In this auction, Xiao Yifei didn't get anything, and all the Chinese antiques that were pleasing to the eye were speculated by these Chinese buyers were more than twice the high value of the high estimate, and a red sandalwood thing actually reached 4 times the high value of the high estimate. This kind of speculation made Xiao Yifei shake his head all the time, and then simply threw the brand on the table and didn't bother to care. Fortunately, after the auction, Nagao and the seller of the two flintlock pistols reached a private purchase agreement, which finally allowed Xiao Yifei not to return empty-handed.

Xiao Yifei suddenly thought of McHarcher, who was fishing for cultural relics in South China pirates, fortunately he is old now, fortunately the motherland is now strong, and fortunately the country now has the money to salvage cultural relics in the South China Sea by itself. Of course, it is also fortunate that Nagao auctioned off the cultural relics of the Taixing at that time, and even more fortunately, the Chinese who participated in the auction at that time had a tacit understanding, if it were placed in the current era, it would be possible for his lots to easily multiply more than ten or even hundreds of times, so that he would get hundreds of millions, billions of dollars instead of more than 10 million dollars at that time.

Although he gained little, Xiao Yifei was still very interested in the two beast heads of the Old Summer Palace mentioned in Leonard's auction. Before leaving, Xiao Yifei said:

"Leonard, you just mentioned the beast head, can you arrange a private negotiation?"

Leonard thought that news like the quarrel between Pierre Berger and Christie's, the head of the beast, could be known with a little attention, but he just mentioned it in passing, since the person in front of him was a shareholder of Sotheby, knowing the news, he would naturally arrange for Sotheby's people to contact the client. Who knew that he would have to hand over this matter to Nagao, and that wasn't to send the commission to the door?

"Of course, we will definitely give you a discounted fee."

"Alright, that's it, I'll be notified by news."

After three or four days of discussion, the descendants of the Lu family agreed to the offer of 8 million, so the two sides reached a preliminary agreement, and Xiao Yifei's acquisition team added cultural relics identification experts, (specially invited to the Guimet Museum in Paris to identify the cultural relics of the Lu family.) Real estate experts and financial personnel began to enter the Tongge for final inspections.

Xiao Yifei also received information on the Chinese antiques section of Sotheby's and Christie's recent auctions, which was much more detailed than what he had searched on the Internet.

The September auction of Chinese antiques will be held mainly by Christie's Asian Art Week, with two special auctions of Sackler Chinese porcelain on the 14th and 15th.

After the success of the "Arte Sackler Chinese Art" auction in March this year, Christie's has also worked hard to achieve this year's results, and more than 500 art treasures will be offered in these two auctions. Among the fine products are the glaze red rattle, with the "Kangxi Year of the Qing Dynasty" blue and white six-character model, estimated at $600,000. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the three-legged daffodil basin of Jun kiln was estimated at 300,000 US dollars. enamel three-legged bowl with lid, estimate $200,000; In the early Qing Dynasty, the imitation official glazed square pot with Qianlong's imperial inscription poem was estimated at 200,000 US dollars. The colorful market with the "Kangxi Year of the Great Qing Dynasty" is estimated at 200,000 US dollars.

Sotheby, on the other hand, was a bit worse off, and they also auctioned Chinese art from the M. Sackler collection in September, but they were all furniture and not as expensive as the porcelain. But in October, Sotheby's has a major auction in Hong Kong, and the lots are so impressive that 10 lots are estimated to sell for more than $1 million.

Among them, in addition to porcelain, the most eye-catching is the "Qianlong Water Wave Cloud Dragon Throne" carefully carved from precious rosewood. At 140.5 centimeters long, it is one of the largest rosewood thrones ever sold at auction. The estimate is as high as HK$20 million, more than US$2.5 million.

Also related to Emperor Qianlong are several of his imperial seals, including "Treasure of Emperor Taishang" (estimated at 1 million US dollars), "Treasure Seal of Xiyuan Qinzheng Palace" and "Qianlong Imperial Pen Seal". Even Sotheby's November 4 autumn auction in London still has his "Eight Signs of Remembrance" stamp.

Needless to say, these things were all snatched by the Eight-Nation Alliance, I believe that the emperor, who claims to be a "perfect old man", would never have imagined that he had only died for 60 years, and the things he left behind were burned by the British and French forces in the Old Summer Palace, and a large number of imperial supplies he left behind were also robbed to Europe, and now foreigners rely on these things to rob the wealth of the Chinese again "legally".

Subsequently, Xiao Yifei participated in a Chinese art exhibition held by Christie's in Southampton, England, but there were not many precious things on it, but these antiques estimated at tens of thousands of pounds were speculated by Chinese buyers to several times the estimated price, so that Xiao Yifei completely lost interest in buying collections from auctions, and he now feels more and more that private purchases are a good channel for collecting collections.

While Xiao Yifei was waiting impatiently, Leonard finally called, and agreed that tomorrow they would go with Christie's to visit Pierre Bell, the client of the rat and rabbit heads.

This Pierre Bell is a homosexual, he or she is the same-sex partner of Yves Saint Laurent, the world's master of fashion. They jointly operated the relics that he (she) left to him after Saint Laurent's death in order to avoid touching the scene, and all the things left to him by Saint Laurent were auctioned, and the rabbit was among them.

In the eyes of the Chinese, this Pierre is a bad person, because when the Chinese opposed the auction of rat and rabbit heads, he told the media that as long as China implements the right to pay attention to the people and let the great monk return to that, he will immediately give the beast head to China.

Actually, this guy's head is a little different from ours. In November 2009, he accused TeLeThon, a well-known charity fundraiser in France, saying that "populism is parasitic on the generosity of the French" and called on people not to use the donations. As a result, he was sued for defamation by the charitable foundation and awarded 1,500 euros in damages. In 2013, he tweeted about incitement to terrorism, and then when talking about homosexuality, he said "what is the difference between renting her ** and renting a factory to produce weapons", and later advocated the abolition of all Christian holidays in France.

Xiao Yifei has also seen a lot of French, even if they seem a little ignorant because the romantic cells in their heads are too developed for a few days, but they are not ignorant to such an extent, it seems that he (she) is a **-type Frenchman,

Leonard didn't come in a car, he was followed by a car.

"Shaw, this is Hook, Christie's head of business, and he's with us today."

Xiao Yifei changed to German and quietly asked Leonard:

"How did Christie's get involved, I only give one commission."

Leonard explained with a smile. It turns out that the economic crisis is not only making it difficult for Sothe's to operate, but also Christie's, although Christie's is now privately owned, the owner François Pinault is already planning to sell part of his stake. For the sake of performance, Christie's has already laid off 300 employees in January this year, and by May, a second round of layoffs is in the pipeline. As we all know, because of the support of trade unions, it is a very troublesome thing for foreign companies to lay off employees, and because of the interference from the government, the second round of layoffs has not been fruitful. At this time, Pierre was unhappy with Christie's because of the beast's head problem.

Pierre's relationship with the owner of Christie's was somewhat complicated, as he worked for the gay couple YsL Saint Laurent, which was later sold to Kering. (Kering's PPR Group, the world's third largest luxury group, with brands such as gucci, YsLand and Bottega Veneta.) In addition, Puma is also controlled by them. They even used to have a controlling stake in Printemps in France. ）

Kering, on the other hand, is controlled by François Pinault, who is also the owner of Christie's.

Therefore, in fact, Pierre and Pinault actually have a superior-subordinate relationship. But since Yves Saint Laurent's death, Kering has closed some YsL stores in the United States, such as San Francisco and New York, due to the economic environment and declining sales. This naturally made Pierre unhappy, the lover's bones were not cold, and the boss treated the lover's company like this, so he took advantage of this beast head incident to toss with Pino.

In fact, it is very easy to solve this matter, Christie's can buy the beast head at a certain price according to the consignment auction agreement, or let the owner Pinault spend money to buy it.

This is the case in real historical events, where the two heads were bought by Pinault and eventually donated to the state. Don't think that Pinault is a good man, as a businessman, he doesn't spend money in vain. And he got more than a little benefit.

First of all, his Kering luxury goods are popular in China, making a lot of money for the Chinese.

Secondly, his Christie's Group actually got the permission to start an auction company in China, which is an unprecedented thing, even the world's No. 1 Sotheby can only cooperate with the domestic Gehua to start a joint venture auction company, and he Christie's can actually obtain a sole proprietorship license.

In the end, with his donation, Christie's in China was completely freed from its predicament, clearing the way for Christie's domestic business to develop.

Actually, this is completely unnecessary, the matter is very simple, Pino is not without weaknesses, it is true that Pino is very rich, he has a lot of industry, but the state cleans him up in minutes.

The simplest trick is to strictly inspect the customs. Just like packing up Christie's at the beginning of the year, all the customs declarations of Christie's were directly cleaned up, and animal heads and the like were not allowed to enter the customs. Now it only needs to expand the scope of the strict investigation, for example, to the Mouton winery he owns, and then to various luxury brands, to ensure that he is soft.

In fact, Pinault originally did not plan to donate the head of the beast to the state, he first asked the Forbidden City of WW, asking them if they wanted to accept the donation, but the Forbidden City refused on the grounds of unknown history, and then he considered China.

Of course, these are all later words, and now Christie's is tossed by Pierre, not only to deal with financial pressure, but also to deal with internal staff, but also to deal with the pressure of the Chinese government, and there is not much energy to fight with Pierre.

Now, Christie's knew that someone wanted to buy the beast's head, and they wanted to get out now, so they sent Hook, who had dealt with Pierre, to persuade Pierre to get the beast's head as soon as possible and find out about it as soon as possible.