James Cahill dies at 87; scholar of Chinese art

Chang Ta-ch'ien's Forgeries

Chang Ta-ch'ien's Fakes (James Cahill, this version finished 7/08)

Carl Nagin has suggested to me (8/4/07) that I should make an annotated list of paintings that I believe to be forgeries of early paintings by Chang Ta-ch'ien (hereafter Chang Tc), while my memory is still fairly clear and my notes accessible. . Please understand that I do not claim to be omniscient or infallible; there may be mistakes, genuinely old paintings called Chang fakes, among what follows.  I will begin, for convenience of users, with those reproduced in Fu Shen's and Jan Stuart's exhibition catalog Challenging the Past: The Paintings of Chang Dai-chien (Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, 1991, hereafter Challenging), along with Fu Shen's article, trans. by Jan Stuart, "Chang Dai-chien's 'The Three Worthies of Wu' and His Practice of Forging Ancient Art," in Orientations 20 no. 9, Sept. 1989, 56-72 (hereafter "Three Worthies.")

This list should be used in conjunction with my lecture "Chang Ta-ch'ien's Forgeries of Old Master Paintings," (hereafter "Chang Forgeries"), delivered at the symposium "Chang Dai-chien and His Art," Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C., Nov. 22, 1991. This can be found and read or downloaded as CLP 16 on my website (jamescahill.info.) This list is in no order, chronological or other, and does not contain Chang's forgeries of Shitao or Bada Shanren or other Ming-Qing artists, excepting a few that will be included as interesting examples. (Later note: I am informed that Jonathan Hay has been lecturing, and presumably will publish, on this topic, Chang's Shitao and Bada forgeries.) Names of purported artists and other spurious information will not be put in quotation marks in what follows; when genuine paintings are mentioned for reasons of comparison, they will be identified as that.

I began by not intending to include notes on the Tung Yüan "Riverbank" painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having written enough on that elsewhere; see, especially, my “The Case Against Riverbank: An Indictment in Fourteen Counts.” In: Issues of Authenticity in Chinese Painting (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999) pp. 12-63 (hereafter Case.) But slides of it will be included on the projected disk of images, and are included below as no. 63. I have also included some paintings signed and acknowledged by Chang for comparison (mainly those illustrated in Case, my article in Issues of Authenticity), and pictures of him, including a few self-portraits, which may be useful to those giving lectures on him. I conclude by breaking my original intention and adding a few paragraphs on "Riverbank."

(I want to acknowledge the help of Sarah Fraser in getting some of the pictures and information included here.)

1. Anon. Song, early 12th cent. (loose attrib. to Li Kung-lin). "Three Worthies of Wu"
2. Liang K'ai, "Sleeping Gibbon." Versions A & B
3. Chang Hsüan, "Emperor Hsüan-tsung Enjoying a Cool Breeze"
4. Anon. 8th Century (loose attrib. to Han Kan). "Horses and Grooms."
5.Attrib. to Sun Wei, 9th century, "Lofty Recluses".
6. Anon. T'ang, "Lao-tzu Leaving the Pass."
7, Anon. T'ang,"The Bodhisattva Kuan-yin with Flowers in a Glass."
8. Anon. T'ang, "Bodhisattva with Willow Branch and Glass Bottle."
9, Anon. Sui, "Bodhisattva Kuan-yin."
10. Tung Yüan, "Along the Riverbank at Dusk."
11. Tung Yüan, "Traveling in Autumn Mountains."
12. Chü-jan, "Towering Mountains."
13. Tung Yüan, "Rivers and Mountains in Snow."
14. Chû-jan, "River Scenery in Evening."
15. Tung Yüan, "A Myriad Trees on Strange Peaks."
16. Chü-jan, "Dense Forests and Layered Peaks."
17. Kuan T'ung, "Drinking and Singing at the Foot of a Precipitous Mountain."
18, Wang Shen, "Sheer Peaks and Deep Valley."
19. Li Ch'eng, "Travelers in a Wintry Forest."
20. Kao K'o-ming, "Clearing After Snow on the River."
21. Chang Feng, "Chu-ko Liang."
22. Han Huang, "Five Oxen."
23. Wu Wei, "The Iron Flute"
24. Wu Wei, "The Courtesan Wu-ling Ch'un."
25. Emperor Hui-tsung, "Hsiang-lung Shih: The Auspicious Dragon Rock."
26. Chû-jan, "A Myriad Ravines."
27. Yen Wen-kuei, "Wind on the River."
28. Chao Meng-fu, "The Nine Songs."
29. I Yüan-chi, "Two Gibbons In a Loquat Tree."
30, Chû-jan,"Dense Groves and Layered Peaks"
31. Yen Li-pen, "Emperor Kao-tsu of T'ang, with Attendants."
32. Chin Nung, "Returning by Boat in a Rainstorm,"
33. Ni Yuan-lu, "Landscape with Fisherman."
34. Tai Pen-hsiao, "Landscape."
35, Hui-tsung, after T'ang, "Ming-huang Teaching His Son."
36. K'un-ts'an, "Landscape"
36A. Fang Zongyi, "Landscape in Fog."
37. Anon. Sung, "Bodhisattva."
38. Ch'eng-t'o-lo, Sui. "Sakyamuni."
39. Anon. T'ang, "Ming-huang on Horseback, with Attendants."
40. Tung Yuan, "Waiting for the Ferry in Summer."
41. Chû-jan, "Broad Inlet and Distant Mountains."
42. Wang Shen, "Hills by Misty River."
43. Hui-tsung "Hawk and Dog."
44. Wang Meng, "Lofty Reclusion in Summer Mountains."
45. Anon.Pre-T'ang "Vimalakirti."
46. Anon. T'ang, "Landscape."
47. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "The Wei River."
48. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng."
49. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Immortals' Dwellings at Hua-yang."
50  . Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Mountain Temple and Drifting Clouds, in the Manner of Tung Yüan."
51. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Seated Figure with Scroll."
52. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 60."
53. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 70."
54. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 70, Leaning on Pine."
55. Photograph, "Chang T-c in the Mountains, Beneath Pine."
56. Photograph, "Chang T-c and Point Lobos Cypresses."
57. Photograph, "Chang T-c with Mrs. Chang (holding Nicholas Cahill as baby) and Fang Chao-ling,"
58. Photograph, "Chang T-c and His Daughter Sing"
59. Photograph, "Chang T-c Painting, with Daughter Sing."
60. Photograph, "Chang T-c and Young Gibbon."
61. Anonymous 10th Century, from Dunhuang Caves. "Bodhisattva."
62. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "After Tung Yüan,'Summer Trees Casting Shade.'"
63. Tung Yüan, "Riverbank."

1. Anon. Song, early 12th cent. (loose attrib. to Li Kung-lin). "Three Worthies of Wu" ("Three Worthies" Fig. 1.) Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Freer Gallery of Art. Well discussed by Fu Shen; my "Chang Forgeries" p.1. Purchased from Joseph Seo, New York (committed for purchase during my absence from the Freer,) My first serious technical examination of the physical features of a Chang Tc fake was of this painting, which I saw when I returned from my Fulbright year in Japan and subsequent stay and travels in Europe (1954-56). I looked at it with Takashi Sugiura, the Freer mounter, and later with Shûjirô Shimada, who pointed out that the writing seemed to be by the same hand as on other Chang fakes, even though these are supposedly spread over centuries. Shimada also, as I recall, pointed out to me the black spots seen mostly near the end of the scroll, which are, he said, meant to imitate spiders' droppings washed away! Sugiura showed me, with his sharp-eyed understanding of these matters based on long experience, that although the silk was rent into square or rectangular fragments, under magnification the fibers of the threads could be seen to be still strong, undecayed. I made slides showing these features and used them in all my lectures on Chang's fakes.
Future researchers can have the fun of identifying some of Chang's models for the figures in this, the Sun Wei scroll (#5 below) and others. For instance, the second figure in this "Three Worthies" scroll is taken from a "Seven Worthies" handscroll (Ch'i-hsien t'u) attributed to Ch'ien Hsüan in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, reproduced in Ku-kung shu-hua t'u-lu v.16 fig. 409-10. Five slides.

2. Liang K'ai, "Sleeping Gibbon." Versions A & B (Challenging, nos. 11 and 12, pp. 116-19.) Hanging scrolls, ink on paper. A: formerly collection of Myron and Pauleen Falk, New York. B: Honolulu Academy of Arts (1956.2217.1). "Chang Forgeries" p. 2. Both are copied after an anonymous Sung painting attributed to Mu-ch'i, one of a pair forming the side-pieces of a triptych; see Challenging Fig. 71, p. 118; also Kokka no. 425, April 1926. During my Fulbright year in Japan, 1954-55, I was taken by Shimada to see the collection in Kyoto of a Professor Andô, which at that time included this triptych, so I knew it in the original. I don't recall seeing the Falks' version, but I recognized the Honolulu picture as a copy by Chang, and in 1958 wrote Gustav Ecke, who had made the purchase for the Honolulu Academy in 1956, pointing out the match with the Kokka reproduction. His reply, which I still have (will be in Cahill Archive at Freer, in Chang Ta-ch'ien folder), is summarized in "Chang Forgeries": he thanked me for calling the other version to his attention, but it did not shake his confidence in the genuineness of his version, for which he felt assured by the authentication written by Yeh Kung-cho. Both versions, A and B, seem to me blatantly false, with their harsh, showy brushwork (misunderstanding of "no brushstrokes" manner of some Ch'an-associated paintings preserved in Japan); the gibbon's body looms above its head and forelegs instead of receding along the earthbank; all sense of atmosphere is lost. Chang is both exploiting and exemplifying the lack of real understanding, among latter-day Chinese connoisseurs, of this kind of painting as it survives in Japan. (Note, by contrast, that a 16th cent. Japanese artist, Shikibu Terutada, had no difficulty capturing these aspects of the "Mu Ch'i"-attributed picture, in a fan painting loosely based on it: see the same issue of Orientations as Fu Shen's "Three Worthies," p. 51.) Note: according to Kohara, "Gisaku" p. 617, the Mu-ch'i-attributed original is now in the Fukuoka Provincial Museum. Three slides.

3. Chang Hsüan, "Emperor Hsüan-tsung Enjoying a Cool Breeze" (Challenging 45, "Three Worthies" Fig. 7.) Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. I saw this handscroll first in Tokyo, in the mid-1960s, shown it by the late Cheng Chi, who had purchased it and evidently believed in its antiquity--or else, because he had a very good eye and may not have been fooled, he had acquired it with the hope of selling it. He had it reproduced as a scroll reproduction. I would show slides of it in my "Chang Ta-ch'ien Forgeries" lectures which I gave as extra-hour offerings with each course in early Chinese painting at U.C. Berkeley, and explain why it could not be a real T'ang work. It was only later—1980s?—that I discovered the origin of the composition (as recounted in "Chang Forgeries," p. 2): in the Hakusô Sansô, the old villa of the Japanese painter Hashimoto Kansetsu, located in west Kyoto (near the Ginkakuji) and open to the public, a favorite place of mine, I saw exhibited a set of five drawings Hashimoto had done for a series illustrating Po Chû-i's "Endless Sorrow" poem—and there was the original of Chang's "Chang Hsüan" forgery. The attendant must have wondered why I burst out laughing. The appearance of this fake—the spotted and rent "ancient" silk, the way the pigments lie on it, and of course the spaceless composition--agree closely with the "Three Worthies" (#1), the "Grooms and Horses" (#4), and others. These are good examples for close study by anyone wanting to detect Chang's fakes. But others have quite different "looks"; non-resemblance to these is no indicator of authenticity. Five slides.

4. Anon. 8th Century (loose attrib. to Han Kan). "Horses and Grooms." Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Musée Cernuschi, Paris (196.1). "Three Worthies" Fig. 6; Vadime Elisséeff, "Une peinture retroouvée," in Ars Asiatiques 1958 no. 3, 221-227, "Chang's Forgeries" p. 2. Note the list of eminent authorities who approved the purchase, vouching for the antiquity of the scroll, at the end of Ellisséeff's article: Paul Demiéville, Kanda Kiichiro, Gustav Ecke, Max Loehr, Jan Fontein, Peter Swann, Suzuki Kei. Elisséeff needed this backing to persuade the French government to give him funds for the purchase, reportedly the most expensive for a Chinese painting up to that time, around U.S. $80,000? I saw it on my way back from Japan in early 1956, and, by then alerted to Chang's fakes, recognized it as one of them. (Vadime later told me that I had embarrassed him very much by not including it in my Skira Chinese Painting, after he had persuaded everyone that it was a masterwork and spent so much for it.) This is another that I would show regularly, in a slide, in my after-hour class lectures on Chang's fakes; sharp-eyed students, after being shown real Tang paintings, recognized this as impossible for that date, with the horses and figures in flat silhouette, no space between them (the second groom, located behind the lead horses, is especially denied space.) The story of Chang's purported acquisition of the painting from a local official at Tun-huang is told in P'u Ju's colophon, which is dated 1955. A recent article by M. Gilles Beguin, Conservator of the Cernuschi (in a special issue of Orientations devoted to that museum, June 2005), reports a technical examination of the work, and is curiously inconclusive, although I understand from correspondence with their curator, M. Eric Lefebvre, that they no longer believe in the antiquity of the painting. Five digital images.

5.Attrib. to Sun Wei, 9th century, "Lofty Recluses". Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Shanghai Museum. ("Three Worthies" Fig. 18.) Fu Shen accepts the antiquity of this scroll, as do most other authorities; I believe it to be one of Chang's forgeries--without, however, ever having had the opportunity to examine it closely. It was purchased after Chang had gone abroad, probably indirectly from him—I don't know the route. Chang did several copies of the figures, as Fu Shen shows; and, as I argue in my "Chang's Forgeries" lecture (p. 4), the representational faults seen in those are also to be seen in the "original". This needs serious study, to identify the sources of the figures (I was working on that, never finished) and verify my strong suspicion, virtually a conviction, that it is by Chang. One slide, two digital images.

6. Anon. T'ang, "Lao-tzu Leaving the Pass." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Case Fig. 24, p. 64; also, in color, in Ta-feng-t'ang i-tseng ming-chi t'e-chan t'u-lu ("Catalog of Exhibition of Paintings Presented by Ta-feng-t'ang," i.e. Chang Tc.) (Taipei, National Palace Museum, 1983) (Hereafter Chang Gifts) Pl. 33. The publication of this catalog of Chang's posthumous gifts to the National Palace Museum in 1985 added quite a number to my mental list of his fakes (although not all the paintings in it are forgeries by Chang—some are paintings he purchased, many of them in Japan, and in some cases with added signatures and seals—Fu Shen lists these, Challenging p. 309.) These are certainly not the best of what Chang still owned at the time of his death—there must have been many valuable paintings still in his collection; but their whereabouts are unknown—his son Paul probably knows. The origin of the "Lao-tzu" composition I recognized quickly, and checked with my copy of an old wood-block printed picture book (gafu) of the kind I collected, purchased very cheap in Kyoto during my Fulbright year, along with many others. It is the first picture in the Ressen zusan, "Pictures of [Taoist] Immortals" (preface 1780, printed in 1818), by the minor Edo-period monk-artist Chô or Tanke Gessen (1721-1809). Chang had probably acquired a copy while he was studying in Kyoto in the period 1917-19. Two slides.

7, Anon. T'ang,"The Bodhisattva Kuan-yin with Flowers in a Glass." Purportedly from Tun-huang. Inscription with date corresponding to A.D. 757. See Wen Fong, "The Problem of Forgeries in Chinese Painting," in Artibus Asiae XXV, 1962, 95-119 (Hereafter, Wen Fong "Forgeries"), Fig. 2, detail Fig. 5. This is the first of Chang's fakes that I saw, in Tokyo in 1955; it was owned by the dealer Ogiwara (for information on him, see "Responses and Reminiscences" on my website, #29, "Japanese Dealers.") I was completely persuaded by it, and took back photos to show the Freer, in the hope they would purchase it. By the time I had reached the Freer, however, and even more in the year after that, I had come to realize that it was one of Chang's forgeries. Wen Fong analyzes skillfully the ways it differs crucially in style from the original painting on the wall of a Tun-huang cave. Shortly after my return, a similar picture of a standing bodhisattva with an inscription naming the same donor and containing the same date was presented for purchase by Joseph Seo. This was #8, see below. Three slides.

8. Anon. T'ang, "Bodhisattva with Willow Branch and Glass Bottle." Purportedly from Tun-huang. Inscription with date corresponding to A.D. 757. See Wen Fong, "Forgeries," Fig. 1; also Ta-feng-t'ang ming-chi vol. (fill in). This painting was put through a thorough technical examination; with Seo's permission, John Gettens of the Freer's technical laboratory took samples of the pigments to analyze. One of them, a yellow as I recall (but my memory is not precise), proved to be a chemical pigment not made until the 19th century. And Takashi Sugiura, our Japanese mounter, was very sure that the silk was Japanese, and not very old. The painting was, of course, returned to Seo; the other one (#8) may still be in the hands of Ogiwara's heirs. No slides or digital images.

9, Anon. Sui, "Bodhisattva Kuan-yin." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Challenging Fig. 111, p. 309; Chang Gifts Pl. 2.  I know this one only from the reproduction, and have no opinion on it; it appears to be like the above two. The inscription includes a date, jen-shou second year, but I can't quickly identify that reign title. If I read it right, The dedicatee is someone named Ch'eng T'o-lo. Four slides.

10. Tung Yüan, "Along the Riverbank at Dusk." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Taifüdô Meiseki 1, Pl. --; Challenging Fig 95, p. 186; Chang Gifts Pl. 4 and pp. 79-81. According to Chang's various inscriptions concerning this painting, he saw it in Peking in the 1930s and was extremely impressed with it; he acquired it in 1946, with great difficulty and at high cost, and it became one of his treasures, which he copied several times and learned a great deal from. Challenging no. 41, pp. 186-88, is one of these copies, done in 1950. I have not been able to study the "original" in detail, and cannot give a firm judgment of it, except to say that it is impossible for the time of Tung Yüan. At best it is a Yüan-period work, closer to Zhao Mengfu than to Tung Yüan; but it may also be a fabrication by Chang Tc. Professor Fu Xinian told me (private communication, Beijing, July 1999) that most Chinese connoisseurs take it to be a forgery by Chang. See also, however, Issues of Authenticity p, 86, detail, with article by Ch'i Kung, who ascribes it to the Yuan artist Wang Yuan; on  p. 93 he claims that it originally, when owned by a Beijing dealer, bore a Wang Yuan signature, which Chang Tc removed. Five slides (fifth is Chang Ta-ch'ien "copy")

11. Tung Yüan, "Traveling in Autumn Mountains." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Chen Jen-t'ao (J. D. Chen), Chung-kuo hua-t'an ti nan-tsung san-tsu (Three Patriarchs of the Southern School in Chinese Painting) (Hong Kong, the author, 1955) (hereafter Three Patriarchs.) Pl. 1. Also Maxwell Hearn and Wen Fong, Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999) (hereafter Along the Riverbank), Fig. 1, p. 3. The composition is known through a copy by Wang Meng preserved in a copy in the Hsiao-chung hsien-ta, "The Great Revealed in the Small," album of reduced-size copies with inscriptions by Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (see Along the Riverbank Fig. 1, p. 4); there is also a copy by Wu Li in the Princeton Art Museum. The composition, then, is antique, but this version of it is a forgery by Chang Tc, one of several (see nos. 13 and 14 below) formerly owned by the Hong Kong collector-dealer J. D. Ch'en, and published by him with great pride. The large size and convincing "weathering" of these paintings made them immediately impressive when I saw them in Hong Kong after my stay in Japan, in early 1956; however, I had been warned about them and recognized the impossibility of their being truly early works by these great masters. I have been told that the paintings were later acquired, perhaps after Ch'en death, by the Tokyo dealer Yabumoto Sôshirô (see "Responses and Reminiscences" on my website, #29, "Japanese Dealers") and may still be owned by his son. On my first viewing of this group, see also "Chang Forgeries" p. 3 bottom. Hironobu Kohara has told me that the box for the painting has an inscription dated 1954 signed by "Naitô Seisen," an invented Japanese scholar, claiming that the painting was in Japan in the early 20th century. Kohara discusses this fabrication in his "Gisaku no kisetsu," pp. 28-30. (Where? fill in) One slide.


12. Chü-jan, "Towering Mountains." Hanging scroll, ink on silk, heavily damaged. Foirmerly J. D. Ch'en, Hong Kong (Three Patriarchs, Pl. 4; Case Fig. 7.). Fu Shen had wrongly identified the original for this as the well-known "Asking About the Tao in the Autumn Mountains" in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (Chinese Art Treasures no. 15); the composition is similar to that, but in fact is based on a virtually unnoticed work in the old Freer collection, a Yuan or Ming landscape ascribed to Tung Yüan (reg. no. 19.137. Case Fig. 8), which Chang must have known from a photograph? or else from a different version. The way the hilltop at the top of the work disappears—not into fog, but simply into the dark silk, not painted in by Chang—nicely parallels the similarly unpainted mountaintop in "Riverbank." Two slides (b is Freer "Tung Yuan")

13. Tung Yüan, "Rivers and Mountains in Snow." Long handscroll, ink on silk. Formerly J. D. Ch'en, Hong Kong (Three Patriarchs, Pl. -2). Like others in this group, the painting bears the ssu-yin half-seal which, if reliable, shows the work to be no later than the early Ming, when it was applied. For this, see Chiang Chao-shen's article in National Palace Museum Quarterly, X/4, Summer 1977, English summary pp. 9-10, Chinese text p. 16. Its importance had only recently been discovered when Chang was making his forgeries, and he often used it. No slides.

14. Chû-jan, "River Scenery in Evening." Long handscroll, ink on silk. Formerly J. D. Ch'en, Hong Kong (Three Patriarchs, Pl. 5. also Hsieh Chih-liu, ed., T'ang Wu-tai Sung Yüan ming-chi, Shanghai 1957, 4-7, and Siren Chinese Painting III, Pl. 170.). I have assumed this to be a Chang forgery, although it could be an old imitation, not by him. Needs careful examination. No slides.

15. Tung Yüan, "A Myriad Trees on Strange Peaks." Whereabouts unknown. Hanging scroll, ink (and color?) on silk. I know this only from a photograph, but it appears to be fairly obviously a Chang fake, with all the familiar characteristics. Perhaps this and the Wang Shen (no. 18 below) are relatively early attempts at forging early landscapes, still somewhat awkward in comparison to later forgeries. One slide.

16. Chü-jan, "Dense Forests and Layered Peaks." Hanging scroll, ink and light colors on silk. British Museum (1961.12-9.01). Challenging no. 42, pp. 189-192; Along the Riverbank Fig.  43, p. 50. "Chang's Forgeries" p. 3 top. This was reportedly sold to the British Museum, along with another forgery, a painting of gibbons supposed to be by I Yüan-chi (see no. 29 below), by Chiang Er-shih, acting as Chang's agent? Or had he acquired the paintings? He is said to have bought them from the dealer Yen Sheng- po, another who was notoriously tricky. This one was, by this time, easy to recognize. It was presented triumphantly by Basil Grey—the British Museum had not acquired any early paintings for quite a while—and published in Apollo for June 1962 by Michael Sullivan, with whom I had some correspondence about it, as related briefly in "Chang's Forgeries." The Metropolitan Museum was later to borrow this and hang it as a recognized fake beside their newly-acquired "Riverbank" in the hope that the difference in appearance between the two would lend credence to the latter. This reflected a serious misunderstanding of Chang's working methods; if all his fakes could be brought together in an exhibition, they certainly would not seem obviously to be the work of one artist, or even of one period. I myself own a landscape by Chang (acknowledged, signed by him) from 1955, based loosely on a Wang Meng painting in the Shanghai Museum; I bought this (for about $150) on the advice of C. C. Wang, who was then teaching in Hong Kong and saw it for sale there, and felt I should own it for its clues to Chang's style. (It is in Challenging, no. 49.) I was indeed able to compare details from it with details from the British Museum picture in my lectures over the years, and show close similarities in the painting of tree roots, clusters of tien dots, etc.—passages that revealed the artist's hand. The British Museum Chû-jan is based on an older version of the composition now in the Shanghai Museum titled "A Myriad Ravines, Wind in the Pines," an honest Yuan-Ming picture copied after an earlier original. For that, see Shang-hai Po-wu-kuan ts'ang-hua (Shanghai, 1959) Pl. 1; also Issues of Authenticity p. 107, in Hearn article. Thirteen slides (a-g are British Mus. Chû-jan; h-j are Shanghai Mus. Chû-jan; k-m are Chang Ta-ch'ien 1955 ptg in my collection (see above) for comparison (massed tien, tree roots, etc.)

17. Kuan T'ung, "Drinking and Singing at the Foot of a Precipitous Mountain." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Boston Museum of Fine Arts (57.194). Boston MFA Bulletin LIX, 1961; Archives XII, 1958, p. 76; Case Fig. 23. Several other versions of this composition exist, at least two of them by Chang (Challenging no. 43, pp. 193-5, Fig. 97 and 98). One of them (Fig. 97 there, Case Fig. 20) may be of some antiquity—I have never been entirely sure, although I have seen the painting quite a few times. This is the version attributed to Liu Tao-shih, who is mentioned by Mi Fu as a pupil of Tung Yüan. This painting, titled " Clear Morning Over Lakes and Mountains," was another owned by J. D. Ch'en in Hong Kong, and published as a work of the third of his "Three Patriarchs" (Pl. 6); also in Hsieh Chih-liu, ed. T'ang Wu-tai Sung Yuan ming-chi Pl. 8. Later it was acquired by C. C. Wang, and shown by him as one of his treasures, typically hanging beside his Tung Yüan "Riverbank" which would later go to the Met. The Boston M.F.A. painting is certainly a Chang fake; the Liu Tao-shih needs more work. I don't think it is so early as 10th century in any case. Note that Chang cleverly put the Boston Kuan T'ung in what looks like an old Japanese box, suggesting that it might have been preserved over the centuries in the kura or storehouse of some old Japanese family –- Eighteen slides, one digital image (a-g are Boston MFA Kuan T'ung; h-q are C.C.Wang's "Liu Tao-shih"; r is reprod. of Boston MFA Kuan T'ung in NY Times review of their Dec '07 exhib. of Chang as "Painter, Collector, Forger.".

18, Wang Shen, "Sheer Peaks and Deep Valley." Hanging scroll, ink and color? on silk. Signed. Collection unknown. Challenging Fig. 15, p. 37. Someone—I can't recall who, but it may have been Cheng Chi? gave me this photo as an example of a Chang fake. Fu Shen got it from Carl Nagin. I have no idea where the painting is, and know nothing more about it. One slide.

19. Li Ch'eng, "Travelers in a Wintry Forest." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Metropolitan Museum of Art (1972-121.) Wen Fong, Beyond Representation, Pl. 9, p. 79. This large painting was for years kept at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Tseng Hsien-ch'i, then Curator of Asian Art there, sent me a large photo of it with the suggestion that the Freer might want to buy it. There were two Chang Tc inscriptions on the mounting, above and below the painting. I spent a lot of time studying the photo, and ended up feeling it was Chang's work, and so did not recommend it to the Freer. A lot of things are wrong with the painting representationally: the figures are clumsily drawn (perhaps intentionally—Li Ch'eng reportedly sometimes had others draw in his figures), the earth banks are spongy, the several trees are badly compacted in space and muddled, so that it's impossible to tell, in some passages, which branches and twigs belong to which trees. A real Li Ch'eng could not have exhibited such visual confusion, and the same faults can be seen in others of Chang's fakes. Peter Sturman has published a long article on this painting, which he takes to be an early masterwork, close to Li Ch'eng (fill in.) Ten slides.

20. Kao K'o-ming, "Clearing After Snow on the River." Large handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Inscription with date corresponding to 1035. Formerly Crawford Collection; now Metropolitan Museum of Art (1984.274). Crawford Cat. 5; Cahill Chinese Painting (!) p. 41, detail; Wen Fong, Beyond Representation Pl. 14, pp. 108-9. detail 110-111, there called a  "Liu Sung-nien" work after Kao K'o-ming! (opinion of Richard Barnhart cited.) I was completely taken in by this one when I saw it first in John Crawford's collection, and read with excitement the dated inscription at the end, partly trimmed away but skillfully done so it is still legible; I published a detail of it in my Skira book (it is one of only a few in that book that I now regret including.) Later, as I showed it and discussed it in classes and lectures, the faults of the painting became apparent: spongy, unconvincing earth masses, not unlike those in the "Li Ch'eng" #18; too-tall pine trees in the early part; throughout, a failure to integrate the parts formally—it is a hodge-podge. What could Chang have been thinking of? Two slides, three digital images.

21. Chang Feng, "Chu-ko Liang." Hanging scroll, ink on paper. Signed, dated 1651. Formerly collection of Ho Kuan-wu, a collector famous for his "unerring eye" for Ming-Ch'ing paintings. Reproduced first in the 1940s in a reproduction volume of paintings in his collection, T'ien-ch'i Shu-wu ts'ang hua chi (? check for exact title). By the 1950s, Ho had moved to Hong Kong; I was taken to meet him and see paintings in his collection during my stay there in 1956. I don't recall whether this painting was among those I saw. Chang Tc made two copies of it: one was in New York (the Falks again?), the other in Japan. The latter was/is owned by the dealer Mayuyama Ryûsendô and kept at the Tokyo National Museum, where it is often exhibited; it is reproduced in Yonezawa Yoshiho's book (published by Mayuyama) on Ming painting (fill in) and in Siren, Chinese Painting, vol. VI, pl. 371B.. To my eye it is obviously a fake; I often paired it with a slide of the original, from Ho's book, in lectures. At dinner once with Chang I tried to pin him down, pointing out that there were three versions of the picture, two with his inscription or seals on them: which was the real one? His answer: Chang Feng liked this subject very much and painted it three times: they were all genuine.

Then, in the 1980s, the original appeared in an auction catalog (fill in).   
After comparing it with the old reproduction and being satisfied it was the same painting, i wrote Howard Rogers recommending that he buy it, but it was bought by Jim Freeman (the American dealer living in Kyoto) and sold to the Boston collector Henry Harrison, who also owned a very fine Chang Feng landscape-with-figures handscroll. I was able to see it, along with Harrison's other paintings, when they were stored for photographing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1990s.

In the spring of 2005 I learned from Jim Freeman, to my dismay, that he was quitting as a dealer in Chinese paintings, discouraged by the inability of museum and other specialists to agree on questions of authenticity, and the frequency with which curators raised doubts about paintings he showed them. He had somehow bought back from Harrison all the paintings he had sold him, combined them with all he still had in stock, and arranged to sell the lot to a U.S. museum (not to be identified yet—it will make a big splash when the purchase is announced.) But he had held back, he told me, the Chang Feng "Chu-ko Liang" painting, not because he was fond of it but because he had himself become convinced that it was one of Chang's forgeries, and was scrupulous enough (as he always was) to withhold it. I told him my honest opinion, that he was mistaken and the painting genuine, and suggested, at first facetiously, that if he wanted to dispose of it "at a Chang Ta-ch'ien forgery price" I would buy it. He agreed, we settled on a price (very low, for this work), and the painting is now kept in the Berkeley Art Museum. For an account of this whole affair and some information and commentary on the painting, see CLP 83 on my website, a lecture I gave in Berkeley when an exhibition was organized around it. Four slides (a-c are Chang Feng original; d is Chang T-c copy in Japan.)

22. Han Huang, "Five Oxen." Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Ohara Museum, Kurashiki; see Yonezawa Yoshiho's article on it in Suiboku Bijutsu Taikei 1: Hakubyô kara suibokuga e no hatten ("The development from line drawing to ink painting"), Tokyo, 1975, Pl. 1, 46, and p. 161. (Pl 47 reproduces the well-known original in the Palace Museum, Beijing.) In making this forgery and assembling the "documentation" for it, Chang Ta-ch'ien took advantage of the circumstance of two versions of this famous work being recorded—both, as I recall, in Shih-ku-t'ang shu-hua hui-k'ao. Yonezawa was completely taken in by the ruse and by the painting. I have not seen the forgery, and judge it to be that only from the reproduction; Hironobu Kohara believes it to be a Chang fake. No slides.

23. Wu Wei, "The Iron Flute" (Yang Wei-chen with Beauty and Attendants). Handscroll, ink on paper; inscription dated 1484. Shanghai Museum. Reproduced in several Chinese reproduction books; also Cahill, Parting at the Shore, Pl. 48 (!). This is another case of myself being taken in; persuaded by the quality of the painting and the colophon by Wu Hu-fan, I reproduced it without having seen the original—a bad practice. As recounted in "Chang Forgeries," I realized the truth when I saw the original in 1973; C. C. Wang, when I showed him slides made from it, agreed that it is Chang's work. Two slides, five digital images.

24. Wu Wei, "The Courtesan Wu-ling Ch'un." Handscroll, ink on paper. Seals of the painter. She is depicted seated by a stone table; attached is a biography of her written by Hsü Lin. Palace Museum, Beijing. Taifûdô Meiseki 4. Another fine piece of pai-miao painting by Chang, again purporting to be by Wu Wei. To my eye, it doesn't ring true as a Ming painting, and I strongly suspect it's by Chang. One digital image, two slides.

25. Emperor Hui-tsung, "Hsiang-lung Shih: The Auspicious Dragon Rock." Short handscroll, ink and colors on silk, depicting a strange-shaped rock with plants growing from it. Long inscription by the emperor, with his cipher; ssu-yin half-seal. Colophon by J. D. Chen. Palace Museum, Beijing. Taifûdô meiseki I, 78. Accepted as genuine by many (most?) in the field, this seems to me fairly obviously a Chang fake; the "real" appearance of the rock and the space of the painting betray its contemporary origin. Maybe done by Chang to match some old record; I haven't checked.
See also Ebrey and Bickford, eds., Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China, Fig. 11.3. Maggie Bickford there accepts it as a genuine work, while noting that I do not. Two digital images.

26. Chû-jan, "A Myriad Ravines." Handscroll, ink on silk. Colophon by Wang To. Case Fig. 10. See Sotheby's New York, "Fine Chinese Paintings," June 2, 1987, no. 2; reportedly purchased by a Japanese buyer for $250,000. It bears the usual impressive set of seals and colophons, and is said to be recorded in Li Tso-hsien, Shu-hua chien-ying, 1871; Chang must have painted it to match a record there. It was earlier published by Chang as a reproduction album, n.p., n.d., along with a "Huizong" handscroll bought by Chang from the Fujii Yurinkan, Kyoto, 1954-5. Copies of these reproduction albums are in the Columbia University library, 6175 7123f and 6175 3923f (Chû-jan handscroll.) Fourteen slides.

27. Yen Wen-kuei, "Wind on the River." Handscroll, ink and colors on silk. Formerly Juncunc collection, Chiicago. Christie's New York, Fine Chinese Ceramics, Paintings, and Works of Art, March 22, 1999, no. 187; purchased by C. C. Wang. Seals of Liang Ch'ing-piao, Ch'ien-lung Emperor, etc. Looking old and impressive, this scroll had a reputation as a "hidden treasure" while it was owned by Juncunc, a secretive and eccentric collector; when it finally emerged, its real origin was fairly obvious. See my Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings, pp. 195-6, where another version of the composition in the collection of Cheng Chi is listed; this may be the one reproduced (from a bad photograph?) by Wen Fong. Summer Mountains, Pl. 31-2. I noted this as a "later work," and cannot now remember it well enough to add to that. Still needs clarification; but that the former Juncunc version is a Chang fake is, for me, beyond doubt. Seventeen slides, two digital images; the digital images are from the auction catalog; the rest are originals, made from the painting. Lots of slides, useful for study.

28. Chao Meng-fu, "The Nine Songs." Album of 16 leaves, ink on paper, illustrating the "Nine Songs" of Ch'û Yûan. Signed, dated 1305. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1973.121.15). Published by Chang as a reproduction album, Tokyo, n.d. I strongly suspect that this is Chang's work, from the style. No slides.

29. I Yüan-chi, "Two Gibbons In a Loquat Tree." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Signed. British Museum, London. See their Quarterly, XXIV, 3-4, opp. p. 114. Sold to the British Museum, along with the Chû-jan landscape (no. 16 above) by Chiang Er-shi; both Chang fakes. A version of the composition signed by Chang as his work, purportedly after the British Museum painting, is in a Chinese museum—Chengtu Museum? Included also in the slides as 29B is another "antique" painting of two gibbons, perhaps by Chang? I can't recall where this is, or where the slide came from. Two slides: British Mus. ptg, other.

30, Chû-jan,"Dense Groves and Layered Peaks" Collection of Liu Haisu Art Gallery, Shanghai. Case Fig. 11. From: Liu Haisu meishuguan cangpin (Collection of Liu Haisu Art Gallery--Chinese Paintings and Calligraphic Works Throughout the Dynasties), Shanghai, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 1996), no. 2. I know this painting only from the reproduction, but strongly suspect from the style that it is a Chang fake. Five slides (all from the reproduction)

31. Yen Li-pen, "Emperor Kao-tsu of T'ang, with Attendants." I know this only from an auction catalog: Christie's Hong Kong, Nov. 26, 2007, no. 817, Showing the emperor standing, larger than his three attendants, this is obviously based loosely on the Boston M.F.A. "Emperors" scroll. Long inscriptions on the mounting around the painting by Chin Kung (dated 1941) and Chang Tc. The usual early seals are impressed on the painting. Two slides.

32. Chin Nung, "Returning by Boat in a Rainstorm," Hanging scroll, ink and colors on paper. Xu Beihong Memorial Museum, Beijing. inscription on the mounting by Xu Beihong, dated 1950. From: Xu Beihong canghua xuanji, pl. 83. Also Issues of Authenticity p. 66 (in Kohara article) and Case Fig. 28-9. This is the painting that Xu Beihong, in the famous fabricated story, is supposed to have liked so much that he accepted it in trade with Chang for his "Riverbank," even though the two were wildly unequal in value. Hironobu Kohara is convinced that the Chin Nung painting is itself a Chang fake, and he may well be right. If I saw it (when Liao Jingwen kindly showed me paintings in that collection) I don't remember it. It does appear very odd as a Chin Nung, unlike any other. Two slides: whole painting (from reproduction), inscription.

Two more examples of his later-painting fakes other than Bada and Shitao (a problem I am not taking on here):

33. Ni Yuan-lu, "Landscape with Fisherman." In Tokyo in the 1960s? I bought a Ni Yüan-lu painting, ink on silk, in a loose, attractive style, and was later convinced (by Cheng Chi?) that it was a Chang fake. I returned it. Unpublished; a photo is in the U. C. Berkeley Dept. of History of Art photo archive for Chinese painting (now difficult of access.) One slide .

34. Tai Pen-hsiao, "Landscape." On an early visit to the Hong Kong collector Huang Pao-hsi (P. H. Wong), I saw a Tai Pen-hsiao landscape with light color in an unusual style that impressed me by its unusual handling of space and convincing "presence" of the solid masses. On a later visit, when C. C. Wang was along, I asked to see it again; and Wang told me afterwards that it was a Chang fake. Three slides.

35. Hui-tsung after T'ang, "Emperor Ming-huang Teaching His Son." Hui-tsung inscription, also Ch'ien-lung etc. Handscroll. This was shown me by Yabumoto Sôshiro, the Tokyo dealer, who also reportedly bought other Chang fakes (Tung Yüan, Chü-jan) from J. D. Chen in Hong Kong. I remember thinking at the time that it was a Chang fake, and it still looks that way in the slides. I also have a slide of another version, mounted Japanese-style as a horizontal hanging scroll, this one with an inscription at left end by Cheng Yuan-yu, with a Yuan (Chih-cheng) date; this also looks like a Chang fake. Three slides (c is the hanging scroll)

36. K'un-ts'an "Landscape," dated 1694!  I remember being shown a K'un-ts'an or Shih-ch'i landscape in the late 1950s by Peter Swann, who had bought it for the Museum of Eastern Art at Oxford; it looked fresh and odd, and when I looked up the cyclical date, ping-tzu, it turned out to be 1694, much too late for him. (Swann had published it, as I recall, in Oriental Art?) When I got back to the U.S. I saw the original, the great 1664 landscape owned by John Crawford (see Crawford catalog, also my Fantastics and Eccentrics #19, p., 58, and my K'un-ts'an article published in the Murck/Fong volume Words and Images.) The cyclical date on that, ping-wu, had been miscopied by Chang as ping-tzu; in semi-cursive script, they are easily mistaken for each other. No slides.

36A. Fang Zongyi, "Landscape in Fog." Hanging scroll, ink on paper, signed. This is a last-minute addition, a slide I found, made at Christie's New York auction March 18, 1997, no. 23. I labeled it "Chang Tc?" and include it here as possibly his work—in any case, a modern forgery. One slide.

37. Anon. Sung, "Bodhisattva." Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Slides made at Parke-Bernet auction, 1979. I wrote on slide: "Chang T-c fake?" Title by Chang? (can't read), also 2-line inscription in upper right which may supply and artist and date. Looks like his work. Four slides.

In addition, there are a number of paintings reproduced in Chang Gifts which I assume to be forgeries by him, but which I haven't seen in the originals and have no special insights or information on. I include them here as probable Chang fakes. Others could be added, although this volume also includes other "old" paintings acquired by Chang and furnished with wrong signatures and seals etc., and I don't want to attempt to distinguish all these from Chang's forgeries on the basis of the reproductions.

38. Anon. Sui. "Sakyamuni." Dedication to patroness. Chang Gifts 1. Cf. no. 9 above: same dedicatee/patron. Two slide, two digital images.

39. Anon. T'ang, "Ming-huang on Horseback, with Attendants". Hui-tsung and other seals. Chang Gifts Pl. 3. One slide.

40. Tung Yuan, "Waiting for the Ferry in Summer." Handscroll. Tung Ch'i-ch'ang inscription. Chang Gifts Pl. 5. Four slides.

41. Chû-jan, "Broad Inlet and Distant Mountains." Intended as fragment of handscroll? Hui-tsung and other seals.  Chang Gifts Pl. 6. One slide.

42. Wang Shen, "Hills by Misty River." Handscroll. Tung Ch'i-ch'ang title. Hui-tsung, Liang Ch'ing-piao and other seals. Chang Gifts Pl. 9.  Note: a similar scroll, or another copy? likewise attrib. to Wang Shen, is (or was) in the Shanghai Museum, reproduced in their volume of the Chung-kuo li-tai shu-hua t'u-mu series. I once asked to see this at the museum and was shown it; Shan Guolin was embarrassed, said it was a gift, disclaimed responsibility for it. Two digital images, two slides. (Same scroll?).

43. Hui-tsung "Hawk and Dog." Hui-tsung inscription; seals include Ch'en Hung-shou. Chang Gifts Pl. 11. One digital image

44. Wang Meng, "Lofty Reclusion in Summer Mountains." Copy of well-known work in Palace Museum, Beijing. Chang Gifts Pl. 25. One slide.

Also, probably, another painting by Wang Meng (Chang Gifts Pl. 26) and one by Fang Ts'ung-i (Chang Gifts Pl. 28.) No slides.

Kohara Hironobu, in his "Gisaku" (see below) p. 618. reproduces a Mi Yu-jen forgery by Chang that I have not seen, and so do not include on my list. It was owned by J. D. Chen, Hong Kong.

One that I forgot until now:

45. Anon. Pre-T'ang "Vimalakirti." Dated 590. Boston Museum of Fine Arts (reg. no. 58.1003.) Ink and color on silk, 113.4 x 98.3 cm. In Wu Tung, Tales from the Land of the Dragons, p. 247 (in an appendix containing unreliable works.) Intended as a Dunhuang painting, and according to Sarah Fraser, it " borrows heavily from cave 103, east wall, south side, at Dunhuang." Two digital images.

46. Anon. T'ang, "Landscape." This is now known only from a slide in my "Chang fakes" drawer, no writing on it; looks like a would-be Tang landscape, with palatial buildings by the water, trees, green hills. Mysterious picture. No recollection of where I made or obtained the slide. One slide.

I include here as comparative pieces several paintings openly signed by Chang Tc as his own work, useful for comparison with his fakes, especially "Riverbank" (see also no. 62 below):

47. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "The Wei River." Dated 1948. Case Fig. 3. No slide.

48. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Landscape in the Manner of Wang Meng." Dated 1949. Case Fig. 4. One slide.

49. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Immortals' Dwellings at Hua-yang." Dated 1949. Case Fig. 5. One slide.

50. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Mountain Temple and Drifting Clouds, in the Manner of Tung Yüan." Dated 1947. Case, Fig. 9. Two slides.

51. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Seated Figure with Scroll." Inscribed with dedication  to his friend Chu Hsing-chai, art critic etc., with whom he was traveling when I first met him in Japan in 1954. He and Chu later broke up, reportedly. Good example of his pai-miao drawing, for comparison with fakes of that. One slide.

Now, finally, for the use of anyone lecturing on Chang T-c or wondering what he looked like, here are some self-portraits and photos of him in various settings.

52. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 60." I can't remember the source of this. One slide.

53. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 70." From exhib. catalog of his works, one for each year, Asian Art Museum, S.F. (d'Argencé) One slide.

54. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "Self-portrait Age 70, Leaning on Pine." 1968. From Sotheby's Hong Kong auction cat., April 1995, #214. One slide.

55. Photograph, "Chang T-c in the Mountains, Beneath Pine." Photograph by the Chinese photographer Lang Jingshan who specialized in composite photos, and did a whole volume with Chang in them. One slide.

56. Photograph, "Chang T-c and Point Lobos Cypresses." Chang seated with backdrop of old cypress trees at Pt. Lobos, near Carmel. Ca. 1975? One slide.

57. Photograph, "Chang T-c with Mrs. Chang (holding Nicholas Cahill as baby) and Fang Chao-ling," 1958, same visit to D.C. as photo on cover of Orientations, Jan/Feb 2006. One slide.

58. Photograph, "Chang T-c and His Daughter Sing" at his house near the National Palace Museum, Taipei, last years. One slide.

59. Photograph, "Chang T-c Painting, with Daughter Sing." At Taipei house, cf. 58. One slide.

60. Photograph, "Chang T-c and Young Gibbon." At Taipei house, cf. 58. One slide.

61. Anonymous 10th Century, from Dunhuang Caves. "Bodhisattva." Banner mounted as hanging scroll, yellow pigment on red-dyed? silk, 180 x 58.5 cm.. Accompanying small handscroll with inscription by Chang, dated November 1954 and claiming it as one of a set of 16 taken from Cave 105 in 1900; 13 taken away by Aurel Stein; Chang obtained this one from "a gentleman of Dunhuang." The donor of the set was Cao Yijin (d. 935), "supreme overlord" of the Dunhuang area. See Christie's Hong Kong, Fine Classical Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy, April 25, 2004, no. 355. Christie's notes that a radiocarbon dating of the silk is consistent with the 10th-century dating. This is another Dunhuang? painting that I have just recently noticed, to be added as a possible Chang fake—I am not positive on this one, and only want to  include it as one to consider. Using Wen Fong's criteria (are the hands drawn organically? etc.) this one would fail. Three digital images.

62. Chang Ta-ch'ien, "After Tung Yüan, 'Summer Trees Casting Shade.'" Hanging scroll, ink and colors on paper, 137.2 x 68.1 xm. Dated 1948. See Sotheby's Hong Kong, "Fine Chinese Paintings," April 8, 2008, no. 230. Another acknowledged Chang work from the late 40s that has a lot in common with "Riverbank," compositionally and otherwise. One of the Chang paintings to take into account when pinning down roughly when he did the "Riverbank" forgery. One digital image.

63. Tung Yüan, "Riverbank." Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Slides made from reproductions—none made by me from the original painting. Included here for convenience of users. Seventeen slides.

(Note: Anyone working on Chang Ta-ch'ien's forgeries would be wise to read also Kohara Hironobu, "Gisaku no kisetsu: 1950 nendai no Chô Taisen" (The Season of Fakery: Chang Ta-ch'ien in the 1950s,) and "Keigan-zu kô" (An Investigation of "Riverbank"), in his Chûgoku garon no kenkû (Tokyo, Chuo Koron, Heisei 15 = ?) pp. 613-641 and 643-667.) Also his "Ta huan ying: Ta-ch'ien yü Dong Yüan" (The Great Illusory Image: Ta-ch'ien and Tung Yüan), in  Mei-shu-shih yen-chiu chi-k'an (Journal of Research in Art History) 2, Taipei, Taiwan National University, 1995, pp. 107-131,

Also: Fu Shen, "Chang Dai-chien and Tung Yuan," long article in Chinese with English summary, 1993. (I have a copy, but no indication of where published, and I don't remember.)

Finally: I said at the beginning of this that I wouldn't write more about "Riverbank," but in the end I yield to the temptation to conclude by repeating a few comments on that, things that aren't in my published article in the Authenticity volume, and adding a Last Word.

- I should have said at the symposium, but didn't: If a similar situation were to arise in Western (European) art, a would-be old master painting turning up in the hands of a known master forger, looking like nothing seen before, and with no believable provenance—only a story with lots of holes that traces it only back to one previous owner, a friend of the forger—it would be laughed off the scene. Why aren't the same standards applied to Chinese painting? (Answer: we haven't developed agreed-on criteria for judging purportedly "early" paintings, and are, collectively, much more easily fooled.)

- Another point made in my talk at the symposium that is not included in the published paper (Case, see at top) was made in response to Mike Hearn's argument, in his symposium paper, that technical examination of the silk of "Riverbank" proves its genuine age. I cited an account from a footnote (note 46, p. 106) from Wen Fong's "Problem of Forgeries" article (see discussion of no. 7 above) relating how a painting of a Bodhisattva now generally recognized as a Chang forgery (and the main subject of Wen Fong's article, no. 7 above) was put through thorough technical examination in Tokyo: "Between 1955 and 1956, laboratory experts in Tokyo made an exhaustive analysis of the painting. Microscopically and chemically, it was thought that everything looked just as one might expect of a handsome specimen of T'ang workmanship. There were, in fact, plans afoot to publish the findings as a standard textbook on technical analysis of a T'ang painting. It is clear, therefore," Wen Fong concludes, "That scientifically ascertained data must be interpreted not only in the framework of the stylistic evidence of the painting, but also according to our special historical insight with regard to the problem in question"—the problem, that is, of Chang's skill in processing his forgeries so that they appear old. I commented that the writer of this was the same person (Wen Fong) "who, nearly half a century later, writes: '. . . it is important for us  to recognize that based on physical as well as stylistic analysis, the painting [that is, Riverbank] cannot be a work of the 20th century nor the creation of the renowned modern forger . . . Zhang Daqian.' The two statements aren't absolutely irreconcilable, but they certainly pull in opposite directions. I will invoke the 1962 Wen Fong against the 1999 one and continue to argue that Riverbank not only can be 20th century and by Zhang Daqian, but, as I will show, it is."

- Some day someone should take a vote among Chinese painting specialists to find out how many still believe in the antiquity of "Riverbank." This will not, of course, decide the matter, but will provide an interesting statistic. John Rosenfield, spending time in the gallery where the painting was hanging on the day after the 1999 symposium and listening to the lively discussions going on there and elsewhere in the galleries, reported to me that the general public seemed to be mostly on Wen Fong's side, the specialists on mine. And conversations and correspondence with colleagues have led me to believe the same to be true.

Those who want to read the back-and-forth published correspondence between Carl Nagin, Dick Barnhart, myself, and others can go to Carter Horsely's website, thecityreview.com, and open these two, in which much of the documentation of the controversy is copied:
http://thecityreview.com/symposium.html
http://thecityreview.com/chinagat2.html

And finally, if you are frustrated to learn from some colleague that he or she still believes in "Riverbank" as a fine and important old painting, not possibly by Chang Ta-ch'ien, please be comforted by the following Deep Truth, which I learned long ago: A forgery has a limited life-span. I can't explain why this is so, but it is so. The van Meegeren "Vermeers" that fooled some great experts at the time they were done can be recognized as looking "wrong" now by any good grad student in European art history. In my old record collection is a 78 rpm recording of a fake Handel viola concerto that must have fooled enough people when it was performed to be recorded (in the 1930s? 40s?), but that today sounds impossibly unlike Handel, or any composer of his age. Those tracing the history of our field of study in future will read the list of major authorities, both art historians and sinologues, printed at the end of Serge Elisséeff's article on the Paris "Han Kan" (see no. 4 above), who gave their support to that purchase before he made it, with a feeling of wonderment: how can they all have been fooled by this obvious fake? That is exactly the feeling that any list of present-day "Riverbank" believers will arouse in those who read it in times to come. I am as comfortably sure of that as I am comfortably sure today (5/14/08) that Barack Obama will be our Democratic candidate for the presidency, and that he will be elected. No amount of struggling and denying on the other side is going to change that. It's a good feeling. (Oh, the terrible complacency of the aged!)

James Cahill

P.S.(11/4/08, 9 PM): Great day, Obama elected. One of my prophesies fulfilled. The other will take longer, and I may not be here to see it. But it is no less sure.
P.P.S. I have recently been reading reviews of two recent books on the Dutch forger Hans van Meegeren, and finding in them statements that could not have been made if the writers really knew about Chang T-c and his career as a forger, such as (Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker, Oct. 27, 2008, p. 82) that he is "the most original of fakers." van Meegeren was not only a vastly less likeable person, but vastly less prolific, versatile, and successful, in that scarcely anybody believes in any of van M.'s fakes today, while in Chang's case—see above.  Schjeldahl quotes Max Friedlander (p. 85) that "Forgeries must be served hot," and comments that he "promulgated a forty-year rule—four decades or so being how long it takes for the modern nuances of a forgery to date themselves as clichés of the period in which they were painted." But if that were true, Chang's fakes would have shed their plausibility by the late 1980s or early 1990s, whereas some of them have proven much longer-lived. But this means only that the revelations of their real nature are slower in coming, not any the less inevitable.

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