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Appraisal Collection | All Our Appraisals from Colonial Williamsburg, Hour 2

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Ignacio de León y Escosura Painting, ca. 1875

Value (2016) | $3,000 Auction – $5,000 Auction
Watch  

GUEST:
We have no idea who it is and my husband said just wrap it up carefully, because the back is falling apart. I said I would take very good care of it, so I brought it down, not knowing a thing about it and so...

APPRAISER:
Well, it's interesting, the painting. The artist is a fellow by the name of Ignacio León y Escosura-- he's a Spanish artist. He was born around 1840 and lived to about 1900. But this guy, in this painting, pulls out all the stops. He's really showing off what he can do with paint. Hard to even believe it's paint. From this beautiful silk dress, here, to all the little jewels, and the jewel-box and the mirror, and jewels in her headdress. And then he even goes on further and puts on an elaborately colored Persian carpet on there. Another thing he's done is he's done it on wood, on a panel, rather than on canvas. Now, the wood-- hard surfaces like panels and copper-- allow the paint to set up and be more jewel-like. The canvases, they sort of absorb into, and you get a duller finish. This... he chooses panels to give you this almost jewel-like finish here. This is the kind of painting, also, that would be very popular in New Orleans. New Orleans, as a town, loves its 19-century things and particularly things, paintings like this. This fellow is really loved and adored by Spaniards and Spanish collections, and when these come up on market, they're crazed for them, they really bid them up. A painting like this would-- even though it's this small-- would go for about $10,000 to $15,000.

GUEST:
Wow! Hmm, okay, that's...

APPRAISER:
Well, they say good things come in small packages. This is, this is certainly one.

Support provided by: Learn more

Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Alan Fausel
Paintings & Drawings
Bonhams, NY
New York
Update (2016)
$3,000 Auction – $5,000 Auction
Appraised value (2001)
$10,000 Auction – $15,000 Auction
Featured In
New Orleans, Hour 2 (#0620)
Vintage New Orleans (#2022)
Event
New Orleans, LA (August 11, 2001)
Category
Paintings & Drawings
Period
19th Century
Form
Painting , Portrait
Material
Wood

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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."

Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.

Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.

Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.

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Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.

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