Cullen Yates & Charles Courtney Curran Paintings

Appraised on: August 13, 2005

Appraised in: Los Angeles, California

Appraised by: Alan Fausel

Category: Paintings & Drawings

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

Originally Aired: February 27, 2006

IMAGE: 1 of 3  

Appraisal Video: (2:31)

GUEST: These paintings were from my aunt's home, in Toledo, Ohio. They had been handed down from her husband's uncle, who was also from Toledo. He was a physician who traveled the world and actually commissioned most of the paintings in his collection. I was my aunt's last relative, and so I had my pick of the paintings, of which I took most of them.

APPRAISER: You said he's from Toledo, Ohio?

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: That's interesting. We have two paintings here by artists from Ohio originally.

GUEST: Oh, really?

APPRAISER: This painting here is "September Sea" by Cullen Yates. Yates was born around 1864, um, in Ohio, and this painting is a view, I believe, of Ogunquit, Maine?

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: Is that correct?

GUEST: It was of Perkins Cove, and I have traveled there many, many times since I was about nine years old, and so I knew exactly where this...

APPRAISER: Sure.

GUEST: ...where this was from, but it wasn't until I took the back off of the painting and had it restored that we found letters from the artist to my uncle's uncle talking about the commission of the painting.

APPRAISER: It's a lovely scene of Maine. Your letters reference that, which is very important, as far as establishing where this is. Now, the other painting over here, the "Wild Morning Glories," by Charles Courtney Curran... He was a contemporary of Yates, and he was born in Ohio in 1861. His painting is very typical. He did a lot of these attractive young women bathed in sunlight. He lived mainly up in Cragsmoor, New York, up on the Hudson. The Yates here is a beautiful painting; it s great brushwork, and use of palette knife here is very lively, surface very colorful. It's huge, too-- for him, this is a very large painting, one of the largest that's out there. Also, you add to that the fact that it's a known place, you have the letters that establish that. That adds a premium onto the value as well. If this were to go to an auction, I would expect a world record for that artist. I would estimate it around $20,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness! No.

APPRAISER: So, now, the other one, the Charles Courtney Curran...

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: That is a drop-dead gorgeous painting. That is one of the most prettiest things I've seen here. And there's one thing I've learned in this business, you never underestimate pretty. And pretty girls in white dresses really do well, plus the flowers... That painting, if I were to put it in auction right now, I would put an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000, and it might even do above that.

GUEST: Oh, my. I'm just flabbergasted.