In recent years, the upsurge of folk collection has caused the demand for cultural relics and artworks to skyrocket, and the subsequent identification scams and chaos have emerged one after another. This paper sorts out the major scams in the field of cultural relics and artworks identification in recent years, in order to explore the technical gaps and practical bottlenecks of cultural relics identification at present. It is not clear whether the identification of cultural relics can get rid of the chronic disease of division when it is on the dual track of commercialization and cultural relics protection.
20 13 In mid-May, two auction companies, Beijing Poly International Auction Company and Beijing Zhongmao Shengjia, successively issued announcements to auction the manuscript of Qian Shu's letter. After being opposed by Qian Shu's widow Jiang Yang, the two companies announced their withdrawal from the auction. Of the three letters withdrawn by Poly, two were accused of forgery by Wei Tongxian, a correspondent and former president of Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House. Poly said: "The relevant lots have been withdrawn and will not be responded."
The report "20 1 1 International Art Market: A 25-year Observation of Art Trading" released on March 12 reveals that China has surpassed the United States to become the largest art and antique market in the world, ending the decades-long leading position of the United States in this field. According to "20 1 1 Annual Report of China Cultural Relics and Art Auction Market Statistics", in 20 1 1 year, 779 cultural relics and art auctions were held nationwide, with a turnover of 55.353 billion yuan.
In addition, in recent years, the upsurge of folk collection has caused the demand for cultural relics and artworks to skyrocket, and the subsequent identification scams and chaos have emerged one after another. On the east and west streets of Beijing Liulichang, there are many shops with the words "cultural relics appraisal". "As long as you are willing to pay, even if you bring something new, some people can use historical background to package it. Even with a stone, someone can' refer to a deer as a horse'. In fact, this clearly marked artistic appraisal certificate has no legal effect on any occasion, but for various purposes, some people are still willing to pay for the appraisal. This market is very hot and the water is too deep. "
On September 25th, 2004, Ma Chengyuan, the "first expert on Chinese bronzes" and former director of Shanghai Museum, passed away. His death was called "the loss of a genius, a master who loved cultural relics so much" by his close friends.
In his early years, Ma Chengyuan appraised cultural relics for collectors at home and abroad free of charge. Ma Chengyuan published more than 80 monographs and papers on bronzes. Peer and famous historian Li Xueqin commented: "His 16 Complete Works of Chinese Bronze is the best bronze work in China at present." As for Ma Chengyuan's death, the official report said that he died of illness. However, Taiwan Province China Times published the Mystery of Ma Chengyuan's Suicide in 2004, revealing that Ma Chengyuan jumped off a building or committed suicide because of rumors of forging bamboo slips.
It is mentioned in the article that Ma Chengyuan talked about these bamboo slips in an exclusive interview with China Times in 2002, saying that in the spring of 1994, some bamboo slips appeared in the Hong Kong antique market, some of which were genuine, but many of them were fakes, almost genuine, and most of them were forged by unscrupulous cultural relics experts in mainland China. In those years, Hong Kong and Taiwan provinces bought fake bamboo slips, and Japanese calligraphers also bought them. At that time, sinologist Tsung i Jao of the Chinese University of Hong Kong obtained a batch of bamboo slips. After identification, ten of them are authentic Chu bamboo books in the Warring States Period. Professor Zhang Guangyu, who was very concerned about the compilation of bamboo slips of the Warring States Period in Hong Kong, quickly informed Shanghai Bo about the antique market and faxed a batch. After the research of Ma Chengyuan and experts, the writing style and ink color of bamboo slips are consistent with those of Chu bamboo slips unearthed in the Warring States Period, which proves that these bamboo slips are indeed authentic. He decided to rescue them immediately.
After Shanghai Museum purchased bamboo slips, it invested huge manpower and money to sort them out. However, after the ancient bamboo slips were published in 2002, the news that "bamboo slips bought with state funds are fake" came one after another. The difficulty and confusion of cultural relics appraisal can be seen from the above-mentioned events in which top experts gather but the truth is slim, and the fraud of cultural relics appraisal exposed in recent years has repeatedly penetrated the bottom line of public opinion.
In the 1990s, the pottery figurines made by Gao Shuiwang in Shishan Village, Jinmeng South, Luoyang, Henan Province, were listed as "Northern Wei Precious Cultural Relics" by the state institutions in the summer of Beijing Antique Market 1994.
On September 5th, 2065438+0/KLOC-0, Xie Genrong, former chairman and president of the board of directors of Walson Group, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance and accepted the second instance. Since then, the shocking secret of "gold thread and jade clothes" has been known to the public.
The clothes inlaid with gold and jade were originally the highest standard mourning clothes in Han dynasty, which appeared in Chuanjiang era. Businessman Xie Genrong's "golden jade clothes" are made of a pile of jade pieces, and Niu Fuzhong, director of the appraisal Committee of Beijing Zhongboya Cultural Relics Appraisal Center, was invited. Niu Fuzhong also invited Wang Wenxiang, former secretary general of China Collectors Association, Yang Boda, former vice president of the Palace Museum, Yang Fuxu, former director of the Gem Appraisal Center of Peking University, and Shi Shuqing, former deputy director of the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, and other five experts to "take a look" outside the glass cabinet containing the "gold thread and jade clothes" and evaluate this "cultural relic" by 2.4 billion yuan.
Xie Genrong used this paper to explain that he cheated the bank into lending 700 million yuan.
Another farce was exposed at the beginning of 20 12. The jade stool of Han Dynasty was auctioned by Beijing Zhongjia International Auction Co., Ltd. at the beginning of 201/kloc-0 at a price of 220 million yuan, making it the "most expensive jade" in the auction market that year. The jade stool in Han Dynasty is an integral part of the blue topaz dragon and phoenix pattern dressing table in Han Dynasty. It has been described by auction companies as a set of cultural relics that "amaze people today and have extremely high collection and historical value".
But a year later, the debate about whether this jade is a national treasure or a fake suddenly broke out. 20 12 On February 23rd, Wang Rumian, president of Pizhou Gemstone Industry Association, publicly stated that this so-called "jade stool of Han Dynasty" was produced in Pizhou in 20 10. Originally sold as a high imitation handicraft, several young men in Xiangyang village have been busy for more than a year. They also asked for their own guidance, and repeatedly put forward design suggestions for modeling, ornamentation and patterns, with an initial offer of 2.3 million yuan. Wang Rumian said: "I don't know what happened, but today it has become a priceless cultural relic and can be auctioned."
20 12 ten students from the first workshop of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts jointly published an open letter of Xu Beihong's Oil Painting Falsification, pointing out that this painting was only the work of their workshop in June of 20 10. Song Huizong's "Thousand-Character Works" is suspected to be fake, and the paintings auctioned by Tang Daxi are imitations, which has turned those record-breaking auctions into fake farce again and again.
With the endless appraisal scandals, the inside story of cultural relics fraud has also surfaced. The industrial chain from counterfeiting to selling fakes has matured in China, and there are various means of counterfeiting.
On March 20 12, an underground old industry survey involving cultural relics in China was released. This survey analyzes the huge industrial chain of cultural relics fraud system in China and divides cultural relics fraud into different types.
The hardest hit areas of ceramic counterfeiting are Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, Henan (Shishan Village in Jinmeng South, Luoyang, Yuxianshen and Baofeng County), Longquan in Zhejiang and Chaozhou in Guangdong.
The hardest hit area of bronze ware counterfeiting is the counterfeiting village represented by Jianyan Village, Yichuan County, Luoyang, Henan Province.
The hardest hit areas of jade counterfeiting: Henan (Shifosi Town, zhenping county, Nanyang) and Anhui (Bengbu), mainly where jade counterfeiting occurred in the Han Dynasty, and Liaoning is the gathering place of 90% imitation Hongshan jade in China;
The hardest hit area of calligraphy and painting fraud: tianjin drum tower is the most extensive area. Most of the fake calligraphy and paintings in Panjiayuan and Liulichang in Beijing are imported locally, while the Confucius Temple and Qingliangshan antique market in Nanjing are mostly local painters and painters, and their works are seriously faked.
In many fields of counterfeiting, "Made in Henan" is a headache for collectors and experts, and many experts are planted in "Made in Henan".
Walking into the antique market in Beijing, every point of sale has bronzes made in Henan. History has left people here with the skill of casting bronzes. In this land, the "Jiuding Emperor" of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties in the Bronze Age was cast. At the end of the 20th century, with the wave of collection fever, shanzhai appeared in Henan.
Jianyan Village, Yichuan County, Henan Province is a famous "hometown of bronzes" in China, which is famous for producing high imitation bronzes all over the country and even the world. According to the data, there are more than 300 professional processors in the village, with more than 880 employees/kloc-0, with an annual output value of more than 90 million yuan. The main products are more than 65,438+0,000 kinds of square pots, such as Mata Yan Fei in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Jia in Tian Zi in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Fang Ding in the Warring States Period, Lotus Crane in the Spring and Autumn Period and so on.
In addition, there are a large number of "bronze villages" and "shanzhai" in Heluo area with Luoyang as the center. Men, women and children in the village can make bronzes. Every day, thousands of antique bronzes flow from here to the whole country and even the whole world.
At present, many towns and villages in Henan Province regard the production of counterfeit products as a local pillar industry. Ma Jukui, director of Ru Ci Research Institute in Baofeng County, Henan Province, said in an interview with Beijing Science and Technology News in 2009 that there are more than 20 large-scale cultural relics imitation factories and many small workshops in a village with more than 300 households. In addition to imitating and copying tricolor and pottery for sale as handicrafts, they also imitated and made old "cultural relics" for public sale as another kind of "handicrafts" with a slightly higher price, which sold well.
Ma Jukui introduced the process of local farmers making old utensils. For porcelain, they will bury the newly burned utensils underground for two or three years; Then daub hydrochloric acid and anhydrous ethanol on the utensils, so that the porcelain is more closely combined with the soil, giving people a sense of vicissitudes after being buried underground for many years. For bronzes, craftsmen will wear thick gloves, rub the edges of bronzes hard, polish the edges of bronzes with iron bars to make bronzes have traces of use, and finally coat them with chemical reagents to form a corrosion layer.
In addition, as the largest antique market in China, Beijing Panjiayuan's calligraphy and painting fraud has already formed a systematic industrial chain, which has been popular since 2000. At that time, a large number of counterfeiters and fake calligraphy and paintings emerged, such as shrimp of Qi Baishi, bamboo of Zheng Banqiao, Guan Gong of Fan Ceng, calligraphy of Qi Gong, oil paintings of Ouyang Zhongshi and Liu Bingsen, Wang Yidong and Zhang Xiaogang, works of Lang Shining, Zuo Zongtang and Lu Xun. In the words of many sellers in Panjiayuan, "they are all famous. If you can't find them, they must have just sold out. "
Li, president of Peking University Cultural Relics Research Institute, once provided a set of data: in 2007, the national art auction house sold 20,000 pieces of official kiln porcelain. From 2006 to 2009, more than 65,438+000 pieces of Ganlong jade seals were auctioned, but in fact, only three real Ganlong jade seals flowed out. Li explained that it was the overlord clause in China art market that nobody pursued it. This clause was formulated by the auction industry: the auction house is not responsible for the authenticity and defects of the lot.
In addition to the identification difficulties caused by fake blowout, the "upgrade" of fake technology also makes it urgent to find new cultural relics identification methods.
Take the progress of calligraphy and painting copying technology as an example. "Now there are many things copied and printed by computers in Beijing, and many old experts in museums have never touched them. According to the traditional identification methods, seals, breath, spells, descriptions, etc. All failed. " Li Zhiyong, an expert in Hunan cultural relics appraisal, said that Wu Guanzhong's oil paintings or gouache can now be printed, which has a three-dimensional effect. Modern technology has reached the point where it is unrecognizable to the naked eye. "We used to know each other by touching our eyes, but now we smell with our noses and listen with our ears."
In addition, the identification difficulty of different cultural relics is also different. "Calligraphy and painting have the largest market in China, with rich fraudulent means and complicated identification. There are so many famous painters, and each painter creates so many things, which are different and cannot be classified and standardized. You can't even look at the same painter's things with a standard. " Xuejun Gan told this reporter that porcelain identification is a little simpler than painting and calligraphy. "Jade has high and low indicators of materials and craftsmanship, which is relatively convenient to identify and more troublesome for painting and calligraphy."
In reality, it is difficult to balance cultural relics identification between commercialization and cultural relics protection. Under the huge interest disputes, absurd examples of fake cultural relics being identified as true and real cultural relics being identified as false occur frequently, and interests are intermingled.
In 2003, the Palace Museum and Guardian Auction House agreed to buy a controversial calligraphy work "Ode to the Teacher" for 22 million yuan. Ode to a Teacher has been circulated in an orderly way since the Tang Dynasty, and it has lost popularity since 1945. In July 2003, it suddenly appeared at the 2003 Spring Auction of China Guardian, causing an uproar in the industry. On August 2 1 day, Xiao Gong, then vice president of the Palace Museum, admitted that he had a father-son relationship with Xiao Yang of the weekend auction department of Guardian Auction House, and public opinion even questioned the black-box operation of the acquisition of the Palace Museum.
On August 22nd, 2003, the Palace Museum held an academic seminar on "Ode to the First Teacher". At that time, Wang Jiaxin, director of the Cultural Division of the Department of Education, Science and Culture of the Ministry of Finance, gave a detailed explanation on the purchase price, reasons and procedures. Regarding the purchase procedure, Wang Jiaxin introduced that the Palace Museum first reported to the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Finance and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, and then experts appraised the original work to judge and evaluate its price. Later, National Preemption was used to buy it from Guardian Auction Company.
Although it has been clarified, the acquisition storm of Ode to the Teacher still makes the outside world doubt the authority of cultural relics appraisal. And the birth of a large number of treasure TV programs has pushed the identification of cultural relics to the forefront.
20 12 in may, the program group of "world collection" collaged 3 15 pieces of "treasures" brought by folk treasure collectors and identified as fakes by the expert group of the program group, and exhibited them in comparison with the original collection of the capital museum. In August of the exhibition, Zheng Yao, director of the Jade Committee of China Collectors Association, took 30 experts and collectors to see five exhibitions, and came to the conclusion that 90% of what Wang Gang smashed was genuine and 30% was rare.
Regarding the "wrong smashing", Han Yong, the producer of "World Collection", said that the program experts are composed of experts from professional institutions, senior employees of auction companies and brokers in the high-end art industry. "It is not difficult for us to take these things. We are entirely responsible for the appraisal results."
Although there is an explanation, due to the rapid development of the auction market and the attack of the national collection fever, the identification of cultural relics has been constantly impacted by commercial interests, and it is suspected that it has embarked on the wrong path of endorsement for business.
2011March 15, the CCTV 3 15 party exposed a shady scene about cultural relics appraisal. CCTV reporters came to Beijing Jinkun International Auction Co., Ltd. with a painting of Qi Baishi bought from 300 yuan, an antique market. Yan Zhongsheng, the appraiser, concluded that the painting was a fake, but after accepting the appraisal fee of 1000 yuan, he still issued a certificate with the words "Qi Baishi painted himself". Subsequently, the reporter spent 200 yuan to buy a small bottle. Liu Yuxin, the appraiser of Beijing Jubaozhai Cultural Relics Appraisal Center, looked at it and turned it into a Guangxu imitation, worth more than 200,000 yuan.