In China, a painting that was twice identified by the authorities as a “fake” work – “Spring in Jiangnan”, ended up being valued at nearly 90 million RMB in the market; the event exploded with shocking revelations, complexity, spanning over a hundred years.
Those museum directors who once guarded cultural relics and adhered to principles have been suppressed, marginalized, and even driven to a dead end. Now the museums are already in chaos, public opinion is boiling, and various departments of the Chinese Communist Party are forced to conduct a joint investigation.
The controversy at the Nanjing Museum seems like an auction dispute revolving around “Spring in Jiangnan”, but what has truly been revealed is a more brutal reality: under the current system in China, good people are brought down so that bad people can get rich; those who uphold integrity are pushed out, while speculators thrive.
And such results are not accidental mistakes, but inevitable products of the long-term operation of the Communist Party system.
In today’s episode, we will start with this painting called “Spring in Jiangnan” and slowly unravel the ins and outs of the Nanjing Museum incident, revealing the truly chilling behind-the-scenes of this controversy.
Let’s go back to May 2025.
In a preview exhibition for an art auction in Beijing, a work by the Ming Dynasty painter Qiu Ying – “Spring in Jiangnan” scroll, appeared in the auction catalog. The estimated value of this painting was 88 million RMB.
This piece of information quickly caught someone’s attention.
She is Pang Shuling, the great-granddaughter of the well-known modern collector Pang Laichen. In 1959, the Pang family donated a large number of precious paintings and calligraphy to the country, with the Nanjing Museum receiving the most, a total of 137 pieces. And the “Spring in Jiangnan” that appeared in the auction catalog was one of the works donated by the Pang family back then.
In other words, this is a state-owned cultural relic with a clear donation source. Pang Shuling immediately reported to the national cultural relics department, believing that this work should not appear in the market. Subsequently, the auction company announced the withdrawal of “Spring in Jiangnan”.
Many might think that the matter should end here. But the real problem was just beginning to surface.
At the end of June 2025, according to the civil mediation agreement, Pang Shuling went to the storage of the Nanjing Museum to inspect the 137 paintings and calligraphy donated back then. The result showed that there were only 132 pieces left in the storage, missing 5 pieces.
In addition to “Spring in Jiangnan”, the other lost 4 pieces were Zhao Guangfu’s “Double Horse Picture Scroll” from the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Fu’s “Sound of Pines in the Wind at Xiao Temple Scroll” from the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shimin’s “After Bei Yuan Landscape Scroll” from the early Qing Dynasty, and Tang Yifen’s “Ink Landscape Scroll” from the Qing Dynasty.
Looking at this, “Spring in Jiangnan” is not the only problematic work. From a painting’s auction preview to a storage inspection, a new question began to be put in front of the public.
What has happened to these cultural relics, originally donated by private individuals for free and lawfully entered into the national museum system? How did they step by step flow from the museum’s collection system to the market?
After the exposure of the missing 5 paintings, the Nanjing Museum immediately responded.
They explained that these works had been identified as “counterfeit” or “fake” by experts in the 1960s and had been “allocated and adjusted” in accordance with the management regulations at the time in the 1990s. However, the Pang family stated that they were never informed of these identification conclusions and disposition.
The investigation also found that “Double Horse Picture Scroll” was auctioned for 2.3 million RMB at the Shanghai Jia Tai Auction in June 2014. How could a work deemed a “fake” by the Nanjing Museum openly appear in the auction market, becoming the focus of public scrutiny?
If “Spring in Jiangnan” is identified as a “fake” by the Nanjing Museum, why could it be valued at 88 million RMB in the auction market over twenty years later? If it is an authentic piece, what did the identification and disposition back then imply? If it is a forgery, why could it be valued at nearly one hundred million?
Taking the most concerning “Spring in Jiangnan” as an example, the Nanjing Museum replied that in 1961, this painting was identified as a “counterfeit” by experts Zhang Heng, Han Shenxian, and Xie Zhiliu; and in 1964, it was re-examined by Wang Dunhua, Xu Yunqiu, and Xu Shennong, confirming it as a “fake”.
Next came its disposition process. Public information shows that in 1997, “Spring in Jiangnan” was transferred to the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Store; on April 16, 2001, this work was sold through the Nanjing City Cultural Relic Store under the name “Imitation of Qiu Ying Landscape Scroll”. In the transaction record, the buyer was only labeled as a “customer”, and the transaction price was 6,800 RMB.
From the perspective of the Nanjing Museum, this path is clear: identified as a forgery → removed from the collection → allocated → sold externally.
The museum has emphasized multiple times that the related operations “complied with the management procedures at that time”. However, the problem precisely arises here.
In 2025, a work that has been identified as “fake” twice, was valued at 88 million RMB in the auction market.
From “counterfeit”, selling for 6,800 RMB, to being valued at nearly one hundred million RMB, the focus of public opinion begins to shift.
The public is no longer just asking one question – “Is this painting authentic or fake?” They are starting to ask another question: if all of this “complies with the procedures”, then is the procedure itself reasonable or not?
WeChat public account “Commentator Bi Ge” pointed out in an article surrounding the disposition of “Spring in Jiangnan” at least three types of unanswered questions.
The first is the issue of information disclosure.
The Pang family donated paintings and calligraphy to the country in 1959. However, the Nanjing Museum never actively informed the donor’s relatives that these works had been identified as fakes, nor informed that they had been written off, allocated, and eventually entered the market. It was only through legal means and requests for inspection and information disclosure that these situations gradually surfaced.
The second is the issue of procedural approval.
According to the relevant regulations such as the “Museum Collection Management Measures” issued by the Ministry of Culture in 1986, national museums must report to the higher-level cultural relic authorities for approval when canceling or disposing of donated cultural relics, and safeguard the donor’s right to be informed.
The article questions: Did the Nanjing Museum obtain the corresponding approval from the competent authority when disposing of “Spring in Jiangnan” in 2001? Did they inform the donor or their relatives in accordance with the law?
Up to now, this crucial information has not been transparently explained.
The third involves the issues with identification and disposition itself.
The article points out that the identification of cultural relics itself is limited by the conditions of the time and technical means. Even if a work is determined to be a fake, a piece like “Spring in Jiangnan”, with a clear provenance and historical background, still holds research and documentary value.
In such circumstances, whether there must be the choice to “sell externally”, or whether there are other more reliable disposition methods, is also worth discussing.
What further puzzles outsiders is that “Spring in Jiangnan” was sold for 6,800 RMB in 2001, but over twenty years later, it was valued at nearly 90 million RMB in the auction market. In between, not only the huge price disparity but also the vague identity of the “customer” in the transaction.
Who has the right to determine authenticity? Who has the right to decide retention or sale? And who does not need to explain reasons to the donor and the public?
In the course of the flow of “Spring in Jiangnan”, the name of an institution becomes a crucial point. That institution is the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Store.
According to information released by the Nanjing Museum, in 1997, “Spring in Jiangnan” was transferred from the Nanjing Museum to the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Store.
Subsequently, this work entered the market circulation through the channel of a cultural relic store.
As the investigation deepens, some media outlets have begun to notice the unusual nature of this intermediary point. Chengdu’s “Hongxing News” reported that the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Store has the same address as the Nanjing Museum. What’s more conspicuous is that in the relevant years, Xu Huping also served as the legal representative of the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Store. By 2006, the legal representative of the institution changed to Gong Liang, who had also served as the director of the Nanjing Museum. With this background, the focus of the investigation further shifts towards who actually controls the practical transfer of cultural relics and whether there is room for abuse in this transfer mechanism.
Just as the whereabouts of “Spring in Jiangnan” and several other paintings continued to be questioned, a video of a named report suddenly escalated the whole issue.
On December 21, this video began to circulate on the internet. The uploader of the video was Guo Lidian, a retired employee of the Nanjing Museum.
In this named report video, Guo Lidian directly pointed the finger at the former director of the Nanjing Museum, Xu Huping. He accused that during Xu Huping’s tenure, he opened the boxes containing the cultural relics relocated from the Forbidden City without the approval of the national cultural relic authorities.
According to Guo Lidian’s allegations, these cultural relics, which were originally preserved by sealing and labeling the boxes during the relocation of the Forbidden City in the war years, had never been opened for a long time. However, in the relevant process, not only were the seals torn, but a large number of precious cultural relics were taken out.
Guo Lidian stated that there were originally 2211 boxes with over 100,000 items of the Forbidden City’s cultural relics stored in Nanjing, and the issues he raised did not solely involve the work “Spring in Jiangnan”.
Of particular note, Guo Lidian mentioned in the video that these issues were not just recently discovered. As early as 2008, more than 40 employees of the Nanjing Museum, including himself, repeatedly filed reports jointly, but over the years, no substantive handling was received.
It was precisely following the release of this named report video that the progress of the event notably accelerated. Subsequently, the National Cultural Relics Administration set up a working group, and Jiangsu Province established a joint investigation group composed of disciplinary inspection, public security, cultural tourism, and cultural relic departments.
Later on, the results that outsiders have already seen emerged – Xu Huping and his wife were taken away for investigation.
At this point, a clear clue begins to surface. “Spring in Jiangnan” is not an isolated issue; the auction dispute is not the sole starting point of the investigation. It is more like a lid that has been accidentally lifted, exposing some long-standing, unresolved issues to the public eye.
In an article titled “The Nanjing Museum Incident is not an Isolated Case” by the WeChat public account “Shanhe Xiaosuiyue”, another case that once sparked significant controversy was recalled – the incident involving the Wang Xizhi’s imitation “Ping An Tie”.
Let’s go back to 2010. At an auction held by China Guardian in China, the “Ping An Tie” was auctioned off for 308 million RMB, acquired by collector Liu Yiqian.
However, this auction did not smoothly conclude as expected. From the hammer dropping at the auction to the final completion of the transaction, it took a full five years. The reason being that there were long and complex disputes concerning the ownership of the “Ping An Tie”.
The article outlined the circulation context of this work. The “Ping An Tie” was first seen in the “Xuanhe Shupu” and was once owned by Prince Yongxuan of the Qing Dynasty. Following the Boxer Rebellion, cultural relics were scattered. During the collection of old items outside the palace by the Interior Ministry official Qing Kuan, he kept the “Ping An Tie” for himself.
Subsequently, this work was passed down in the Qing family. During the Republic of China era, Qing Kuan changed his name to Zhao Xiaoshan, and his descendants resided in Beijing and Shanghai.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Zhao Xiaoshan’s son Zhao Zhenshou (Shou) donated several cultural relics to the Shanghai Museum. Later, due to financial difficulties, he applied to go to Hong Kong in an attempt to retrieve the early-selling collections through intermediaries, but he never returned.
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Zhao Zhijing, the brother who remained, had his family’s collections confiscated during a special period. After the upheaval, he reclaimed some items, but concealed the fact that the “Ping An Tie” had been returned.
Many years later, the “Ping An Tie” resurfaced in the auction market, sparking thirty-three branches of the Zhao family over a power struggle regarding the ownership issue.
Eventually, the court ruled that the auction proceeds would be evenly distributed among the branches, each receiving about 6 million RMB.
The article pointed out that the root of such disputes is directly connected to the interruption of private collections and family legacies during historical periods.
Hence, the Nanjing Museum incident has resonated more widely.
It touches not only on a single museum or the fate of a particular cultural relic, but a more general issue – when history breaks, ownership becomes ambiguous, and closed procedures are layered, the destiny of cultural relics is often no longer held by the original donors, families, or the public.
If you only view the Nanjing Museum incident as a dispute over the authenticity of a painting or a personal problem of a certain official, then you’re looking too superficially.
What is truly chilling is a recurring pattern behind this – good people being demonized, suppressed, and even pushed to a dead end; and those who profit from the system loopholes would always escape unscathed.
The history of the Nanjing Museum has long left such blood. Many may not know that the Nanjing Museum once had a highly respected former director – Zeng Zhaoyu. She was one of the first generation museum scholars in China, dedicated to the protection and research of cultural relics, yet she was smeared, criticized, and ultimately forced into a corner during the political movements.
If Zeng Zhaoyu’s tragedy unfolded in the cruelest era of political pressure and ideological cleansing, then the ordeal of another former Nanjing Museum director, Yao Qian, occurred after the so-called “reform and opening up”, more telling that the problems did not disappear with changing times but continued in a different form.
Yao Qian is widely recognized as one of the few directors of the Nanjing Museum who truly stick to the bottom line of “protecting cultural relics and adhering to the system.” During his tenure, he repeatedly refused to commercialize the museum’s cultural relics, opposing turning the museum into a “profitable unit”, which led to serious conflicts with higher authorities, local interest groups. According to records, he would frequently pester retired officials to return the paintings and calligraphy they borrowed, “even if he couldn’t get them back, he would keep pushing, the more times he pushed, the less happy these old comrades became,” arousing fatal consequences.
Because Yao Qian refused to cooperate, unwilling to compromise, and rejected “flexible handling,” he quickly became the target of the system. Officials first fabricated rumors of his corruption, which were proven baseless after accounting checks. Then they slandered him with personal issues, which were also debunked as false. Next, he was accused of “academic misconduct.” In 1984, the Party’s mouthpiece “Guangming Daily” published a series of false reports accusing him of academic issues. With his strong personality, Yao Qian chose to take his own life to preserve his innocence. The event startled Hu Yaobang, leading to a thorough investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. By 1985, the investigation group determined that the reports were false, vindicating him, and “Guangming Daily” issued public apologies.
It is precisely due to Yao Qian’s unwillingness to cooperate, his refusal to compromise, and his insistence on the museum’s principle that he quickly became a target for the system. Official rumors first accused him of financial corruption, which was easily disproven, then they painted him with false personal allegations, which also came out falsely, and once again attempting to tarnish his image by accusing him of “academic impropriety”. In 1984, the government mouthpiece paper, “Guangming Daily,” continuously published fake news reports accusing him of academic problems. Due to his strict character, Yao Qian chose to end his life, and it was only after a 1985 investigation by the Commission on Discipline Inspection that the reports were found baseless, and “Guangming Daily” apologized in various major papers.
Moreover, since Yao Qian did not cooperate, was unwilling to compromise, and did not accept “flexible arrangements,” he was quickly targeted by the system. He was first smeared with corruption, which was revealed to be false after investigation. Then he was accused of personal issues, which was also proved untrue. And because of his insistence on principles, Yao Qian ultimately chose to take his life as a final plea of innocence.
It is in this background that the various hidden activities of the Nanjing Museum are not due to a sudden “turning bad”, but rather are the inevitable result of the long lineage of “good people being eliminated” over generations. As Zeng Zhaoyu was driven to her death, Yao Qian was brought down, forced to his death, as principled individuals disappeared one by one, what remained was a space naturally left for those who go with the flow, engage in smuggling, and profit from the system loopholes.
This is what the famous writer Li Chengpeng aptly said: vilify and destroy the good people; only then can the bad people make money.
What’s more, if you expand the timeline, you would realize that the Nanjing Museum incident is not an isolated case at all. As early as 2009, commentator Zhang Jie pointed out in an article on “Epoch Times” that the Chinese Communist Party is the real culprit behind the loss of Chinese cultural relics.
After 1949, the Chinese Communist Party did not simply “fail to protect cultural relics”, rather they actively and systematically incorporated cultural relics into the foreign trade system, treating them as export commodities to earn foreign currency. During the planned economy era, cultural relics were devalued and underestimated, in the name of “legal trade”, they flowed out in large quantities overseas. In the 1970s and 1980s, the number of Chinese cultural relics leaving the country exceeded one million pieces each year, with a total exceeding tens of millions, yet where the foreign exchange from these relics ended up remains unclear to this day.
So, when you see today – a work identified as a “fake painting” being valued at nearly a hundred