FUJIAN Provincial High People’s Court upheld a ruling from a lower court yesterday, ordering a Dutch art collector to return the Buddha statue of Zhang Gong Patriarch to villagers in a Fujian city.

The final judgment ended a 3-year-old international legal battle between residents of Yangchun and Dongpu villages in Sanming City and Oscar Van Overeem, a Dutch architect and collector who has the statue.

The 1,000-year-old  gold-lacquered statue contains the mummified body of Zhang Gong Patriarch, a famous monk who was known for his benevolence during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

The statue is a significant cultural relic that had been enshrined at the Puzhao Temple in Yangchun Village for local villagers to worship before it was stolen in 1995, according to the court.

In a verdict made in 2020, Sanming Intermediate People’s Court demanded the Dutch collector to return the statue to Yangchun and Dongpu villages. Van Overeem appealed the ruling to the high court.

After further investigation and trial, the high court said yesterday that Van Overeem claimed to have bought the statue in Amsterdam in 1996, but he could not provide a relevant receipt.

In March 2015, Van Overeem allowed the statue to be exhibited at Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, Hungary, the high court said.

The court identified the statue as a stolen, illegally exported cultural relic, noting that it reflects the traditional customs of southern Fujian and holds special meaning for the villagers. Therefore, the statue should be returned.

The villagers had been looking for the statue ever since its disappearance. The mystery was solved after it drew international attention from its exhibition in Hungary in March 2015, when an X-ray revealed the statue contained the mummified remains of a Buddhist monk.

The National Cultural Heritage Administration of China said at that time that they would communicate with Van Overeem in the hopes of persuading him to return the statue to China, and villagers also tried to negotiate a deal with him.

But all efforts to reach an agreement failed and the villagers filed a lawsuit to the Sanming court in November 2015. The court held two public hearings in 2018.

Zhang Gong Patriarch is a Fujian monk widely known for helping people battle diseases with his expertise in herbal remedies, preventing many from falling victim to the plague, while preaching the Buddhist spirit and doctrines.

When he died at age 37, his body was mummified and encased in the statue.

(SD-Agencies)