Chinese bazaar copies

ariel · 2nd May 2009, 05:34 PM

As we know, they include everything, from poorly copied Nihonto, Russian swords and fantasy-inspired German, French etc sabers to brass casts of supposedly ancient Chinese weapons. The thing that insults all the real collectors is the supposedly brazen description of all of those fakes as real, and failure to mention their modern origin.
We view it as a shameless attempt to dupe the buyer.
But is it?
Over the years I mentioned that practice to some of my colleagues from China, and I was astonished by their reactions. They did not seem to view it as a deception at all: in their view, if the object was similar to the original, it was legitimate.
And just now I read a new Russian book about military culture of Vietnam. The author, a trained historian of weapons, describes a practice in Vietnamese museums to exhibit copies of the same sword in several museums. The astonishing thing is that some of them are made of gypsum and crudely painted. And nobody is perturbed by that.
Here we enter a territory totally different from our usual discussions: cultural attitudes. Not being familiar with the topic, I would like somebody knowledgeable to explain to me whether Sinic ( or other) cultures have different reference points toward authenticity of ancient objects as a guidepost to their cultural, historical, traditional etc. value?
Yes, I know that museums everywhere keep real things and that authenticated objects belonging to a famous historical person are valued very highly. But no Louvre or Hermitage would ever dream of exhibiting gypsum copies without ever mentioning the fact, and no Western collector would willingly purchase a modern replica and regard it as a legitimate object. Thus, there must be different cultural perspective of authenticity.

2nd May 2009, 05:34 PM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Chinese bazaar copies As we know, they include everything, from poorly copied Nihonto, Russian swords and fantasy-inspired German, French etc sabers to brass casts of supposedly ancient Chinese weapons. The thing that insults all the real collectors is the supposedly brazen description of all of those fakes as real, and failure to mention their modern origin. We view it as a shameless attempt to dupe the buyer. But is it? Over the years I mentioned that practice to some of my colleagues from China, and I was astonished by their reactions. They did not seem to view it as a deception at all: in their view, if the object was similar to the original, it was legitimate. And just now I read a new Russian book about military culture of Vietnam. The author, a trained historian of weapons, describes a practice in Vietnamese museums to exhibit copies of the same sword in several museums. The astonishing thing is that some of them are made of gypsum and crudely painted. And nobody is perturbed by that. Here we enter a territory totally different from our usual discussions: cultural attitudes. Not being familiar with the topic, I would like somebody knowledgeable to explain to me whether Sinic ( or other) cultures have different reference points toward authenticity of ancient objects as a guidepost to their cultural, historical, traditional etc. value? Yes, I know that museums everywhere keep real things and that authenticated objects belonging to a famous historical person are valued very highly. But no Louvre or Hermitage would ever dream of exhibiting gypsum copies without ever mentioning the fact, and no Western collector would willingly purchase a modern replica and regard it as a legitimate object. Thus, there must be different cultural perspective of authenticity.