Looking at the confused looks of the crowd, Pagio gave the answer: "Shaw, have you heard of Wolfgang-Bertledge?"

Xiao Peng and the others, you look at me, I look at you, shook their heads in confusion, Xiao Peng replied: "Listen to the name, the person you said looks like a German?"

Pagio nodded, "You're right, he's a German. This one person alone can withstand countless artists. ”

Everyone was confused when they heard this, but Xiao Peng seemed to understand something: "According to what you said, this person should be a fraud expert, right?"

"Counterfeiters?" Pagio shook his head, "That's a true master artist." Well, just like your Zhang Daqian in China and Han-Van Megren in the Netherlands. ”

From the time when people became aware of collecting works of art, fakes appeared. In the art collection market, the distinction between genuine and fake goods has always been the most serious problem faced by all collectors.

Almost all collectors have the experience of collecting fakes 'eye-catching'. So when it comes to the word 'fake', all collectors hate it, especially after being fooled. I can't wait to kill it!

But not all fakes have no market value, some are even more valuable than the real thing!

This is not an exaggeration, there are many legends in the world of art counterfeiting!

There is an old saying in China, called 'the easiest shortcut to success is imitation', so almost all masters of calligraphy and painting started from copying at the earliest, which leads to the fact that almost all of these masters are masters of counterfeiting.

For example, the Song Dynasty and Cai Xiang, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and called the "Song Four" calligrapher Mi Fu, that is a master of counterfeiting, its copy of the "Wang Xizhi Seventeen Posts" almost to the point of being fake, the word "return to the old view" is to describe in Mi Fu's pen, can reproduce Wang Xizhi's romantic and free line such as flowing water artistic conception.

Of course, he doesn't always be able to fake it. There is also such a small story, that a painting and calligraphy businessman went to Mi Fu's house to sell a picture of the Tang Dynasty painter Dai Song's cattle herding. Mi Fu liked it at a glance, but he remained quiet, just let the dealer leave the painting, saying that he would look at it for a few days before making a decision. As a result, a few days later, the painting and calligraphy dealer came again, Mi Fu said that he did not like the painting, and asked the dealer to take the painting away. I thought that was the end of the matter. But the next day, the dealer came again, and the first thing he said was: 'Give me back the original'!

It turned out that Mi Fu copied a fake to the dealer, and left the real work himself, but the craftsmanship was a little rough, so that people could recognize it。。。。。。

However, among so many people who like to fake, the most famous and legendary must be Zhang Daqian of China and Han-Van Meegeren of the Netherlands.

Zhang Daqian is definitely the most famous art master in the Chinese painting world and at the same time very charming because of his colorful life, and is known as the "first person in the past 500 years" in the Chinese painting world. He has achieved great success in painting.

But what people don't know is that Zhang Daqian is not only an outstanding all-round painter, but also a master of counterfeiting who is proficient in identification and imitation, to be precise, he is famous for his counterfeiting. Now Zhang Daqian's paintings, not only his real paintings are worth a lot, but his antique paintings and calligraphy are also very famous in the calligraphy and painting circles and the connoisseurship circles, and have become an open secret. The price of some of his fake paintings even far exceeds the real ones he painted!

can do the pretense of the world, I'm afraid it is Zhang Daqian.

In the appraisal world, Zhang Daqian's imitation used to be a headache. He 'pursued the traces of the ancients, learned the methods of the ancients, and finally reached the heart of the ancients', so he imitated the works of Shi Tao and Bada Shanren and deceived countless connoisseurs. In particular, he imitates Shi Tao's paintings, and his technique can be said to be more Shi Tao than Shi Tao. Even Fu Lei once commented on Zhang Daqian------ 'The biggest skill in his life is to imitate Shi Tao'. There are more celebrities under his hands.

For example, Zhang Shaoshuai in the Northeast back then had a soft spot for Shi Tao's works. Collect authentic works at any expense. As a result, like the collectors of domestic and foreign collection institutions at that time, Zhang Daqian's way was deceived------ most of the treasures he purchased at a high price were Zhang Daqian's 'fake' masterpieces.

Later, after Zhang Shaoshuai knew about this, he specially invited Zhang Daqian to a banquet. All the friends persuaded Zhang Daqian not to go, saying that it was a 'Hongmen banquet', and Zhang Shaoshuai would settle the account after the autumn.

However, Zhang Daqian thought about it again and again, and finally went. According to Xiao Peng's guess, Zhang Daqian also wanted to open at that time, Zhang Shaoshuai really wanted to arrest himself, and estimated that he could be arrested wherever he fled, so it was better to go to the appointment.

As a result, at the banquet, Zhang Shaoshuai did not say a word about being deceived by Zhang Daqian's fakes. The two talked and laughed during the banquet, and did not mention the word loss at all. Zhang Shaoshuai also admired Zhang Daqian's ability to fake, and the two became friends since then, and they have also achieved a good story.

At that time, the famous appraisers Wu Hufan, Luo Zhenyu, Ye Gongqiu, and so on were all planted in his hands, and the most authoritative painting book in the Japanese Kingdom, "The Great Completion of Southern Painting," published the "Landscape Map" by the monk Shixi, which was copied by Zhang Daqian and He Haixia together. So far, many domestic and foreign cultural relics collection institutions still have Zhang Daqian's imitation paintings.

For example, the most authoritative painting book of the Wa Kingdom, "Southern Painting Dacheng", published the "Landscape Map" of the monk Shixi, which was imitated by Zhang Daqian and He Haixia.

For example, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of the Stars and Stripes, the "Creek Bank Map" by Dong Yuan, a painter of the Southern Tang Dynasty of the fifth dynasty of China, is actually Zhang Daqian's deceptive work.

For example, at that time, Cheng Linsheng, the king of the magic land, dominated the collecting world because he specialized in collecting Shi Tao's works, but Zhang Daqian privately said to his friends, 'All the Shi Tao paintings collected by Cheng Linsheng, seven or eight out of ten were painted by me'。。。。。。

All in all, Zhang Daqian's imitations of celebrities are almost more famous than his own works, including "The Three Hidden Men of Wu Zhong" in the collection of the Freer Museum of Art in the Stars and Stripes Kingdom; "Shitao Landscape", "Meiqing Landscape" and "Stream Bank Map" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which are actually imitations of Zhang Daqian, and the British Museum in London has his imitation of "Giant Lush Forest" and so on.

The most legendary master of the Oriental counterfeiter is Zhang Daqian, and the most legendary in the Western world is naturally Han-Van Megren of the Netherlands.

During World War II, the invincible Nazi Air Marshal Hermann Goering was so fond of art that he once exchanged 200 famous Dutch paintings for a 'Vermeer's painting', which he bought from a Dutch painter, and this painter was none other than Migren.

After the end of World War II, in a salt mine near Salzberg, Austria, the Allies discovered a number of famous works of the painter hidden there. Oh, and the movie "Allied Raiders of the Lost Ark" starring Hollywood stars George Clooney and Matt Damon came from this thing.

As a result, the Allies found that most of those collections had once belonged to Hermann Goering's collection, and among them were Vermeer's national treasures! It was discovered that the painting was sold by Miglen to Hermann.

So the court convicted Miglen of treason and smuggling, was a collaborator of the Nazis, and faced hanging.

At trial, however, Miglen revealed the truth: the original Vermeer that had been in Goering's hands was not the real thing, but a fake of his own paintings. In addition, there is an even more surprising fact: all the so-called national treasure-level paintings he sells are actually imitated by him. The sum of several paintings brought him $1.74 million!

And at that time, 1.74 million US dollars was enough to arm a force。。。。。。

This caused a sensation, and many people did not believe it at all, believing that Miglen was trying to escape the crime of treason with his own fraud. In the end, in order to verify the veracity of his claims, Miglen simply began to create a "new Vermeer famous painting" in prison----- "Young Jesus and the Elder".

In the presence of everyone, he showed himself the process of falsification, and finally went from treason to forgery, serving a year in prison. But unfortunately, he didn't survive this year and died in prison.

In fact, in the art circle now, there are more people who rely on fake food to eat, and there are all kinds of characters, and there are still many more legendary figures.

For example, Qian Peichen, a 75-year-old Chinese painter living in the Stars and Stripes, was arrested by the FBI on charges of fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion because he created as many as 63 works by imitating many well-known impressionist painters such as Pollock and Kuning, making a profit of more than 80 million US dollars.

and Eagle Nation artwork creator Eric Hepburn. His forgeries fetched staggering prices at major auction houses, and he created about 10,000 imitations in his lifetime. In the hands of museums and collectors around the world.

Not only did he not feel guilty at all about his fraud, but he also published an autobiography called "Causing Trouble", in which he told everyone how easily he deceived the experts, how the art dealers were desperate to get his works, and which art museum hung his new works on the walls。。。。。。

In '96, he even stepped up his efforts and published a book known as the 'Forger's Bible'------ "The Art Forger's Handbook", in which he explained in detail how he used to make forgeries。。。。。。

What makes the art world mad the most is that he has been dead for 20 years, but until today he has not had anything to do with the hearts of art people------ his posthumous work "The Language of Lines" was published, satirizing art critics, saying that they don't understand anything at all, and that 'only those who can draw are qualified to judge the quality of painting techniques, and everyone else will go along'.

Of course, Eric Hepburn's fate was not too good, and the counterfeit was so arrogant, who could tolerate him? Shortly after the publication of the Art Forger's Handbook in '96, Eric Hepburn was hit on the head with a blunt object and died in a hospital near the Tiber River as soon as he came out of the bar.

The Stars and Stripes also have a master of forgery called Mark A. Landis. He is the most prolific forger of art in the history of the Stars and Stripes. But the legend of this girl is that he did not seek any financial reward from his forgery.

For more than 30 years, he has been repeating a rather ridiculous thing: he has devoted himself to forging paintings by famous artists such as Curran and Picasso, and has forged more than 200 paintings in his lifetime, and then donated these so-called 'famous paintings' to many museums in the Stars and Stripes Country. He said that he did this to fulfill the last wishes of his deceased family, and to add credibility to the matter, he had nothing to do to pretend to be a pastor to donate.

The most amazing thing is that Landis has never used these fake paintings to make money, and some of those "treasured" museums will take the initiative to invite him to a meal, and some will give him some art albums, but that's all------ those museums are more critical than the other!

But after more than 30 years of his counterfeiting career, Matthew Grayning, an attentive clerk at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, noticed that something was wrong when he went through the art registration again.

Grayning found that a copy of the work that should be donated to his own museum was accepted by other museums. Well, in fact, the work that the museum accepted was also a copy of Landis。。。。。。

Grenin investigated the matter, and as the investigation deepened, he discovered a shocking fact----- more than 200 copies of Mark A. Landis were accepted by 46 museums in more than 20 states throughout the Stars and Stripes. Landis's fraud was also exposed.

Later, Landis's affair was also brought to the big screen by director Jennifer Grosman. In 2014, the documentary, "Arts & Crafts," was released in Los Angeles, in which Landis showcased his unique skills, such as how to step by step through prints and shellac to create a painting of Picasso's famous painting.

To this day, Landis continues to make forgeries, and more people like to collect his paintings----- can deceive so many museums for more than 30 years, his skills are naturally admirable!

Landis is also a bit more legendary, despite the fact that he has created so many forgeries in his life, but he has never been imprisoned and has always been at large.

And the reason why this is the case is also very simple, don't look at him so much fake, but this is because he has never used fake to make a profit. His actions were just a 'good-natured joke'. Naturally, no one held him legally responsible.

However, among the living cost masters, the most famous and legendary must be Wolfgang Bertledge and his wife Helena, who together can make the art world crazy.

On the one hand, it's because they're so skilled at counterfeiting, and on the other hand, who makes them 'the best art forgers in the world'?