About six months ago, a guest on Antiques Roadshow was shocked to discover that two 19th-century watercolor paintings purchased by her great-grandmother could be worth six figures. The revelation occurred when the hit PBS show made a stop in Arkansas, where the owner of the paintings explained that the art had been in her family for “probably 150 years.” She loved the works so much, she made copies of the paintings to hang in her office at the university where she worked, before safely storing the originals.
She said: “One of the art history professors came in one day and she saw the works, and she goes, “Oh, I didn’t know we had any Winslow Homers in our collection.’
“I just about fell out on the floor, and I said, ‘Well … those belong to me.”’
Show appraiser Betty Krulik revealed the history of the artwork: “Winslow Homer [American, 1836–1910] started working in watercolor in about 1873 in Gloucester. These works date from slightly later, about 1878.
“The medium of the one closest to you [Boy and Girl on a Swing] is pure watercolor. There might be some pencil underdrawing that’s very faint. It has lost color. We call that light struck. There were times when he painted in very pale washes but this is a little paler than usual.”
Sharing her expert opinion, she said: “I’m going to value them as though they are by the artist. They look absolutely right to me. In my opinion, they’re signed with every stroke of the brush. The little boy and girl on the swing is probably worth about $30,000 to $50,000. That’s fair market value. That would be the range you might get in an auction. I would insure it for about $70,000.”
Krulik determined the second painting had an even higher value: ‘The one of the boy and girl at the well has the pencil underdrawing the watercolor. And then these touches of gouache, they’re just perfect 1878 Winslow Homers.
“This one is in much better condition. It has not lost color. And you can actually see that the opening goes to the very edge, that there might-might be a little bit of what we call acid burn … from the old frame where it’s darkened at the very edge. But you can see that the color hasn’t really changed. You get that full range of the greens. What might have happened, though, is that the paper might have darkened very slightly. And you can see [in places] where the gouache has protected the original color of the paper, the kind of buff tone.
“For this one, an auction estimate would be about $150,000 to $200,000. And I’d insure it for closer to $250,000.”
In fact, the works were auctioned by Christie’s on January 23, with Boy and Girl at a Well (1879) sold for $113,400, including fees, and Boy and Girl on a Swing (1879) sold for $75,600, also including fees.
