Additional Coverage:
- ‘Antiques Roadshow’ guest nearly falls down after expert revealed the value of her 1915 painting (marketrealist.com)
A “Wow” Moment on Antiques Roadshow: Painting Appraised at $50,000!
An “Antiques Roadshow” guest was nearly floored when her great aunt’s painting was appraised for a staggering $50,000. The guest brought a gouache painting, “The Floats,” by Jane Peterson to the PBS show, a piece passed down in her family for 80 years.
She explained to appraiser Nan Chisholm that her great aunt, a science teacher at Brooklyn Polytech High in the 1920s, befriended Peterson, who was the director of drawing for the Brooklyn Public Schools at the time. The two painted together one summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the very location depicted in the painting.
Chisholm detailed Peterson’s impressive artistic journey. After graduating from Pratt Institute in 1901, Peterson studied in Europe and mingled with renowned artists like Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Matisse.
She also traveled with Louis Comfort Tiffany and John Singer Sargent. Chisholm pointed out the frame, likely created by artist and frame-maker George Of.
She further noted Peterson’s vibrant, Post-Impressionist style, the use of bright colors, and the artist’s fondness for Gloucester as a subject. Peterson even received recognition from Time magazine during her career.
The guest revealed a previous appraisal from 1998 valued the painting at $9,200. However, Chisholm, correcting the previous appraisal’s classification of the painting as a watercolor, identified it as gouache, a more opaque, water-based paint.
She then delivered the jaw-dropping $50,000 appraisal. Overwhelmed, the guest gasped, grabbing the painting’s frame for support.
“Oh my word!” she exclaimed.
“Aunt Olga, thank goodness you saved it!” Chisholm expressed her excitement at seeing such a remarkable piece of art, thanking the guest for sharing it with the show.