GUEST: I acquired this piece for free from an online marketplace.

A gentleman was moving, he could not take it with him.

I saw that he listed it, that it was going to the trash, and I said, "I'll be right there to get it, if you can just hang tight."

And I went and picked it up, and he helped me load it in my car, and she was mine.

Unfortunately, he didn't know a lot.

All he said was that his parents traveled a lot.

I tried to do some personal research, um, as far as deciphering what that meant.

I did get some opinions that it's alluding to some sort of emperor and a season, not necessarily a year.

I also tried to figure out what this was that she was holding, because that's really what drew me to the piece.

And I may not pronounce it right, but I found a ruyi, or ryu... APPRAISER: Ruyi.

GUEST: Ruyi.

APPRAISER: That is a special scepter.

It's called a ruyi scepter.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And it means, basically, "as you wish."

"May your dreams come true."

The painting is kind of a thick watercolor on silk.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And in the inscription there is a name, and that is Tang Yin.

And he was one of the four great painters...

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: ...of the Ming dynasty.

Tang Yin lived between 1470 and 1524.

He was a brilliant poet, and he pioneered the use of a special kind of script calligraphy that we would call cursive, which is called running script.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISERS: And he was number one in the civil service government examinations.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: In the entire country of China.

So he was a brilliant, brilliant person.

But he was kind of a bad boy.

(chuckles) He liked to have fun.

Within the inscription, you had noted something about a season.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: So it also talks about something in the summer season.

GUEST: Correct.

APPRAISER: That kind of time.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: It has a date.

GUEST: Oh, it has a date.

APPRAISER: Now, the dates in Chinese, in the Chinese calendar are organized in what are we call cyclical dates.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And it's a 60-year cycle.

But the cyclical date comes to 1871.

That would be from the Qing dynasty.

Based on stylistic evidence, I'm having a hard time with the 1871 date.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: But it says that it was faithfully copied, essentially, from a Tang Yin.

So it's not by Tang Yin.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: But it's a faithful copy.

Stylistically, I would see this more from the 1920s, '30s.

GUEST: Okay.

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So someone looked at a painting...

GUEST: Ah!

APPRAISER: ...from 1871 that, in turn, was looking back to a painting by Tang Yin.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: We... don't have the repertoire of all the Tang Yin paintings here in front of us to go through and see, GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: is there a picture of a beautiful woman...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...seated at a table that was part of his work.

If it no longer exists, then instead of having just a copy of a copy, you have a documentary work that could potentially have a fair amount of value.

GUEST: Nice, aw.

APPRAISER: An insurance value, a replacement value, for this would be, in a reasonably... in the $6,000 range.

GUEST: Really?

(laughing): I don't even know what to say.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

That's amazing.

I'm very happy with that.

I mean, I knew she was beautiful.

Whether she has value or not, she has value to me.