A bronze water vessel, known as Tiger Ying, is up for auction in Kent. The Canterbury Auction Galleries / For China Daily

Calls for boycott as gallery goes ahead with auction despite complaints

An auction house in the United Kingdom is going ahead with the sale of a relic suspected to have been taken from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace in 1860, despite calls from China for the precious bronze artifact not to be sold.

The 3,000-year-old piece, referred to as the Tiger Ying, is a bronze water container with tiger-shaped decorations and carved inscriptions. Experts generally consider it to be from the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century-771 BC).

There are only seven known ying artifacts around the world.