Page 36 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

bronze a mixture of lacquer and colours, to which alcohol is sometimes In many cases these false, added inscriptions are recognizable by:
added.
- Errors in the style of the characters or the type of text used, i.e. using a
Artificial pigments calligraphic or literary style that differed from that used at the time that the
- Artificial pigments, scrapped off a genuine archaic bronze vessel and archaic bronze vessel was produced.
sometimes attached to the vessel with wax, give a reproduction a rather
mediocre imitation of ancient corrosion. - Incoherence of the added text as a result of its being riddled with grammatical
or orthographic errors. This was often caused by faults in the text copied or
Paint casting faults on the bronzes from which the inscriptions were copied.
- The surface of the vessel is covered with paint imitating the colours of an
ancient patina. - Misplaced or missing characters

Addition of authentic patina - Poor placing or overlength of the inscription out of greed for the increasing
- Particles of ancient patina are lifted from damaged or broken authentic profit that longer inscriptions brought.
archaic bronzes and then attached to fake bronzes. Sometimes these
particles of authentic patina are pounded into powder and mixed with

small fragments of bronze and powdered turquoise. The resulting paste is
then applied to a modern vessel, which is often then covered with a coating
of wax.

Whatever the method employed by the artisans, all of these artificial patinas
can be detected by an experienced person. Most of these artificial patinas are
unable to resist a quick test carried out with a piece of cotton soaked in alcohol,
acetone, or any other nitrogenous product. Also, a person with a sharp eye
and armed with a magnifying glass can detect the hand of the forger in such
patina. It is important to note, however, that the presence of artificial patina
on a vessel does not absolutely prove that the vessel in question is an outright
fake. Many authentic archaic vessels have been heavily restored and have
been repatinated, which was an especially common practice at the beginning
of the twentieth century.

Inscriptions

As is the case with the patina on a vessel, an inscription, when there is one,
can provide us with some useful clues as to the vessel’s authenticity or possible
inauthenticity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, makers of bronze
reproductions took a keen interest in inscriptions because at the time the
selling prices of inscribed archaic bronzes and inscribed oracle bones increased
according to the number of characters contained in their inscriptions. Thus in
order to increase the selling price of an object, inscriptions were added, even
to originally uninscribed archaic bronzes, either by copying characters from
books or copying complete inscriptions from other vessels, or by completely
inventing fictitious inscriptions. As mentioned above, the adding of such
inscriptions was the speciality of artisans in Xian between 1920 and 1938.

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