Auction house cancels controversial rhino horn sale
International auction house Bonhams has canceled an upcoming sale of rhino products amid mounting pressure from environmental groups, it was announced Friday.
The auction, which was due to take place in Hong Kong next week, would have featured more than 20 antiques carved from rhino horn, including a vase, a hairpin, a pouring vessel and a variety of drinking cups.
In a statement provided to CNN, Bonhams global CEO Matthew Girling said: “(We recognize) there are widely held concerns about this issue and have decided that the sale of the rhinoceros carving scheduled to take place in Hong Kong on 27 November will now not take place.”
An online catalog for the sale, which had been titled “Exceptional Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Carvings from the Angela Chua Collection,” has been removed from the auction house’s website.
Christie’s in barring rhino horn items from its auctions.
“In future Bonhams will not offer artifacts made entirely or partly from rhinoceros horn in its salerooms,” the statement said.
petition, addressed directly to Girling, called the auction “unethical” and “unsustainable,” suggesting that the sale would stimulate poaching.
The petition, which had been signed almost 10,000 times at the time of writing, also claimed that the sale was “quite likely illegal,” and composed of “horns from recently poached rhinos” rather than antiques.
Screenshot from an online Bonhams auction catalog made available to the public.
Girling refuted such suggestions in his statement, claiming that all rhino carvings that pass through the auction house are antiques with “known provenance” and requisite licenses.
“Bonhams stands behind the professionalism and expertise of its specialists,” he added.
The use of rhino horn in Chinese art and crafts dates back millennia. Carved cups, such as those featured in the Bonhams auction, were thought to protect their users from poisoning. It was once believed that rhino horn reacted with poison, producing a fizzing that would alert drinkers to danger.
Detail of a carved rhino horn, which was, until recently, a widely used material in Asian arts and crafts. This was not one of the items for auction. Credit: CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
Despite global efforts to combat poaching, antique rhino horn items can still be bought and sold if they carry a license issued by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).
cup dating back to the 17th century, which sold for $104,000 earlier this year.
Buddhist carving from Nepal, which went for £40,000 ($52,000), and another elaborate Chinese
cup worth £25,000 ($32,000). Other lots have included snuff bottles and walking sticks.
A senior specialist for wildlife programs and policy at Humane Society International, Iris Ho, welcomed Friday’s decision.
“We applaud Bonhams for canceling the November 27 auction of rhino carvings and warmly welcome its pledge of not offering any rhino horn artifacts in the future,” she told CNN in an emailed statement.
“The price to do the right thing — choosing saving rhinos over profiting from rhino horn sales — is priceless. The responsibility of ensuring the survival of the remaining wild rhinos, less than 30,000 of them, rests upon all of us.”
Conservationists, including Humane Society International, are now mounting pressure on auction house Sotheby’s to withdraw rhino horn items from one of its upcoming sales.
online catalog.
announced that it was relaxing laws prohibiting the sale of rhino and tiger products for “medical” purposes.
CNN has approached Sotheby’s for comment.
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