Ahanging scroll, entitled Peach Blossom Spring, was sold for a record HK$271 million by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last month. After over 100 bids in 50 minutes, the painting – created by Zhang Daqian, one of China’s leading artists of the twentieth century, was bought by Shanghai’s Long Museum.
It was the unique brushmanship of Zhang that saw his artistic renown spread across the country. Aged just 17, he was captured by bandits on his way back from school. After the kidnappers had made him write his own ransom note, however, the bandit chief was so impressed by his calligraphy that he made Zhang his personal secretary.
After the revolution of 1949, Zhang fled, first to South America and then he began travelling around the world. In 1956 his meeting with Picasso in Nice, an occasion where the two great artists exchanged paintings, later came to be seen as a summit where the preeminent masters of Eastern and Western art first came together.
This particular piece may not, however, be the most prestigious of Zhang’s works ever to come to auction, as he was also renowned as one of the greatest forgers of classical Chinese works. He even managed to sell Boston’s Museum of Fine Art a piece that he said was a sixth century Buddhist artwork, one supposedly found in the caves of Dunhuang in the province of Gansu. In fact, it was something he had knocked up himself sometime in the late 1950s. As a result, museum curators are now cautioned to examine Chinese paintings of questionable origins and told to ask themselves: “Could this be by Zhang Daqian?”