A Fascinating Case of Forgery
By J.P. Park, author of The Forger's Creed
I have long been a fan of the American sitcom Seinfeld, and one particular quotation from the series has always amused me. In an episode where Jerry dates a policewoman, he is invited to take a polygraph test. Fearing that his embarrassing secret might be exposed, Jerry consults George Costanza, the self-proclaimed master of deception, for advice on how to beat the machine. Costanza, ever pragmatic, declares that such prowess cannot be taught but offers Jerry one critical piece of advice: “Jerry, remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Though this advice may initially sound nonsensical, it is laden with layers of interpretive insights. Even an undeniable truth or an unmistakable lie, once firmly believed to be its opposite, can fundamentally alter its original condition. This blurring of truth and falsehood often leads to more profound complications over time.
This theme came to mind when I first stumbled upon a later reprint of A Record of Treasured Paintings (C. Baohui lu, 1634) at a bookstore in Liulichang in the early 2000s during my time as a graduate student. I must confess that I was initially unaware of the book’s true identity. Filled with information on countless paintings attributed to master artists in Chinese history, the book intrigued me. I told myself I needed to delve deeper into its contents to enhance my understanding of Chinese art history. Soon, however, I discovered the book’s true nature: it was the creation of Zhang Taijie (b. ca. 1588), an ambitious scholar who sought to cement his legacy as the greatest art collector in Chinese history—not by amassing actual paintings but by claiming ownership of numerous unknown masterpieces through sheer fabrication.
The book was, in essence, a fascinating case of forgery. Who would devote such immense time, effort, and resources to producing nearly 900 pages of meticulously woodblock-printed content? Although captivated, I set the book aside to focus on other projects, telling myself I would revisit it.
That future came in the fall of 2016 during my sabbatical in Japan. While wandering through Tokyo’s Jimbocho bookstore district, the book resurfaced in my mind. I began reading it carefully and quickly realized that this was not merely the product of a dishonest scholar. It was a creation of its time and place—seventeenth century China—a period marked by society’s collective fascination with artistic leisure, where forgery, fakery, and copies pervaded artistic, literary, and historical circles.
The more I studied the book, the more layers I uncovered. It became evident that the book, although branded a forgery, had undergone a process of “source laundering.” Numerous publications from subsequent eras had transcribed its contents without acknowledging their origins, allowing the fabricated information to disseminate across dozens of works by the late nineteenth century. Astonishingly, some of these fabricated texts even made their way into modern research. I identified multiple instances where renowned art historians from Asia, the United States, and UK cited content originating in Zhang Taijie’s book—yet attributed it to later, seemingly legitimate sources. This phenomenon recalls Umberto Eco’s observation in Foucault’s Pendulum: scholars often “arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.”
This forged book became the foundation of my research. In subsequent chapters, I turned to the actual forgeries of paintings from the same period, offering compelling examples of how they blurred the boundaries of authenticity. The culmination of my work lies in the final chapter, where I examine the fabricated art historical theories that emerged and gained traction during Zhang Taijie’s time. Chief among these is Dong Qichang’s (1555–1636) Theory of the Southern and Northern Schools of Painting—a construct that has shaped art historical scholarship for over three centuries. Here, too, a lie transformed into accepted truth, altering the trajectory of art history.
This journey has taught me that the boundaries between truth and falsehood are often more fluid than we might assume. What begins as deception can, over time, integrate itself into the fabric of history, reshaping narratives and influencing scholarly thought. Zhang Taijie’s book exemplifies this process, serving as a reminder that our understanding of history reflects past realities and the layers of belief and interpretation built upon them.
My research is less about uncovering forgery for its own sake and more about exploring the mechanisms through which such forgeries gain authority and meaning. This interplay between fabrication and legitimacy underscores the complex ways in which history—and art history in particular—is constructed, revised, and perpetually reimagined. After all, George Costanza was correct, and he left us with an insight worth remembering.