Becoming Rich with Daily Scavenging APP-Chapter 595: Fake Painting? Real Painting?

"Susning indeed wants to sell Inter Milan, but the price has to be right," the editor-in-chief of the newspaper said. "If there’s capital willing to pay around five hundred million euros to Susning’s boss through an overseas account, the boss would definitely be willing to sell Inter Milan."

But who in their right mind would spend five hundred million to buy Inter Milan?

Inter Milan is valued at a billion, but it owes eight hundred million in debt.

Spending five hundred million to buy it means immediately losing three hundred million.

And there’s no guarantee that it can be resold in the future. After buying it, you still have to continue investing in Inter Milan, otherwise Inter Milan won’t have money to buy players.

But without spending five hundred million, Susning might not even sell.

After all, the more than two hundred million from Oak Capital is already in Susning’s hands.

And when it’s due and Susning can’t pay back the money, Oak Capital has to pay Susning an additional hundred million euros to take over the shares of Inter Milan.

Calculating this way, Susning’s boss can make over a hundred million euros on the purchase of Inter Milan.

And this hundred plus million euros is obtained legally and legitimately.

So for anyone wanting to enter the game, they must at least offer five hundred million to Susning.

Susning will take more than three hundred million of that to repay Oak Capital, sell the shares, and then earn another two hundred million.

This price would satisfy Susning.

But Chen Yiyang would never spend five hundred million to take over Inter Milan from Susning.

At this price, Inter Milan would be a burden he can’t resell for a profit.

At this point, Chen Yiyang completely gave up the idea of buying Inter Milan from Susning.

This is a money pit.

After chatting with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Chen Yiyang went home in the evening and complained about this to his friends back home.

"You should have asked me earlier, I follow football, and I know what Susning is like," Chen Yiyang’s friend said directly after hearing his words.

"Back then, Susning bought the domestic Shuntian team, renamed it Susning, and started burning money.

Other capitals that buy football clubs burn money by increasing capital themselves.

But Susning borrowed all the money in name to the club and then had the club spend it.

Later, as Susning declined, other companies wanted to take over the team.

Susning directly set a price of four billion.

This amount is Susning’s total investment in the team over the years.

Few football clubs make money, big companies usually invest in clubs for advertising.

Now, Susning’s approach is like ’I’ve advertised for so many years, if someone wants to take over the club, you have to pay for all the years of advertising too.’

How could anyone agree to that?

In the end, the team accrued so much debt that even the janitor’s salaries were delayed, leading to the team being seized by creditors.

"Wicked and greedy." Chen Yiyang concluded, giving up on dealing with Susning.

Since buying the team was off the table, Chen Yiyang focused on advancing the cooperation plan with the local Italian culinary association.

Today’s intel, real painting, fake painting?: In an Italian gallery, a painting nominally a work of the famous painter Vermeer is waiting to be sold; buying it now could be a rare find.

Pictures and locations of related items have been attached on the second page.

Huh?

After seeing today’s intel on rare finds, Chen Yiyang was somewhat confused about its meaning.

What does it mean by a painting nominally a work of Vermeer?

Could it be a fake?

Chen Yiyang was aware of Vermeer, the Dutch painter whose works remain extremely famous today.

His most renowned and familiar piece might be "Girl with a Pearl Earring."

This piece is often used by major art colleges for teaching or student imitation for assessments.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring," a Vermeer piece.

Vermeer was born into an art dealer family and succeeded his father after he passed, twice serving as the leader of the local artists’ guild.

Such a person should, by rights, have been wealthy. But Vermeer had 11 children.

To support his children, Vermeer often had to settle bakery debts with his paintings.

This led to Vermeer’s works being widely scattered and hard to trace.

By 1675, Vermeer also participated in resisting the invasion of French forces.

This led to Vermeer dying in poverty at age 43.

After that, Vermeer disappeared from the art scene until the 1850s, when French art critics rediscovered and began searching for all his lifetime works.

But over the years, the paintings of Vermeer that survived became very scarce.

If it could be confirmed as an authentic Vermeer, it would undoubtedly be invaluable.

However, the rare find intel refers to it as nominally a Vermeer piece.

Could it be painted in Vermeer’s style by another famous artist?

Driven by curiosity, Chen Yiyang went to the gallery.

Though now Italy is called one of the four pigs of Europe, it was once prosperous, with a rich artistic atmosphere and many galleries.

Upon entering, Chen Yiyang was quickly approached by a professional sales representative recommending paintings.

After pretending to browse for a while, Chen Yiyang approached the painting the intel mentioned, asking, "Is this an authentic Vermeer?"

"Sir," the gallery staff smiled and replied, "This is not an authentic Vermeer, but it is still a very precious artwork."

"Could it have been painted in Vermeer’s style by another famous artist?" Chen Yiyang asked.

"It’s not that either," the staff continued, "This painting is by the famous master forger Han Van Meijeren."

Uh.

Chen Yiyang was perplexed by this answer.

How can someone who paints forgeries be considered a master?

Though Europe has many art forger con artists, how can they blatantly be titled as masters?

"You might not be aware of Van Meijeren’s story, I can explain," the gallery staff offered, beginning to educate Chen Yiyang on Van Meijeren’s legendary life.

This guy started as a seller of forgeries, mainly replicating Vermeer’s works.

Considering that Vermeer’s work became famous long after his time had passed, spanning a distant time.

Therefore, finding Vermeer’s paintings became very scarce, and the timespan was vast.

This made it difficult for many European art experts to systematically study Vermeer’s painting techniques and thinking at the time, making it hard to accurately authenticate those artworks bearing Vermeer’s name.

This gave Van Meijeren his chance.

Van Meijeren had been proficient in falsifying 17th-century paintings, and after studying Vermeer’s style, he began to mass-produce Vermeer replicas and sell them at high prices.

Being a well-known art trader himself, many trusted that the Vermeer paintings he sold were genuine.

Including several high-ranking German officials during World War II.