Chinese art and antiques, particularly Chinese porcelain, hit the headlines quite regularly, usually because of the huge sums collectors are prepared to pay for sought-after pieces – £48 million in the case of one vase sold recently.
However, these high prices also attract lots of counterfeiters, keen to cash in on this international market by producing imitations and fakes.
Fakes can be hard to spot in any milieu, but the traditions of Chinese porcelain, in which legitimate artists often signed their work with the signatures of old masters as a form of tribute, make authentification more difficult than usual.
With ValueMyStuff currently expanding its operations into China, founder Patrick van der Vorst has devoted this week’s video blog to this subject. Watch the video to find out more about this most fascinating market.
For further information, have a look at our archive of videos on Chinese Art, in which Patrick and Alistair Gibson of Gibson antiques look at items including a Ming Dynasty dragon vase, a pair of porcelain “soldier” vases, and a rare Chinese fish bowl.
And it’s the last week of our competition! You have until midnight on September 30 to “like” us on Facebook and enter our draw to win the last of our three iPod shuffles.