Help the dramatic detective reveal the twist during the mansion interrogation.

Despite the billionaire's vast and notoriously expensive art collection, ___ paintings hanging in the grand hall were actually authentic originals.

The correct answer is few of the.

"Paintings" is a plural countable noun, so we must use "few" rather than "little".

Because the sentence refers to a specific group of paintings (the ones hanging in the grand hall), we need an of-structure. The strict grammatical rule is: quantifier + of + determiner (the/my/these) + noun. "Few of paintings" and "few the paintings" both violate this structural rule.