The plan was decided, and Li Yi first called Sotheby's and confirmed that he could accept the items today. Then he asked about the address and found that the exhibition center was only less than two kilometers away from Pacific Plaza where Sotheby's Hong Kong was located, so he decided to simply walk over.

After packing up the food that could still be eaten on the balcony, Li Yi took "Untitled". Half an hour later, he arrived at Sotheby's Hong Kong headquarters on the 31st floor of a Pacific Plaza.

Because he had called in advance, he only waited in the reception room for a few minutes before meeting with the appraiser responsible for appraising his "Untitled".

The appraiser is a very young man, from Hong Kong, speaking Mandarin with half a bakery, very polite. But Li Yi could hear a little distrust and a little arrogance from this politeness.

"First of all, we welcome you to take us Sotheby's as your first choice. I think if your gift items are really worth the auction, we will definitely be your best choice. Okay, can you let me see your baby now?"

Li Yi frowned and said nothing because of the young man's attitude. He opened the painting folder and gently pushed it in front of the young man.

Because they were preparing to work at the auction house, Li Yi had some understanding of their work flow. Generally speaking, for such items that had no foundation and were delivered to their doorsteps, the first ones they took the initiative to take the initiative were mostly intern appraisers.

Because many collectors who send collections to shoot cannot be sure of the authenticity of their things, and many even seek free appraisal under the banner of sending them to shoot. If the master takes action every time, they will annoy these people.

However, although he could understand, he was not optimistic about this young man, not only because he was young, but more importantly because he was an Asian. Generally speaking, Asians would not have a high appreciation level of European and American collections, especially this work that was almost abstracted to an unparalleled level.

Sure enough, the young man was obviously confused when he saw the painting. When he saw the more sloppy signature, he became more and more difficult. After a while, he spelled out the words Franz Klein.

Then, the young man fell into silence. Li Yi looked at the sweat quietly coming out of his forehead and almost couldn't help laughing out loud. If he was sitting in this position without a soul-tapping card, his performance would be similar to him, right?

"Sir, how did you get this painting?"

"Oh, given by a friend from the United States."

"So, can you reveal your friend's name?"

Li Yi wanted to shake his head, but suddenly remembered that the house where he got this painting was used as a sample house and was decorated by Wenyuan Landscape Company. Then, his original owner should also be a boss of the company. So he directly gave the legal person of Wenyuan Landscape with an English name.

"David Lee, Chinese."

This information was so simple that the young man gave up just after thinking for a while. Then he pretended to be serious and read the painting for a few minutes, raised his head and showed a false smile at Li Yi.

"Mr. Li, right? I don't see your painting very accurately, but based on my understanding of Master Franzkline, he seems to have never painted such a painting."

Seeing that Li Yiyi seemed to be disbelief, he coughed lightly and then said:

"As far as I know, there are five paintings by Master Franz Kline. Among them, the No. 2 painting is collected at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the No. 3 painting is collected at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Spain. The No. 1 painting was sold at a high price of more than 30 million US dollars in New York in 2012, and was collected by a mysterious collector. The other No. 4 and No. 5 can also clearly find the source. I remember these five "No. 3" paintings, and none of them looks like your painting, so..."

Li Yi secretly admired him. He didn't expect that this young man was so knowledgeable. He just read this for a while and without any information, he clearly explained the whereabouts of the three "Untitled" paintings without using any information. You know, he browsed the Internet for two days before he could barely find the whereabouts of the three "Untitled" paintings, and it was not clear which number of paintings they were.

"So, is it possible that it is one of the 4th and 5th?"

The young appraiser shook his head firmly,

"I just said that our company has photos of those five paintings. I'm very sure that it is not one of those two. Moreover, the style of this signature is different from the font used by Franzkline. In fact, the biggest flaw comes from the time of his signature. We know that Franzkline's "Untitled" series should have started in 1952 and ended in 1956, and your painting date is 1944, sorry."

If it weren't for the identification of the spirit card, Li Yi would have been convinced by him. Even if there hadn't been countless adventures to verify the magic of the spirit card, Li Yi would have left with the painting half-believingly, but now...

He decided to save the young man's career. Although he was a little rude, because so far, he had not introduced his name.

You should know that if it is an ordinary item, the appraiser will misunderstand it. But once this "Untitled" which is likely to be sold at a sky-high price, once it slips away from the young man's nose and he directly arbitrarily determines the authenticity of the painting without asking for help from other colleagues. Then, he may lose his job because of the painting, and may even never have the opportunity to do such a job again in his life!

"I'm very sure this painting is real. Otherwise, you call a colleague to come and take a look?"

The young appraiser hesitated for a moment. He had encountered many clients like Li Yi and always distrust his age. However, the young man in front of him seemed to be different. Although he didn't say much, his attitude seemed to imply a firmness that could not be doubted.

The young appraiser searched the memories in his mind again. Although he was still firm in his judgment, he was inexplicably thinking that the teacher should come and take a look, even if he just took a look...

"Then...sir, please wait."

Ten minutes later, a bearded foreigner walked into the reception room, and a young appraiser followed him.

"Hello, I am David Lee, Mr. Lee. Stefan told me about the situation just now. Can you let me see that painting?"

The old man's Chinese is very bad, but even if he doesn't understand it, Li Yi knows that he wants to read the painting. However, he just made up a David Lee, and a real David Lee appeared here, which really made him feel a little ashamed.

David Li frowned as soon as he saw the painting, and then turned his head and spoke a lot of English to Stefan behind him. Li Yi didn't understand a word, but saw a hint of comforting smile on his face. I don't know whether he was pleased with his disciple's high level or his unremitting decision to refuse.

After David Lee finished speaking, Stefan smiled at Li Yi embarrassedly.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Li, my teacher said that this painting is probably a work by Franzkline when he explored the use of black and white to express positive and negative spaces. It is of great significance to study Franzkline's later style changes and maturity. But he is not very accurate, so he needs to notify our chief appraiser. He hopes that you can wait a moment, which may take a little time."

When Li Yi thought that this painting was actually hung on the wall of a model room as a cheap decoration, he knew that it would be very difficult to identify it. Unexpectedly, Sotheby's is so powerful than David Li. He almost confirmed the authenticity of the painting at a glance, and also gave a nearly perfect explanation of the painting time. It seems that he needs to work harder if he wants to make a living by making a living.

In the following chat, Li Yi learned that Sotheby's Hong Kong chief appraiser was a British man named Liu Xiber. In addition to his super high appreciation level, he was a very skilled abstract artist. His appraisal of works of representative figures of abstract paintings like Franz Klein can almost be said to be the final judgment.

Unfortunately, he was invited by a wealthy Hong Kong man to identify oil paintings early this morning, and it is very likely that he had lunch together. They had called him, but no one could tell when he would come back.

When Li Yi heard this, he felt a little reluctant to wait. Just as he was thinking about whether to come again another day, a tall old man suddenly pushed the door open and entered. He just glanced at the people in the room and couldn't wait to take the painting in front of him.
Chapter completed!