An investigation into the Nanjing Museum, one of China’s premier state-run cultural institutions, found that decades of systemic mismanagement and corruption enabled the secret sale of national treasures into the private art market.
According to the South China Morning Post, the scandal erupted last September after the museum was accused of selling donated paintings, prompting an investigation by Chinese authorities that has since focused on a former director. The publication reported that five paintings from a 137-work collection donated in 1959 by the family of collector Pang Laichen were found missing during a court-ordered inventory last June conducted at the request of Pang’s heirs.
One of the works, the Ming dynasty painting Spring in Jiangnan, by Qiu Ying, was spotted in early 2025 at an auction valued at 88 million yuan ($12.7 million). Alarmed by the listing, Pang’s great-granddaughter, Pang Shuling, alerted authorities and demanded that the museum produce documentation of the work’s ownership history. As the controversy mounted, the painting was pulled from the sale.
The controversy escalated into a full-blown scandal in December, when it made national headlines and public trust in the institution soured—at a moment, as SCMP noted, when Beijing has been working to elevate the country’s global cultural profile. In the ensuring probe, investigators conducted more than 1,100 interviews and reviewed 65,000 archival documents, ultimately concluding that several of the five disputed works had been illicitly removed from the museum’s collection, either sold or lost over decades. Jiangsu provincial authorities released their full findings in a report issued Monday in collaboration with the National Cultural Heritage Administration.
According to the report, beginning in the 1990s, then vice-director Xu Huping violated museum procedures to authorize the transfer of donated paintings to the state-run Jiangsu provincial cultural relics store for sale. Spring in Jiangnan was reappraised by a store employee from 25,000 yuan to 2,500 yuan, then sold to an accomplice for 2,250 yuan, who later arranged a secondary sale—along with two other paintings—for 120,000 yuan to a private collector.
The painting reportedly passed through several private owners before resurfacing at auction in 2025. By December, three of the five works had been recovered and returned to the Nanjing Museum; another was found to have been miscataloged in the museum’s collection under a different title; while the final piece remains missing.
Investigators accused Xu of “serious duty-related violations,” citing his role in the illegal transfer, failure to uphold relic management standards, and broader lapses in oversight. SCMP reports that Xu is now under formal disciplinary and supervisory review. The store employee, identified as Zhang, is also under investigation. In total, 24 officials from the provincial culture and relics department, as well as the museum and relics store face disciplinary action, with some cases pending additional judicial review.
Nanjing Museum has “suffered from systemic deficiencies and chaotic management”, the report stated. “Specifically, the management of donated items was not strictly regulated, policies and regulations were poorly enforced, and some staff members lacked awareness of discipline and the rule of law. As a result, state assets were lost, damaging the credibility of state-owned museums.”
Jiangsu authorities have ordered reforms to the museum’s donation oversight and launched a province-wide safety review of all state-run museums, libraries, and galleries. On Monday, the Nanjing Museum apologized publicly to the Pang family, saying it had “betrayed the donors’ trust.”
