A rare bronze horse head plundered from Beijing's Old Summer Palace in 1860 was officially handed over to China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage at a ceremony held at the National Museum of China in Beijing on Wednesday. Minister of Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang (R) and Pansy Ho Chiu-king, daughter of Hong Kong and Macao-based business magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun, lift the curtain for the newly returned statue. /VCG Photo

Stanley Ho Hung-sun purchased the treasure at a Sotheby's auction in 2007. On display in China's Hong Kong and Macao before the handover, the sculpture is one of 12 bronze heads forming a zodiac water clock in the Old Summer Palace, also known as "Yuanmingyuan" in Chinese, a royal garden built by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). /VCG Photo

The horse head, along with six other repatriated zodiac bronzes, will join an ongoing exhibition at the National Museum, which showcases China's efforts to retrieve lost relics over the past seven decades. /VCG Photo

First built in 1707, the Old Summer Palace in northwestern Beijing was plundered by the Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War. Numerous national treasures, including the 12 animal-head statues, were taken abroad in the havoc. The whereabouts of the five remaining bronze zodiac heads remain unknown. /VCG Photo