Sale of Million-Dollar Fake Painting Leads to Auction Law Debate

An oil painting said to be the work of famous Chinese artist Xu Beihong sold at auction 1 for more than 70 million yuan in an auction last year. However, a group of painters recently have claimed that's their school work years ago as students in China Central Academy of Fine Arts. The incident has provoked anger among Chinese collectors and at the same time raised questions about who should be responsible for the authenticity 3 of artworks up for auction.

Let's take a closer look with our reporter Liu Min.

 

The painting in question depicts 5 a naked woman believed to be Xu Beihong's wife, Jiang Biwei, in the 1920s. In 2007, Xu's eldest 6 son, Xu Boyang proved the authenticity of the picture through a written endorsement 7. The masterpiece was auctioned 8 by the Jiuge International Auction Company last year for 72.8 million yuan. But recently, 10 artists who graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s declared in an open letter that the work was actually painted by one of their classmates in May of 1983 as an assignment.

Professor Yang Songlin from the Shandong University of Arts, who is also the head of Shandong Province's Oil Painting Association is one of the co-authors of the open letter. He has confirmed that the work had been made by a classmate.

"The model was a girl from southern China. The painting made a very deep impression on me. My classmates found out about the auctioned painting first and then called me to take a look at the work. I recognized right away that the painting was actually the work of one of our classmates. We are very familiar with all kinds of masterpieces from around the world, but we've never seen a painting by Xu Beihong like this."

Together with the open letter, the 10 classmates including professor Yang Songlin also publicized a series of photos of oil paintings including the auctioned one. The photos show five oil paintings which depict 4 the same model from different angles, and the auctioned painting was among them.

Renowned 9 artist Chen Danqing also echoed Professor Yang Songlin's comments. He says that the picture can't even be called a counterfeit 10 since it is not even a copy of one of Xu's paintings.

"A counterfeit copy means someone imitated the original artwork right down to all the little details. To pass itself off as an authentic 2 one, you've got to at least imitate the original masterpiece by heart, but this auctioned one is not even a counterfeit. We've been drawing paintings for half a century. We know Xu Beihong never painted this one. It's an outright 11 lie."

According to the Auction Law, the auctioneers' legal responsibility can be waived 12 as long as they claim, in writing, before the auction, that they can't guarantee the authenticity or the quality of the products. Such a clause has helped many auction companies in China to evade 13 their legal responsibilities. Renowned artwork collector Ma Weidu is also frustrated 14 that the auction industry in China is a total mess.

"There are no unanimous legal procedures to follow in this industry for auction companies at all. They usually make up their own rules. They are just a commercial entity 15, similar to a shopping mall. So don't expect that they can guarantee the authencity of the products they put up for auction."

Many law practitioners 16 are also questioning whether such logic 17 also means that it's legal to sell or auction fake artworks in China. Many collectors and law experts are calling for a change in the auction laws to maintain standards in the auction industry.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.