Qing dynasty eunuch
Most of the things that came out of the Qing palace were used or collected by the emperor. It must be a treasure. I believe that there are definitely not a few people who have this idea. But in fact, the collection of the Qing palace is still mixed, although there are many treasures and fakes.
Qianlong mistakenly received Xie's fake Shu Li Mi. In the hall of mental cultivation of the Qing Palace, there is a picture of Li's "Idle Weeks", also known as "Riding Alone to See the Fighter", which was signed as "Minister Li Jin". This painting was recorded in the book "The Continuation of Shiqu Baodi" specially collected by the Qing court, which depicts the event that Guo Ziyi, a famous Tang Dynasty, persuaded Uighur to break Tubo. However, it was not until the decline of the Qing Dynasty that many appreciation experts found out that although the picture was harmonious and the painted characters were very elegant in the Song Dynasty, more evidence showed that this painting was not written by Li, but was undoubtedly copied by later generations.
Give another example. According to records, there is a regular script work of Cai Xiang, a great calligrapher in the Song Dynasty, in the palace of the Qing Dynasty. However, there were actually two biographies of this word at that time, with the same content, and both of them were pragmatic and meticulous, with peaceful strokes and rigorous and solid words. At that time, people did not pay much attention to this issue, so it was impossible to make a detailed distinction. So one sentence was easily awarded to his own emperor Liu Ziyong by Emperor Qianlong. It spread to Japan in the late Qing Dynasty and was acquired by Japanese collector Nakamura. The remaining one stayed in the Qing Palace and was carved into Fa Tie Sanxi Hall by Emperor Qianlong. A hundred years later, experts sorted out the remains of the Qing palace and found that the words left behind had certain cultural value, but they were only fakes.
Taking calligraphy and painting as an example, there are many problems in porcelain stone collection. According to Mr. Na Zhiliang, an expert of the National Palace Museum in Taipei who has been engaged in the study of the cultural relics of the Forbidden City for life, he found many wrong porcelain in the "Kangxi Year of the Ming Dynasty" when he counted the cultural relics of the Qing Dynasty. Many people don't understand, thinking that most of the Qing dynasty porcelain in the Qing palace was produced in the official kiln. How can such a mistake be allowed? However, after expert appraisal, it is found that most of these porcelains are privately burned fakes in the late Qing Dynasty, which can be said to be complete fakes.
There are also Gu Mo and Gu Yan, which have always been the favorite things of the Qing emperors, and there are many such collections in the court. To this end, Emperor Qianlong specially ordered the compilation and revision of the book Xiqing Yanpu to record these royal collections. However, through today's scientific and technical analysis methods, researchers found that some treasures of Emperor Qianlong were very unreliable.
Most of Gao Shiqi's famous paintings are imitations. Many people may ask, how did so many fake things get into the palace? Don't you make a distinction when you enter the palace? Of course not. Appraisal is necessary and strict, but since appraisal is done by people, there will inevitably be problems. These man-made problems can be summarized into the following two categories. First, some of the Qing Palace collections are relics of the former dynasty, and some are tributes from ministers after entering the dynasty. Although it was also identified at that time, there were many mistakes, so the fake was regarded as a treasure at the beginning of the collection.
According to historical records, Gao Shiqi, a famous minister in Kangxi period, was deeply trusted by the emperor, so in order to repay him, Gao Shiqi often brought some famous paintings to pay tribute. But when he was old, he wrote a book called Jiangcun Calligraphy and Painting Catalogue. Only then did people know that there were nine kinds of paintings he had hidden, among which the so-called "treasures of the ages" were all original works, and they often kept them themselves and never showed them to others. And presented to Kangxi, there are many titles that read "false extremely cheap".
There is a legend in the Qing palace that a courtier followed the emperor for many years during the Qianlong period. Seeing his sophistication, Lord Qianlong gave him a chance to be an official. You know, at that time, foreign officials earned a lot of money, which was what many people dreamed of. Seeing the emperor doting on himself in this way, this man was certainly moved, so he used his spare time to collect more than ten paintings and calligraphy of Mi Fei, a great calligrapher in the Song Dynasty. But Gan Long only glanced at the gift list and wrote "fake, don't" with a stroke of his hand. This guy was cheated at that time, and he didn't understand why. He was very depressed. Ask around and wake up like a dream. Mi Fei's value is like a word, and there are few surviving works. I certainly don't believe that he can buy so much at a time. It's flattering to get the horseshoe.
Eunuch deceives the world, sells real things and buys fake ones. Of course, although Emperor Qianlong had a unique vision, he also made many mistakes. Many of the originals he identified were later proved to be fakes, but he rejected them, such as Fuchun Shan Jutu? Useless volumes are just treasures handed down from generation to generation.
There are fakes in the collection of Emperor Qianlong. Later emperors such as Jiaqing and Daoguang were not interested in antique calligraphy and painting, and there were few artistic attainments like Qianlong. On festivals such as longevity festival, local governors, officials, customs officials, weavers, etc. With some ancient calligraphy and painting, some famous names were listed on the tribute list, such as Huang, Wang Bi, Zhenwu, Ming, Shen, Tang Yin and Chou Ying, which were soon shelved. Therefore, since Qianlong, there have been more and more fakes collected in the Qing Palace.
In the second case, the eunuch tampered with the treasure that entered Tibet. Although the power of eunuchs in Qing dynasty was not as great as in the past, they were people around the emperor after all. Many tributes and antiques are often transported through them. So some courtiers who wanted to please the emperor but couldn't come up with anything good tried to win over the eunuchs and give them some benefits. They made a very expensive list of gifts presented to the emperor, but in fact they just bought some fakes for a job.
During the Republic of China, at the beginning of the establishment of the Palace Museum, there was an old eunuch named Chen. According to his memory, when Empress Dowager Cixi lived, if ministers only prepared gifts worth 220 taels of silver and gave eunuchs another 220 taels of silver, the authenticity and quality of this thing would be ignored, and eunuchs would naturally settle everything.
The eunuchs in Qing dynasty were not only good at making up the numbers under the emperor's eyes, but also good at making flowers instead. Especially after the middle and late Qing Dynasty, faced with internal troubles and foreign invasion, emperors ignored the treasure and the system supervision was increasingly relaxed, which provided an excellent opportunity for eunuchs to steal the treasure. So many eunuchs colluded with each other and sold the treasures collected by the emperor. In order to hide people's eyes and ears, I bought a fake at an antique stall at a very low price to prevaricate. According to relevant records, during the Republic of China, the staff of the Palace Museum saw several large wooden boxes in Yongshou Palace. Judging from the inscriptions, they should all be famous paintings inscribed by Wu Daozi, Zhang Sengyou, Fan Kuan and Li Tang. But after unpacking, everyone found that everything was black, completely fake in the late Qing Dynasty, and the quality of the fake was still very poor. At that time, experts concluded that these things, together with the porcelains made during the Kangxi period of the Ming Dynasty, were probably the result of collusion and forgery by eunuchs.
In a word, everything from the Qing Palace is not necessarily a treasure, which needs the attention of collectors today.