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Bob Geldof ‘beyond pain’ at death of daughter Peaches WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2014 37 Playmobil figures are seen during a preview of the exhibition “The World in a Game - 40 Years of Playmobil” yesterday at the Toy Museum in Nuremberg, southern Germany. From tomorrow to October 19, 2014, the museum dedicates a show to the small figurines that first appeared in the year 1974 and that are well-liked by children since then. — AFP ‘World’s oldest message in a bottle’ reaches granddaughter message in a bottle tossed in the sea in German news agency DPA. She was first able son with letters penned by Platz later in life Germany 101 years ago, believed to be to hold the brown bottle last week at the confirmed that he was “without a doubt” the Athe world’s oldest, has been presented Hamburg museum. author. Erdmann told local newspapers that to the sender’s granddaughter, a museum said Inside was a message on a postcard the surprise discovery had inspired her to look Monday. A fisherman pulled the bottle with requesting the finder to return it to his home through family scrapbooks to learn more the scribbled message out of the Baltic off the address in Berlin. “That was a pretty moving about her grandfather, a Social Democrat who northern city of Kiel last month, Holger von moment,” Erdmann said. “Tears rolled down liked to read. Much of the ink on the postcard This photo taken Neuhoff of the International Maritime my cheeks.” Von Neuhoff said researchers has been rendered illegible with time and on March 5, 2014 Museum in the northern port city of Hamburg were able to determine based on the address dampness, von Neuhoff said. shows German told AFP. that it was 20-year-old baker’s son Richard The discovery will be on display at the fisher Konrad “This is certainly the first time such an old Platz who threw the bottle in the Baltic while museum until May 1, after which experts will Fischer holding a message in a bottle was found, particularly on a hike with a nature appreciation group in set to work trying to decipher the rest of the message in a with the bottle intact,” he said. Researchers 1913. A Berlin-based genealogical researcher message. The Guinness World Records had bottle from 1913 then set to work identifying the author and then located Erdmann, who never knew Platz, previously identified the oldest message in a on the fishing managed to track down his 62-year-old grand- her mother’s father who died in 1946 at the bottle as dating from 1914. It spent nearly 98 cutter “Maria I” daughter Angela Erdmann, who lives in Berlin. age of 54. years at sea before being fished from the in Kiel, “It was almost unbelievable,” Erdmann told Von Neuhoff said a handwriting compari- water. —AFP Germany. — AFP Ming dynasty ‘chicken cup’ Myanmar loans ancient smashes record in $36m sale treasures to New York rare cup fired in the imperial kilns of these remain in private hands. China’s Ming dynasty more than 500 Prized by Chinese emperors and afficiona- years ago sold yesterday for HK$281.2 dos through the centuries for their quality, rar- A landmark exhibition opens in Curator John Guy said Southeast several other countries, cabinet-level is an enormous act of faith on their million at a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong, mak- ity and legendary silky texture, Chenghua ing it one of the most expensive Chinese cul- chicken cups fired in the imperial kilns of New York next week exploring Asia was dismissed by ancient geogra- approval was required. “It’s appropri- part.” Southeast Asian countries are tural relics ever auctioned. The tiny porcelain Jingdezhen are among the most prized, and Athe ancient kingdoms of phers as “that place beyond India and ate,” Guy said. “We’re asking to borrow emerging economies and Myanmar Southeast Asia and introducing to the before China,” but produced some of their national treasures and bring has embarked upon wide-ranging cup from the Chenghua period, dating from forged, objects in Chinese art. In a packed outside world the first treasures from the greatest Hindu and Buddhist art to them half way around the world. This reforms since turning the page on five 1465 to 1487, is painted with cocks, hens and auction hall, bidding for the delicate, palm- Myanmar seen abroad. The survive. The exhibition tracks the peri- decades of junta rule that kept the chicks, and known simply as a ‘chicken cup’. It sized cup began at HK$160 million and drew Metropolitan Museum of Art spent od when both faiths took root in the country impoverished. Guy said the is considered one of the most sought-after steady bids from three parties, before being five years preparing the exhibition of region from India, absorbed into local region could expect spin-off benefits eventually sold to major Chinese collector Liu Hindu-Buddhist sculptures from a belief systems and giving rise to the such as enhanced tourism and cultural Yiqian for a bid of HK$250 million. The final region and ancient culture little nation states of today. cooperation. price of HK$281.2 million, including fees, was known in the United States. It features When the exhibits return to a new world auction record for any Chinese 160 stone, terracotta and bronze ‘An enormous act of faith’ Myanmar in August, for example, two porcelain, exceeding the $32.4 million paid for sculptures of which 22 are from It took two years-a “long and rigor- conservators will go to work on a Qing double-gourd vase in 2010. Myanmar, the first pieces of art loaned ous process”-to negotiate the loans objects that in the end were deemed The cup had come from the celebrated by Yangon after emerging from from all the countries, Guy told AFP. too fragile to travel to New York. “As Western collection of Chinese ceramics, the decades of international isolation. “Myanmar is new at this and I have to ‘Meiyintang’, accumulated over half a century The rest from Cambodia, Malaysia, say they behaved in an extraordinarily by Swiss pharmaceutical tycoons the Zuellig Thailand, Vietnam, Britain, France and professional manner,” he added. brothers. With the purchase by Liu, a elsewhere in the United States com- Before coming to New York, some Shanghai-based billionaire with his own pri- plete an exhibition that only the vast objects had traveled only once: by vate ‘Long Museum’, the Meiyintang center- resources of the Metropolitan could cart from the ancient city of Sri Ksetra piece is expected to become the only known pull off. “Most of these powerful works where they were excavated in 1924-26 The Head of Buddha from Western genuine chicken cup in China. Over the past of art have rarely if ever been on view to the local museum. As in the case of Thailand in the 7th century. decade, prices of Chinese art have soared with outside their home countries,” said the the country’s economic boom, and while the Met’s British director Thomas market has moderated since 2011, demand Campbell. “We are especially honored The Meiyintang “Chicken Cup” from the for the highest quality Chinese art has that the government of Myanmar has Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is remained undiminished. signed its first-ever international loan agreement in order to lend their displayed during a press conference in National pride and the cachet of historical Hong Kong, yesterday. — AP national treasures to this exhibition.” relics such as chicken cups have fuelled The beautifully presented and Reporters view the exhibit Chinese buying both on the world stage and painstakingly curated “Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of items in Chinese art, viewed with a reverence at home, where a slew of auction houses have Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early including the relief termed perhaps equivalent to that for the jeweled sprouted up to ride the market. Still, some Southeast Asia 5th to 8th Century,” Throne Stele from Central Faberge eggs of Tsarist Russia. experts said China’s slowing economy and opens next Monday and runs until Myanmar. “Every time a chicken cup comes up on the credit squeeze may have sapped some market July 27. The museum hopes that it will market, it totally redefines prices in the field of enthusiasm for the chicken cup, with the price attract culture vultures keen to bone important as the exhibition is, we Chinese art,” said Nicolas Chow, deputy chair- falling just short of its high estimate. “The up on a little-known field, and back- would never put a single object at man of Sotheby’s Asia, after the sale. The last price was OK, not so high, not so low,” said packers and gap-year students who risk,” said Guy, an expert with 20 years’ time a similar chicken cup was auctioned, in Robert Chang, a leading collector based in have enjoyed the beaches of Thailand experience and contacts in the region. 1999, it fetched HK$29 million, around a tenth Hong Kong. “There were not as many bidders, and Vietnam. Around 6.2 million peo- While many of the masterpieces come of yesterday’s price. With just 16 known which was kind of surprising,” said Richard ple visited the Met in each of the last from Cambodia, Thailand and Chenghua chicken cups surviving to the pres- Littleton, a Western dealer at the sale. “Where two years, a new audience for these Buddha in Meditation from Central Thailand in the 6th-7th century, Vietnam, the standout contribution ent day, most in public museums, only a hand- is all this big Chinese money we were expect- ancient treasures and for Myanmar, part of the exhibit “Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of from Myanmar is a sixth century sand- ful have ever come to auction.