The Sketch That Shook the Art World
Shin A-young sat in her office and stared at her monitor.
On the screen, internet articles about Si-woo were laid out in a flood.
"This really is turning into a spectacle."
The Hong Kong auction of the Qing Dynasty Qianlong Long-Nine-Phoenix Vase had not cooled in the least; instead, it kept generating articles of its own.
Korean coverage, articles from all over the world, and then yet more pieces translating those articles into other languages.
Nutflix was even lifting comments from foreign viewers and turning them into videos.
He was riding the national-pride coin all the way up.
She clicked one of the many articles swarming across the internet.
The auction of the century had set Hong Kong’s night ablaze. A battered old porcelain piece once used as an umbrella stand had rewritten the history of ceramic auctions worldwide.
At the solo auction The Legacy of Emperor Qianlong, held last night at Sotheby Maison Concentric Hall in Hong Kong, the Qing Qianlong Long-Nine-Phoenix Vase went under the hammer after fierce bidding and was sold for 460 million Hong Kong dollars, or roughly 80 billion won.
(Omitted)
The estimated price had originally been around 40 billion won, but mainland Chinese magnates entered a pride-driven bidding war, driving the price up into the stratosphere. The final buyer was confirmed to be Chairman Wang Jianming, a real-estate tycoon from Beijing.
Appraiser Kim Si-woo stood at the center of the storm after receiving the Gold Crown Order for Culture at the youngest age ever, and through this auction he had proven, beyond dispute, that his eye for value was truly world-class.
Sotheby’s Asia branch director Andrew Wong lavished him with praise, saying, "If it hadn’t been for Appraiser Kim Si-woo’s eye, this great legacy would never have emerged into the world."
(Seoul = Joa Ilbo, Reporter Han Ji-yeon)
Shin A-young was still looking over the article when a knock came from outside. She closed the browser window.
Knock, knock.
"Representative. Appraiser Kim Si-woo has arrived for his visit."
"Please send him in."
After answering the secretary, she straightened her clothes.
Not long after, Si-woo came inside.
"You're a little late today."
These days, sharing morning coffee had become part of their daily routine.
Since he hadn’t come by earlier, she had thought he might be tied up with work.
"I had... a bit of business to deal with."
Si-woo’s tone was mildly awkward.
"Business? The auction side was handled by Sotheby’s, so there shouldn’t have been any problems. Did something come up?"
"No. It’s not about the Hong Kong auction. It’s something else."
"Is that so? Then sit down and tell me."
Shin A-young set her coffee cup down with calm precision and gestured toward the chair beside her.
Once he was seated, she began grinding the beans.
Scratch, scratch.
"I’ll make your coffee right away. What happened?"
"Last night, while I was surfing the internet... I found something interesting."
"Something interesting?"
She tilted her head.
"Don’t tell me... you found something else?"
"Yes. I was browsing an auction site called LiveAuctioneer and happened to see an item, so I bought it."
Si-woo turned on his smartphone and held it out over the desk.
"Let me see."
On the screen was an auction page stamped with a Sold Out mark.
An old sheet of paper, yellowed with age.
On it, a single sketch had been drawn.
A rough, almost grotesque face.
Shin A-young’s eyes narrowed.
A figure with hands over his ears, screaming.
Behind him, a sky drawn in rippling curves.
A composition so familiar it was impossible not to recognize it.
"Wait... are you saying this is?"
Her gaze darted across the product description and the final price.
Norwegian immigrant.
Paper found inside a coat from the 1900s.
Buy-it-now price: $45,000, or about 60 million won.
Si-woo had spent 60 million won on a single scribble posted on an internet auction site.
And it was Si-woo of all people?
"Si-woo."
Shin A-young slowly lifted her head.
"No way. You didn’t buy some imitation piece that was just mimicking Munch’s style, did you?"
Si-woo accepted the prepared coffee with a faint smile.
"I’ll enjoy this."
He took a casual sip of the drip coffee.
Then he dropped the bomb.
"There’s a high probability it’s authentic."
"......What?"
"Edvard Munch. It appears to be the very first original sketch for The Scream. Of course, it still needs expert appraisal and academic verification."
Clang.
The teaspoon in Shin A-young’s hand slipped from her fingers and struck the floor, the sharp metallic sound breaking the silence.
"How can you be sure?" she asked sharply.
It was a fair question.
Authenticating a piece from a single sketch image posted online was nearly impossible.
To answer her, Si-woo opened his smartphone gallery and showed her another photo.
"Please look at this. Last night I asked Advisor Jeong Hae-won to help restore the image."
Two images were displayed side by side on the screen.
The left was the original from the auction site.
The graphite had been crushed down so thoroughly it looked like a black stain.
The right was a restored image processed with a special filter, the graphite grains rendered crisp and vivid again.
"Appraiser Jeong Hae-won analyzed the spectrum of light reflected by the graphite and reconstructed the blurred contours using the latest technology. If you look at it this way."
He showed her a short video.
Two letters began to overlap slowly.
The characteristics of Munch’s handwriting matched perfectly.
"......!"
Shin A-young unknowingly leaned closer to the smartphone.
"Advisor Jeong Hae-won was skeptical at first too, but once he restored these letters, he was stunned. He said they match perfectly with the handwritten phrase Munch left in his diary in 1892."
Shin A-young forced herself to calm the pounding in her chest.
"All right. I’ll admit that much. But you know it’ll be hard to convince anyone with that alone."
She nodded lightly in agreement.
That alone would not persuade people.
Suspicious circumstances were only suspicious circumstances.
A handwriting imitation, after all, was not difficult for someone who set their mind to it.
Shin A-young waited, tense, for Si-woo to continue.
"To shut down the forgery rumors, we need a more definite physical piece of evidence."
He flipped to the next photo on his phone.
It was an archival image from the digital collection of the Munch Museum in Norway.
"This is the K-12 pocket diary housed at the Munch Museum. It was a notebook Munch carried constantly in the early 1890s, when he was developing The Scream."
"A notebook?"
"Yes. According to the museum’s official records, there’s one unusual detail about this diary. Page 14 was torn out and lost."
Shin A-young’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
"Please watch this video."
The video he had received from Advisor Jeong Hae-won.
The screen was split into two sections. The upper half showed the left torn edge of the sketch he had won at auction. The lower half showed the remaining tear from page 14 of the K-12 diary.
He slowly overlapped the two images.
Like fitting puzzle pieces together.
"The irregular jagged pattern created when paper tears. And the degree of discoloration, along with the texture of the paper."
Whoosh.
The moment the two images met on the screen, the ragged tooth-like tears lined up as if they had once been one piece.
Shin A-young held her breath.
This was evidence on a completely different level from handwriting analysis.
A fragment separated for more than a hundred years finally becoming whole again on the other side of the planet.
Shin A-young felt gooseflesh rise all over her body.
"The resolution of the photo posted by the eBay seller is low, so I’d be cautious about calling it 100 percent certain yet," Si-woo said in a voice full of confidence.
"But according to Advisor Jeong Hae-won’s analysis, the probability of a match exceeds 90 percent. This paper is definitely page 14, the same one Munch tore roughly from his diary in Nice in 1892, while trembling with fear."
Shin A-young stared at him in a daze.
This was not merely the level of a person with a good eye for relics.
It was a deduction possible only if one knew the holdings data of museums around the world, and the exact missing portion of a private artifact, with complete precision.
Just how far did this man’s knowledge reach?
"If it really is paper from the same notebook, then this becomes stronger proof than any appraisal certificate."
* * *
Crosier Fine Art.
A world-class company specializing in fine art.
Once again, Representative Shin A-young had asked them to handle secure transport and storage.
James, the chief appraiser at the New York branch, flipped through the documents and spoke to his colleague Thomas.
"We got another inquiry from Eterna Gallery."
"Eterna?"
Thomas turned, coffee cup in hand.
"Wait, you mean that Korean gallery? The one that hit the Hong Kong jackpot with the Qianlong vase?"
"That’s the one. The place with that appraiser, Kim Si-woo. Looks like they’ve found something else."
"Ha!"
Thomas snorted.
"They really were lucky last time. A vase used as an umbrella stand for 80 billion won? What kind of absurd thing is that?"
"True."
James shrugged.
Even to experts like them, the last incident had looked less like skill and more like an astonishing stroke of fortune bordering on a miracle.
"So what is it this time? Another Chinese ceramic?"
James wore an inscrutable expression.
"Munch."
"......What?"
Thomas froze.
"Munch? Edvard Munch?"
"Who else would it be? And apparently it’s an early sketch for The Scream."
"Pffft...!"
Thomas nearly sprayed his coffee.
"Wait, wait. You’re joking with me, right?"
"No."
"Hey, an early Munch sketch? There’s no way something like that would still be on the market."
"Want me to tell you something even more ridiculous?"
Thomas urged him on.
"What?"
"He says he bought it at an internet auction again."
"......What?"
Thomas stared blankly at James.
"An internet auction?"
"Yep."
"Hahaha!"
Thomas burst out laughing, unable to hold it in.
"James, you know what sort of Munch sketches end up on those sites."
"I do."
"Ninety-nine point nine percent of them are just studies by people who can draw a little, or ugly little jokes copied in a clumsy hand. You know what the remaining 0.1 percent is?"
"What?"
"Forgeries so fake they couldn’t even be used as kindling."
At Thomas’s joke, James laughed too.
"Honestly, that’s what I thought too. I’ll grant that he got lucky last time. But this time, it makes no sense."
"An early sketch? Isn’t that too big a leap?"
"That Korean guy, Kim Si-woo... maybe he succeeded too early and lost touch with reality. He probably thinks everything he touches turns to gold."
"Well, for what it’s worth, he has been awfully successful so far."
James turned another page and added, "For now, we’ve sent a transport team to the seller’s residence outside New York. Since it’s a proposal from a gallery we work with, we should at least appraise it."
Then James, still flipping through the documents, lifted an eyebrow.
The file contained an explanation for why the Munch sketch might be genuine.
At first he read it casually.
Then, little by little, he began to sink into it.
James’s expression hardened in an instant.
Oh, my God! Good heavens!
"Hey, James... James!"
Even when Thomas called to him from beside him, he didn’t budge, staring fixedly at the document.
Impossible!
The reasoning was more plausible than he had expected.
No, it was enough to convince James completely.
If they could compare the torn edge of the notebook.
Before he realized it, James swallowed hard.
It might trigger an event that would shake the art world.
* * *
Crosier Fine Art.
A world-class company specializing in fine art.
Once again, Representative Shin A-young had asked them to handle secure transport and storage.
James, the chief appraiser at the New York branch, flipped through the documents and spoke to his colleague Thomas.
"We got another inquiry from Eterna Gallery."
"Eterna?"
Thomas turned, coffee cup in hand.
"Wait, you mean that Korean gallery? The one that hit the Hong Kong jackpot with the Qianlong vase?"
"That’s the one. The place with that appraiser, Kim Si-woo. Looks like they’ve found something else."
"Ha!"
Thomas snorted.
"They really were lucky last time. A vase used as an umbrella stand for 80 billion won? What kind of absurd thing is that?"
"True."
James shrugged.
Even to experts like them, the last incident had looked less like skill and more like an astonishing stroke of fortune bordering on a miracle.
"So what is it this time? Another Chinese ceramic?"
James wore an inscrutable expression.
"Munch."
"......What?"
Thomas froze.
"Munch? Edvard Munch?"
"Who else would it be? And apparently it’s an early sketch for The Scream."
"Pffft...!"
Thomas nearly sprayed his coffee.
"Wait, wait. You’re joking with me, right?"
"No."
"Hey, an early Munch sketch? There’s no way something like that would still be on the market."
"Want me to tell you something even more ridiculous?"
Thomas urged him on.
"What?"
"He says he bought it at an internet auction again."
"......What?"
Thomas stared blankly at James.
"An internet auction?"
"Yep."
"Hahaha!"
Thomas burst out laughing, unable to hold it in.
"James, you know what sort of Munch sketches end up on those sites."
"I do."
"Ninety-nine point nine percent of them are just studies by people who can draw a little, or ugly little jokes copied in a clumsy hand. You know what the remaining 0.1 percent is?"
"What?"
"Forgeries so fake they couldn’t even be used as kindling."
At Thomas’s joke, James laughed too.
"Honestly, that’s what I thought too. I’ll grant that he got lucky last time. But this time, it makes no sense."
"An early sketch? Isn’t that too big a leap?"
"That Korean guy, Kim Si-woo... maybe he succeeded too early and lost touch with reality. He probably thinks everything he touches turns to gold."
"Well, for what it’s worth, he has been awfully successful so far."
James turned another page and added, "For now, we’ve sent a transport team to the seller’s residence outside New York. Since it’s a proposal from a gallery we work with, we should at least appraise it."
Then James, still flipping through the documents, lifted an eyebrow.
The file contained an explanation for why the Munch sketch might be genuine.
At first he read it casually.
Then, little by little, he began to sink into it.
James’s expression hardened in an instant.
Oh, my God! Good heavens!
"Hey, James... James!"
Even when Thomas called to him from beside him, he didn’t budge, staring fixedly at the document.
Impossible!
The reasoning was more plausible than he had expected.
No, it was enough to convince James completely.
If they could compare the torn edge of the notebook.
Before he realized it, James swallowed hard.
It might trigger an event that would shake the art world.