Gaming China’s Art Market With Expert Forgeries

By DAVID BARBOZA

Workers producing replicas at a factory near the Chinese town of Jingdezhen referring to a textbook displaying antique porcelain works.
In a workshop strewn with plastic, metals and the sound of crickets, craftsmen in the village of Yanjian, in Henan Province, are busy producing bronze works: horses, daggers, bells and ritual vessels — and all made to look like ancient Chinese relics.
After creating molds and casting the objects in bronze, workers place them in acid tubs and bury them underground for months at a time, hoping to recreate the effects of aging and produce works that looks as if they had just been unearthed from an ancient tomb.
“Of course, we douse them with chemicals and bury them,” said one of the guides at the Yanyunjian Bronze Company, explaining the company’s production techniques and referring to the tradition of reproducing ancient bronze objects. 

“But this is a lot less disgusting than what they did during the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, they would soak the stuff in urine and animal excrement.”
All over China, hundreds, if not thousands, of workshops are doing something similar, producing replicas of ancient relics and artifacts, in bronze, ceramics, jade and silver. 

Some workshops specialize in paintings made in the style of an ancient master, using old paper, inks and seals.
While many objects are marketed for what they are — high-quality replicas, or imitations of old works — experts say the most sophisticated pieces are good enough to fool connoisseurs and often sell at Chinese auction houses, helping fuel this country’s booming art market.
“Today, the forgers have access to research publications where they can look up the chemical makeup of an item,” said Robert D. Mowry, former curator of the Harvard Art Museums and an expert on Chinese art who now consults for Christie’s auction house. 

“There are markets for old paper in China.”
Scholars and authenticators are trained to identify fakes or forgeries. 

But Chinese counterfeiters, often with the aid of museum professionals and wealthy collectors, have been clever at finding old materials to game the system.
They irradiate ceramics to throw off carbon-dating techniques, or hire master mounters to separate an authentic inscription from an authentic painting and then commission a fake painting to accompany the authentic inscription and a fake inscription to accompany the authentic painting.

The result is two partially authentic works where there was once one.
“I’ve seen a painting where the first five feet is real but the second five feet is replicated,” said one former Christie’s specialist. 

“And there’d be another painting out there that’s vice versa.”
Some dealers bribe an authenticator, museum staffer or the descendant of an old master painter to go along with a scheme to convince an auction house that a fake work is real. 

Other scam artists doctor provenance records by, for instance, placing a replica in the auction catalog at a small auction house in Europe, or finding a way to get a fake work into an estate sale.
The Chinese authorities and auction houses have tried to crack down on the practice. 

But taming a fast-growing auction market, and a growing trade in counterfeits, has so far been ineffective.
In China, locating the producers and dealers in fake items is not difficult. 

A journalist visited more than a dozen Chinese cities this year and was able to set up appointments with many high-quality replica-makers, many of whom admitted to, at one time or another, participating in counterfeiting schemes.
Some craftsmen even expressed pride in having produced an object that turned out to be good enough to end up in the auction market.
“They can even fool the connoisseurs,” said David Sensabaugh, curator of Asian art at the Yale University Art Gallery. 

“And with jade, there’s just no way to test it” to determine the age of a piece.
Craig Yee, an expert in traditional Chinese painting and a partner at Ink Studio, a contemporary art gallery in Beijing, says it takes a connoisseur to catch a connoisseur involved in producing fakes and forgeries.
“The best fakers are not craftsmen but connoisseurs and expert calligraphers and painters,” Mr. Yee said. “You can’t just pick up a brush and master a style.”
That collectors and investors in Chinese art are being fooled is one thing, but experts say the fakes and forgeries could also have broader implications for the study of Chinese art.
While scholars have long been aware of fakes and forgeries of Chinese cultural objects, the scale of the production is likely to make things even more challenging, since collectors are likely to donate items to national museums.
“For serious scholars, prudence becomes ever more important,” said Mr. Mowry, the former Harvard curator. 

“It’s frightening, but there are going to be lots of books published and people are going to assume that some things are authentic when they’re fake.”