BELOIT, Wis. — Auctioneer Richard Ranft and his staff were preparing Lynn Anderson's belongings for an estate-sale auction when a piece of artwork caught their eye.

It was a drip-style painting, with lines of black, red and yellow enamel paint dribbled on a tan board. On the back was written, "Bought in New York summer 1959 or 60 LA Jackson Pollock."

"I'm not an art expert by any means," Ranft said, "but if it is an original Pollock, it's going to be a wonderful find in Wisconsin."

Ranft will auction off the painting on Wednesday, but let the buyer beware — it comes with no appraisal or guarantee of authenticity.

"The only way you can have it appraised is to have it authenticated," said Ranft, the president of Beloit Auction Service in southern Wisconsin. "We don't want to do that because of the cost to the estate." The buyer will have to do it.

In 2004, one of Pollock's paintings sold for $11.7 million at auction, according to Elin Lake-Ewald, president of O'Toole-Ewald Art Associates Inc. in New York.

So is Anderson's painting a genuine Pollock? Experts say without careful inspection, it's difficult to tell. It has been on display for two months in a locked glass case that's nestled among racks of bygone firearms, fine china and curios.

Anderson, 70, a Milwaukee native and renowned architect, is incapacitated and can't describe the painting's origins. Her cousin, Agnes Lee, said that Anderson picked it up at an auction, but Lee didn't know the price. Lee didn't even know her cousin had the painting until Ranft's staff found it on the floor among piles of dusty drawings in Anderson's home.

Lee, a farmer from Clinton, Wis., said she never heard of Pollock and wasn't impressed by the painting.

"If I'd have saw it in her possessions, I'd have probably thrown it away," she said. "I certainly wouldn't have thought it was valuable."

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See the possible Pollock at www.beloitauction.com.