Doug Fishbone, artist.

He says the replica market is legitimate and contributes greatly to helping art gain a wider public access. European artists, in fact, have a long tradition of making replicas, and many great masters of art have followed this tradition by making copies of their own works or asking their students to copy their works, Fishbone says.

Fishbone says the title of the exhibition is a play on the notion of Chinese manufacturing, which produces cheap goods but struggles to impress with their quality.

"In the West, there is a fear of Chinese-made products flooding our markets, and many people are afraid of the rise of China," Fishbone says. "This exhibition alludes to such an idea because a Chinese replica is being put in place of a masterpiece."

But the exhibition does not confirm the popular assumption that products made in China must be of poor quality, Fishbone says, adding that he is genuinely unsure whether viewers will be able to spot the replica, especially since it is placed in a museum setting.

The project took him a few years to complete, mostly because the trustees of the gallery, who are traditionally conservative, deliberated for a long time over the radical project, he says.

Dulwich, the world's oldest purpose-built public gallery, with works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo, Murillo and Poussin, was established in 1817.

Fishbone first visited China in the 1980s, but did not travel to the country to commission the painting used for the exhibition. Instead, he says he took a risk by sending the digital image to the Xiamen studio and came away satisfied with the results.