Chinese Museum (Fontainebleau)
The Chinese Museum or musée chinois is a section of the Palace of Fontainebleau that keeps artifacts from Qing dynasty China, the Kingdom of Siam, and other Asian countries, including diplomatic gifts and plunder from the Second Opium War.
In 1858, Napoleon III's representatives concluded the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan, and separately the French military started the Cochinchina campaign, establishing a foothold in what is now Southern Vietnam.
[2] In 1861 Mongkut sent an embassy in return, which was ceremonially received on 27 June 1861 by Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in the great 16th-century ballroom of the Palace of Fontainebleau, that was one of their favorite residences.
About 300[4] or 400[5] objects from the Beijing Summer Palace looting of 1860, many dating from the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, were presented by French officers to the Imperial household as a personal gift.
[9][12] In a 2018 article published in GQ, journalist Alex W. Palmer suggests a connection between the 2015 robbery and the longstanding promotion by the Chinese party/state of emotional grievances about the Second Opium War and especially the objects looted from the Old Summer Palace.
