongsheng, the patriotic Hong Kong and Macao-based entrepreneur, found the Pig Head Bronze Statue in New York.

Determined to bring the national treasure home, He paid more than 6 million yuan (US$725,600).

"The return of the Pig Head Bronze Statue and the others is not just a return of a few cultural relics,” said Richard Liu, promotions manager from Shanghai Hua Tian Property Development Company, the main organizer of this exhibition. "It is, more importantly, a return of the Chinese culture."

The 14 French impressionist paintings to be exhibited in the Westin Hotel today and tomorrow are all created by real masters such as Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Marc Chagall.

After the exhibition, all the impressionist works will be auctioned in New York on May 4 and 5.

(Shanghai Daily April 12, 2004)