Chinese officials have threatened to sue after a German museum has acknowledged that terracotta soldiers in an exhibition are fakes. From Spiegel Online:
What does it mean to be “authentic”? How is that different from “original”? And can a fake also be authentic? Such semantic hair-splitting is at the heart of a museum scandal about fake Chinese terracotta warrior statues that is causing friction between Germany and China.
…”The museum of the terracotta army in Xi’an has not sent any authentic objects for display in Germany recently, and currently no such relics are on display in Germany,” said Chen, who said his bureau knew nothing about the exhibition. “The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology and the German Centre of Chinese Arts and Culture have organized the exhibition with no consultation with us,” he said. Xinhua reported that the officials were “considering legal action,” without going into details.
The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology decided on Wednesday evening to close the exhibition after the Leipzig-based Center of Chinese Arts and Culture, which supplied the exhibits for the show, admitted that the figures were copies. [Full text]
See also an AFP article.
[Image of soldiers in the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology exhibition, via Spiegel Online]
