Louis Aston Knight Painting

Appraised on: August 13, 2005

Appraised in: Los Angeles, California

Appraised by: Nan Chisholm

Category: Paintings & Drawings

Episode Info: Los Angeles, Hour 2 (#1008)

Originally Aired: February 27, 2006

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (2:23)

GUEST: Eight years ago, we lived on the big island of Hawaii, and this was part of a liquidation sale from a hotel that was being reflagged to a new property, so, it was about 10,000, 12,000 square feet of different hotel things like paintings and, uh, chandeliers and bedspreads and doorknobs, and plates and china. So, we went through all the things and pulled out two or three things, and this was one of the items that we were able to acquire. All along, I thought it was an Hawaiian painting, so--

APPRAISER: Uh-huh.

GUEST: --keeping in mind that we were going to be moving back stateside at some point in time, I thought well, this'll be a great remembrance of, you know, of what I feel like Hawaii looks like.

APPRAISER: And you were able to find out a little bit about the artist?

GUEST: Yes. Uh, my wife did a little online research, and we found out that it's a European painting of the Riviera. And the artist is Louis Aston Knight. And he lived between, like, 1873 and 1949.

APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: So, I'm assuming this painting was done in the '20s or the '30s. I'm not real sure.

APPRAISER: I would think it could be the '20s or '30s. It's interesting because Louis Aston Knight was born in France. His father was also an artist. His name was Daniel Ridgway Knight. And he was an American artist who moved here and ended up staying there after he studied abroad. So his son-- even though he was born in France-- is sort of considered an American artist, because he had that influence from his father. But he is really known for painting French landscapes. A picture of his was bought by President Harding to hang in the White House. And subsequently, Calvin Coolidge organized a private exhibition of his work. So he was quite popular during his lifetime. Now, I know you say you paid a fairly modest price for this picture.

GUEST: I gave five dollars for this.

APPRAISER: Well, you got quite a steal. It's a beautiful picture in this lovely, ornate, probably original frame. And I think if you were to sell this at auction today, it might be as much as $40,000 to $60,000.

GUEST: Oh, my God. Whoo! Fabulous, fabulous. That-that... That shakes me. I didn't, uh... I had no idea. Oh, my gosh. My wife was saying, maybe 5,000.