Chinese Art Fakes Shown

More than 10,000 visitors to an exhibition of terracotta warriors in Hamburg are to be offered refunds after organisers admitted the figures on display were fake. The truth came to light when officials from Xi'an, home of the 2,000-year-old clay army, said they were unaware that they had lent any figures to Germany and that those on display at Hamburg's Museum of Ethnology could not possibly be real as the originals were elsewhere. Chinese experts are on their way to the city to examine the Power in Death exhibition, which consists of eight clay warrior figures, two horses and 60 smaller artefacts including bronze vessels, weapons and tools. German art detectives have launched their own investigation. A spokesman for the Leipzig exhibition company Centre of Chinese Arts and Culture (CCAC), which arranged the show, reluctantly admitted on German television that the figures were copies. But he was keen to stress the figures' similarity to the originals. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art