中國畫家僞作換真跡獲利數千萬元

A librarian who admitted to a court this week that he substituted his own paintings for works by Chinese masters, and then sold the originals at auction, insisted he was not the only one to carry out such fraud. He was simply the best at it.

一名圖書館館長本週向法院承認，他用自己的畫作替換中國大師的作品，然後將原畫拿去拍賣。他堅稱自己不是唯一採取這種欺詐手段的人，只不過是其中做得最好的一個。

Xiao Yuan, the author of several books on Chinese art and a former librarian at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, said he came up with the scheme when he began a project to digitize the school's collection in 2003 and noticed that many originals had been replaced with fakes.

曾出版了幾本有關中國藝術的書籍的廣州美術學院圖書館原館長蕭元表示，在2003年開展對學校藏品進行數字化處理的項目時，他發現很多真跡被假畫掉包，因此想到了這個瞞天過海的辦法。

That was what gave him the inspiration to do it himself, he told the court on Tuesday, according to a video of the proceedings.

一段庭審視頻顯示，蕭元週二在法院表示，這一發現讓他產生了自己也去掉包的念頭。

"At that time, when I first looked, I realized there were already many fakes that had already been substituted before me, but I didn't say anything," he said. "I was very greedy and tempted. How was it that in the past there were so many people who did this? Now I had the keys, and I could do it, too."

"我有機會第一次看到這些畫作。遠遠地看着，感覺很多是贗品，被人‘掉包'過。我當時沒做聲，卻起了貪念，心想之前有人掉包過，我現在手裏就有鑰匙，也可以這樣做，"他說。

A year later he began visiting the library on weekends, taking home works by famous painters such as Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian, then copying them himself. He avoided the best-known works, including the more impressionistic paintings of the Lingnan School, which scholars at the institution knew well and were likely to be lent out for exhibitions.

一年之後，他開始在週末來到圖書館，將齊白石、張大千等著名畫家的作品帶回家，然後自己臨摹。他會避開名畫，比如嶺南畫派的印象派風格畫作，因爲這些作品爲廣州美術學院的學者們所熟知，而且還很可能會借出去展覽。

Mr. Xiao purchased centuries-old blank paper and ink to render his forgeries and boasted that no one at the school's library could tell the difference. "From then up to the present, no one else understood except me," he said. "They just understood how to keep track of the numbers."

蕭元買來幾百年前的宣紙和硯墨，臨摹出贗品。他誇耀說學校圖書館裏沒人能看出差別。"從那時到現在，在圖書館我是唯一懂美術的人，"他說，"其他人只會點數。"

Prosecutors said that Mr. Xiao sold 125 paintings valued at 34 million renminbi, about $5.5 million, through auction houses. He also still had in his possession 18 works from the library with a total estimated worth of 77 million renminbi. He told the court that auction houses had thought those works were fake and had refused to sell them.

檢方稱，蕭元通過拍賣行出售了125幅畫作，總共價值3400萬元人民幣。他手裏還有18幅從圖書館盜走的畫，總價值爲7700萬元人民幣。他在庭審中表示，拍賣行認爲後面這些畫是假的，拒絕出售。

He was discovered after a Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts graduate noticed a work at auction in Hong Kong had the school's seal.

廣州美術學院的一名畢業生注意到在香港拍賣的一幅畫作上有學校的印章，蕭元的行爲因此才被發現。

Mr. Xiao told the court he stopped swapping his fakes for the school's real works in 2006, after the collection was moved to the school's new campus, restricting his access. Upon seeing some of the collection later, he noted that some of his forgeries had been replaced with even cruder fakes.

蕭元在法庭上表示，館藏字畫在2006年轉移到了學校的新校區，他的出入受限，因此停止了掉包行爲。後來看到一些畫作時，他注意到，自己的一些臨摹作品又被更粗糙的贗品掉包了。

"I realized that paintings I had substituted 10 years ago had been substituted again," he said. "I could tell right away they weren't mine. The quality was too low. I pointed this out to people, but they didn't pay any attention."

"我發現自己10年前已經臨摹掉包的畫作被再次掉包，"他說。"因爲畫技拙劣，我一眼就看出來，我曾向辦案人員指出，但沒有得到重視。"