There is an epidemic of works of art disappearing from public museums across China

The scandal became public in December after a famous painting, with an estimated value of around 10.6 million euros, surfaced at auction in Beijing. Several works of art from public museums have been transferred, sold or simply disappeared over time.

China has ordered a sweeping nationwide audit of its state museums after a scandal at one of its main institutions revealed that national treasures they passed discreetly to the private market.

According to , the directive, issued this week by the National Administration of Cultural Heritage, requires all public museums to carry out a physical inventory, piece by pieceof its collections, comparing each object with official records.

The objective is simple: to ensure that what is on paper actually exists in warehouse.

The measure comes after months of scandal surrounding the Nanking Museumwhere researchers discovered decades of mismanagement and alleged corruption involving donated works of art that should never have left the public sphere.

The scandal became public in December, after the famous Ming Dynasty painting “Spring in Jiangnan“, by Qiu Ying, appeared at auction in Beijing, with an estimated value of 88 million yuan, around 10.6 million euros.

The work is part of a set of paintings donated, in 1959, by the collector’s family. Pang spawning. Intended to remain in the permanent care of an institution, several of these pieces were instead transferredsold or they simply disappeared over time.

What followed was, more than an isolated scandala slow unveiling of the form How the system actually worked. Authorities say museum officials approved improper transfers in the 1990s, while intermediaries manipulated prices and resold works to private parties.

When the case became public, at least one painting was still missing, others had changed hands several times and more than two dozen perpetrators faced sanctions or were under investigation.

Since then, the museum has presented a public apologyadmitting the existence of “systemic problems” and a breach of trust with donors.

However, the authorities asked tighter controlsstricter supervision and what they describe as a “security line of defense” stronger around museum collections.

The repercussions could go beyond Chinese institutions and affect the market itself. Works with gaps in their history property, especially those that passed through state collections in the 1980s and 1990s, may become subject to stricter scrutiny by auction houses and collectors.

What once seemed like a routine provenance report could start to be seen as a risk factorespecially if more cases arise of objects leaving museums through informal or clearly illegal means.

But the scale of this review suggests a deeper concern, says the SCMP. It’s not just a museum in Nanjingbut the recognition that the system itself may be more fragile than it appeared, with failures in records, supervision and accountability that allowed pieces to disappear in plain sight.

For the State, the task now is not just to account for what it has, but convince the public and the market that you know where everything is.