The major crisis facing cultural relics is not the so-called outflow of cultural relics, but the counterfeiting and sale of cultural relics.
From the golden jade clothes, han dynasty jade stools, and many other examples, we see that the authority of cultural relics identification has been deceived and knocked down by fakes one by one. These authorities and their disciples are all cadres of major museums, and if even they have been deceived by fake goods, there may be disputes about the authenticity of the collections in the museum in the future.
Since the authenticity is not accurate, some people will boldly sell the real products in the museum and replace them with fakes, resulting in the pollution and sinking of cultural relics.
In recent years, the most famous case of self-theft occurred in the Palace Museum's Chengde City Cultural Relics Bureau Outside the Eight Temples Management Office. From May to November 2001, Li Haitao, the director of the management office, stole 86 cultural relics stored in the warehouse and resold them, and then replaced the genuine ones with counterfeits.
The stolen loot, which appeared at Christie's Auctions in Hong Kong in October 2002, was accompanied by the original label of the Palace Museum's Heritage Management Office. Because the origin of these labels is recognized, the whole case can be solved.
If this gang had not been so careless and had destroyed the forbidden city label first, the case might still be unknown and unknowing; as a result, some forgeries have been passed down from generation to generation as genuine.
The Li Haitao incident is certainly not an isolated and accidental case, and it is reported that in 2004 there were 36 cases of self-theft of cultural relics in various parts of China alone, and it has increased year by year since then.
Cultural relics are stolen and sold, as long as they are not destroyed, the matter is still small; but it is a very big thing to fake the truth. Because if the authenticity of cultural relics is doubted, their value will plummet. If the value falls sharply, it will be difficult for cultural relics to be cared for by the public, and even in the eyes of the public, they will become dirty and deceitful things.
We often hear a theory that there are fakes to have the pleasure of research, if the cultural relics are all true, then the knowledge of identification is useless, and the possibility of picking up leaks is lost.
According to this statement, it seems that the more fakes, the more fun it is to collect, which is actually very wrong.
If we were going to a restaurant today to taste food, but we were worried that the food was not clean, so every dish came up, and everyone tried desperately to check whether it was clean, and they used chopsticks to stir in the soup to see if there were any flies. So let me ask, is this to enjoy, or is it to suffer?
Seeing ancient cultural relics, you can't enjoy them with peace of mind, but you always have to worry about authenticity, which is a very annoying thing. As we all know, the appreciation of ancient cultural relics lies in their archaeological value, that is, they can understand the past through cultural relics; second, they appreciate their artistic achievements; and third, they satisfy the mysterious sense of crossing time and space and being able to contact the ancients.
The evil of fake cultural relics is, first, to tamper with history, second, to distort the traditional art of liveliness and nature with the contrivance of thousands of miles of error, and the third is to deceive collectors of nostalgic feelings.
I have some friends who used to love Chinese cultural relics, but later found that what they bought was actually worthless fakes, and since then their love for Chinese cultural relics has turned into extreme disgust.
There is a popular saying in the collecting industry that buying bone Dong must go through a trilogy: start to be deceived, deceive yourself in the middle, and finally deceive people. Deceiving yourself means self-brainwashing and insisting on buying fakes to be true. The purpose of deceiving people is to pour the fake goods they bought to others and reduce their own losses. Therefore, the proliferation of fakes not only hurts people's money, but also damages people's minds, and finally makes people degenerate into liars.
Let's compare a Shang Dynasty Fangxue with its imitations to see how fakes pollute traditional Chinese aesthetics. The fang on the right of Figure 1 is his own collection, purchased in New York from the internationally renowned bone dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi. The square axe on the left is a forgery, which is said to have been exhibited in Paris and sold at a high price.
Comparison of fangs
Square Axe Comparison - Partial
Comparing these two pictures, you can see the difference in casting methods. The real thing on the right is cast in a block fan method, and you can also see the fan soil contained in the leg. The fake is made of modern silicon molds, cast by the lost wax method, so the vanity soil is not seen.
In terms of styling, the real product is stable and powerful, and the fake one is relatively thin and tall, appearing frivolous. The main difference is in Figure 2, the phoenix on the top of the real product, dashing and calm, and the fake one below looks like a bird of fright.
In terms of aesthetics, at first glance, it is only a fraction of a centimeter, and a closer look is a thousand miles; the great Bronze Aesthetics of China's Shang Zhou Dynasty is distorted and polluted here.
Counterfeits go from manufacturing to sales, through a chain of people. If these people are all benefited, they will combine to prevent the fraud from being exposed, thus forming a black force that suppresses the truth.
The more rampant the fraud, the more this black force expands, and finally the people who may understand the truth and falsehood will shut up one by one, while the counterfeiters will be unscrupulous. For example, some people say that 95% of the market is genuine, that is, this is the case.
A friend in the archaeological community said that in the past, when they engaged in archaeological excavation, they were afraid that others would steal cultural relics; now they are afraid that some people will mix fake cultural relics in.
Because the cultural relics excavated and excavated by archaeology are recognized as genuine; if a forgery is considered to be archaeological excavation, it can deceive all experts; similar imitations can also be ascended to heaven and recognized as genuine.
Because the harm of counterfeiting cultural relics is extremely great, countries that attach importance to cultural relics have set penalties and punish those who forge and seek improper benefits.
In view of the excavated cultural relics, China's cultural relics law severely punishes those who buy and sell genuine goods, but does not actively manage the production and sale of counterfeit goods, which is equivalent to encouraging the proliferation of fake goods in disguise.
Judging from the case of the Han Dynasty jade stool, many fakes should have broken through the defense line of China's official appraisal system and become authentic works endorsed by scholars.
In the chaos of this overwhelming forgery, there are also some pure lands and oases, which are the early collections of Chinese cultural relics by well-known foreign museums and collectors.
Most of these artifacts have not yet been contaminated with counterfeits, and the proportion of genuine ones is very high, and every time they are auctioned, they are always snapped up. If the Chinese government figures it out in the future, it will open up the market for excavated cultural relics and put many cultural relics in the hands of the government that will never see the light of day for public auction. Then Chinese collectors use these "high-cleanliness" cultural relics as templates, coupled with scientific tests, which should be able to effectively identify the true and false.
In this way, there is an opportunity to eliminate counterfeits with genuine products, so that "good coins" can be used to drive away "counterfeit coins", so that cultural relics unearthed in China can be prevented from continued pollution and carry forward their due cultural relics value.