Zheng Banqiao, the head of "Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou", was probably one of the painters who were most falsified and abused in ancient times. The reason why he has been faked repeatedly is not only because he is the representative of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou", but also because he is a household name and full of legend, and expensive paintings are also the fundamental reason to attract counterfeiters.
Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy is a collection of Huang Tingjian and Su Dongpo, mixed with seal script and official script, and mixed with Zhu Lan's strokes. It is uneven in size, patchwork, unconventional, majestic and beautiful, and is called "six books and a half". In Qing Dynasty, he commented on Banqiao's book, "Banqiao's ci is like a valley, which means Zhu Lan, which is particularly interesting". The brush method has been used in books since ancient times, but no two are as superb as Banqiao. His painting achievement is the highest, especially good at painting bamboo and stone, with thin branches and thick leaves, thin and isolated, and superhuman style. The painted orchids highlight the wild interest in the mountains, and the pen is elegant and fragrant.
Zheng Banqiao's paintings and calligraphy are deeply loved by scholars and businessmen because of their high standards and unique customs. In his letter to a friend, he wrote: "Calligraphy and painting were requested, cases piled up, and reminders flew like snowflakes. If you owe thousands of debts, do you know if you will pay them off one day? "
After Zheng Banqiao's death, there were many counterfeiters, such as Tan Ziyu from Weifang, Shandong Province and Liu from Xinghua, Jiangsu Province. However, it is vulgar and timid, so it is difficult to compare with the original work, and it is not difficult for later generations to distinguish Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy and painting. After the middle of Qing Dynasty, Banqiao calligraphy and painting once flooded, which was mentioned in the works of Qing people. Gui Fu's "Ding Haibei's Legacy Record" contains: "There are many fake copies of Mr. Wei's paintings and calligraphy." You Yun said, "Over the past few decades, I have seen more than 100 paintings and calligraphy by Mr. Wang, but only two or three of the ten are genuine."
In the past two years, most of the fakes on the market are bamboo stone drawings and Zhu Lan drawings. A considerable proportion of calligraphy, especially bamboo stone drawings, is almost rampant, and a large number of fake and inferior works are flooding the auction site, and the price tag is considerable. In my opinion, Zheng Banqiao's "Bamboo Stone Map" and "Shi Lan Map" have sold for millions of yuan, few of them are original works, and they often look disgusting.
In recent years, the so-called Zheng Banqiao "Bamboo Stone Map" and "Shi Lan Map" appearing in the auction mainly have the following four forgery methods: First, copy and clone the publications in the collection as they are, and the number of such works is the largest; Second, patchwork, reassemble the original and exchange titles. I have seen many; Third, out of nothing, there is no mother, and this also has a certain proportion; Fourth, the famous "escort". In recent two years, we can often see a famous southern appraiser's postscript to Zheng Banqiao's fake paintings in Beijing auction, which is quite deceptive and should arouse buyers' high vigilance.
As for counterfeit calligraphy, there are many auction websites in China, mainly Chinese couplets and self-created poems. Auction prices range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and sometimes there will be sky-high prices. It is precisely because of the large number of counterfeiters that the calligraphy market price in Zheng Banqiao hovers at a low level, even lower than that of some famous calligraphers in modern times. In fact, Banqiao's calligraphy has a profound traditional skill, which is not difficult to see from the central axis of his 30-year-old model poems. His Six Books and a Half is unique, and its size, length, skew, Fiona Fang, thickness and density are all handled naturally, and forgers often lose their imitations in the wild.
In the past year, the number of fake paintings and calligraphy in Zheng Banqiao has only increased, and some of them have been renovated under the banner of recording and returning. In my opinion, to identify Zheng Banqiao's paintings, collectors should pay more attention to the original works and appreciate the "thin, hard and steep" characteristics of Zheng Banqiao's paintings. The original "Bamboo Stone Map" drawn by Zheng Banqiao (see the "Bamboo Stone Map" of Shanghai Museum) is always rigorous in composition and exquisite in inscription. Both bamboo and stone are thin and hard gods, which are wonderful. As Zheng Banqiao wrote in a bamboo painting, "a group of strong and fierce, a group of stubborn" is the word "strong and fierce". At the same time, it is also very important to study his calligraphy, especially his calligraphy, to understand the writing methods of many original works in different periods and different calligraphy, so as to identify the authenticity of the paintings. After all, the "Banqiao style" of combining seal script and official script is definitely not easy to be imitated by counterfeiters.