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JulieThere was once a Manchurian emperor of China (1735-1795), who collected art all the way back to the stone age, all the up to his own. We owe many. many Chinese artfacts to his collecting.
Trouble was, he also LOVED to stick his own two cents in, with his big, square red seal, or his jade carver, write a poem with his so=so calligraphy--right on the work of art! He took this huge, neolithic slab of jade with a beautiful eagle carved on it--and wrote about 6 lines below the eagle! (when the eagle was carved, nobody knew how to write!)
Anyway, one day, the greatest masterpiece of Chinese art was headed for the palace, and Wang Hui was persuaded to forge it--to save it from the emperor's seal, and poetry, ond God knows what else! It was 6' tall--but Wang Hui had never seen the original, so he made his 5' tall. There's a hige, huge rock face in the center of the painting--Wang Hui had difficulty imagining such a big, flat rock face, so he split it. BUT IT FOOLED THE EMPEROR! He wrote all over it. he seal appears 20 times on it (this painting was made by Fan Kuan, before 1023, and is called "Travellers amidst mountains and streams"). When the emporer died, the original was brought out, fresh and clean, and saved.
It is customary, in China, to write a word of two, in an inconspicuous place, on a painting you get as a present. And maybe add your seal. But not to ruin the thing with your stuff!