Comment on the title of the 'The Chinese Statue'.
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Answer:
The Chinese Statue’ by Jeffrey Archer, published in his book ‘A Quiver Full of Arrows’ in 1980, revolves around a Chinese statue brought to London by sir Alexander Heathcote who was posted in China as a British Ambassador.
The story starts at Sotheby’s, a famous auction house. A porcelain Chinese statue was being auctioned off to a motley crowd and not-so-serious bidders. In order to grab the bidders’ attention, the auctioneer presented a fact sheet about the history of the statue. It said that the statue was brought from a place called Ha Li Chuan in China. To hide the owners’ identity, the word ‘gentlemen’ was used instead of his real name.
The narrator of the story, seated amidst the bidders, was intrigued by the statue’s history. He tried to delve deeper into its history and found that the statue was bought by Sir Alexander Heathcote, a diplomatic person of great acclaim. He also happened to be a very fastidious person. He would have breakfast at the same time every morning, with the same ingredients in the exact same quantity, reached his office desk at the Foreign Office at exactly 8:59 AM and left for home at exactly 6 in the evening.
He perhaps got the punctuality habit from his father who had been a General. Alexander followed his father’s footsteps and became the His Highness in Peking (now Beijing). Alexander had been a sincere follower of Chinese art during the Ming dynasty. His interest in Chinese artisans is perhaps what made Mr. Gladstone offer him the position and Sir Alexander was more than delighted to accept it.
After two months of voyage, Heathcote finally arrived at Peking and handed over his credentials to the Empress Tzu-Hsi in a traditional ceremony which took place in the Imperial Palace. He knew his stay there was for 3 years only so he wasted no time. He travelled to all the places he had read about or heard of. During his visit to the countryside he came across an art workshop.
Being an art lover, he was delighted to see the beautiful Chinese arts. The craftsman, upon realizing his deep interest in Chinese art, showed him a porcelain Chinese statue of Emperor Kung which had been in his family since 7 generations. Sir Alexander was sure that the statue must have been made by Pen Q and even calculated that it must have been made during the turn of 15th century. The only flaw was that the base of the statue was missing