A scandal engulfing the Nanjing Museum has escalated from a dispute over a single painting into a sweeping corruption probe, following a bombshell “real-name” report by a retired employee.
On 21 December – just days after the museum came under fire for a donated Ming dynasty masterpiece resurfacing at a Beijing auction – a former staff member released a video on WeChat accusing former director Xu Huping of orchestrating the theft and smuggling of thousands of national treasures.
According to the allegations, Xu – who led the museum until 2005 – systematically reclassified genuine artifacts, including imperial items evacuated from the Palace Museum during World War II, as fakes in order to sell them for personal profit. Multiple attempts by China Newsweek to contact the provincial department of culture and tourism reportedly went unanswered.
A catalog image of Spring in Jiangnan from this year's Beijing Spring Auction (the lot was ultimately withdrawn)
The spark: a "fake" worth US$12 million
The controversy began earlier this spring, when Spring in Jiangnan (Jiangnan Chun), attributed to Ming dynasty master Qiu Ying, appeared in a China Guardian auction preview in Beijing. The scroll carried a staggering estimate of RMB 88 million (around US$12 million).
Its provenance immediately raised red flags in the Chinese art world. The painting was once part of the renowned “Xuzhai” collection of Pang Laichen (1864-1949), a prominent industrialist and collector. In 1959, Pang’s family donated 137 works – including Spring in Jiangnan – to the Nanjing Museum.
In 2024, Pang’s great-granddaughter, Pang Shuling, contacted the museum to inquire about the status of the family’s donation. After receiving no response, she filed a lawsuit. A court-authorized inspection in June this year revealed that five of the donated works, including the Qiu Ying scroll, were missing.
Details of Spring in Jiangnan
The museum’s explanation sparked disbelief. Officials claimed the five works had been identified as forgeries by experts in the 1960s and were subsequently “disposed of” or “transferred” in the 1990s in accordance with internal procedures.
That a donated painting dismissed as a fake could resurface decades later with a multimillion-dollar valuation ignited a firestorm on Chinese social media – and triggered widespread calls for transparency and accountability.
Guo Lidian appears in a video to publicly accuse the former director of the museum
The whistleblower steps forward
As public pressure mounted, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism announced the formation of a task force to investigate. But just days later, the scandal took a dramatic turn.
On 21 December, Guo Lidian, a retired member of the museum’s collections department, posted a video on WeChat, holding up his staff ID (No. 08006) and publicly accusing former museum director Xu Huping of gross misconduct.
“I am reporting Xu Huping for the organized, premeditated, and large-scale theft and smuggling of artifacts from the Palace Museum’s southward relocation,” Guo stated in the video.
He alleges that during Xu’s tenure, seals were broken – without authorization – on crates of imperial artifacts that had been transferred from Beijing to Nanjing in the 1930s, when the Palace Museum began relocating tens of thousands of objects to southern China to protect them from Japanese invasion. Over 2,000 crates were stored in a secure facility in Nanjing, and while many were eventually returned to Beijing or sent to Taiwan, a significant number remained in the city.
During the war, artifacts are loaded onto trucks in the square in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony
A photograph taken of the crated Palace Museum artifacts prior to their evacuation
According to Guo, Xu instructed museum experts to deliberately misclassify genuine artifacts – including imperial porcelain and rare calligraphy – as forgeries. These items were then sold at low prices to the Jiangsu Cultural Relics Store, which Xu oversaw, before being flipped to an auction house in Shanghai run by Xu’s son, or funneled to foreign dealers.
Guo further alleged that Xu bribed senior officials to cover his tracks, specifically naming Han Jianlin, former head of the Jiangsu anti-corruption bureau. Once celebrated as a graft-fighting hero, Han was himself jailed for corruption in 2004.
Guo said he has submitted reports to multiple government departments over the past decade, but has never received a meaningful response. He declared, “If I am framing him, I am ready to bear the legal responsibility.”
Xu Huping served as the Director of the Nanjing Museum from 2001 to 2005
Paper trail contradicts Xu's denial
Xu Huping, now 82, has not commented publicly since Guo’s video went viral. However, in an interview given shortly beforehand, he distanced himself from the controversy:
“I’ve been retired for nearly 20 years. This matter did not pass through my hands. I am not an expert in painting authentication.”
But newly surfaced documents published by state media outlet Xinhua appear to contradict his claim of non-involvement. A 1997 museum record authorizing the de-accessioning of Spring in Jiangnan bears Xu’s signature. A receipt dated 2001 shows the Jiangsu Cultural Relics Store – where Xu served as legal representative – sold the same painting (then titled Landscape after Qiu Ying) to an anonymous buyer for just RMB 6,800.
The application document for de-accessioning Spring in Jiangnan from the Nanjing Museum, bearing Xu Huping’s signature
The receipt showing the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Store sold Spring in Jiangnan to an anonymous buyer for RMB 6,800
A native of Hunan, Xu served in an Air Force missile unit before working in a Nanjing factory. He joined the Nanjing Museum in 1973, rose to vice-director in 1985, and served as director from 2001 until 2005. He formally retired in 2008.
Despite his denial of expertise, Xu was long celebrated as a scholar and connoisseur. He published authoritative works on Qing imperial porcelain and Six Dynasties celadon, and as recently as 2024 was named an “Outstanding Cultural Figure” by Forbes China.
The Palace Museum in Beijing is currently hosting "An Exhibition Commemorating the Southward Evacuation of the Palace Museum's Artifacts," running until 31 December
What could be one of the largest cultural heritage thefts
The current whereabouts of Spring in Jiangnan remain unclear. Sources suggest it was acquired in the 1990s by Lu Ting, founder of the Nanjing Yilanzhai Art Museum, and was consigned to auction following Lu’s death earlier this year. The lot has since been quietly withdrawn from sale.
As of press time, multiple calls to the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Nanjing Museum have gone unanswered. Staff on the National Cultural Heritage Administration hotline said they had “not yet received a relevant report” and could not take action. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in Jiangsu referred inquiries to the local culture and tourism bureau, but repeated attempts by journalists to reach officials within the department were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, public scrutiny is intensifying, with many in China’s art and cultural community calling for a full criminal investigation. If Guo’s accusations prove true, the case could expose a long-running failure of institutional oversight – and mark one of the largest known thefts of state-owned cultural heritage in recent memory.