GUEST: About 20 years ago, I went to a local swap meet and this painting caught my eye because it reminds me of an area where I used to go vacation up in Monterey. It was stacked just haphazardly with a bunch of junk. And so I rescued it for $10.
APPRAISER: Do you know anything about the artist?
GUEST: A few years ago I did go to the San Diego Museum of Art, which was having a show about California plein air painters, and I noticed a painting that looked very similar to this and the signature looked a little familiar. So I ran home and it looked like the same signature. So that's why I brought it today, I thought maybe there was a glimmer of hope.
APPRAISER: It is a painting by Raymond Dabb Yelland, who was a well-known California artist. Now, the painting that you saw at the museum, was it roughly the same composition as this?
GUEST: It was very similar, but larger, and I believe it was on canvas. I'm not sure.
APPRAISER: On the back, there's an inscription that says "sketch." Artists typically will do a sketch on a smaller scale for a larger painting. So one of the most exciting things about this, to me, is that I think this is probably the sketch for that painting that you saw in the museum.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: He signed again on the reverse, gives the place-- Monterey Bay-- and it gives the date, 1896. Raymond Yelland was born in England, came to the United States, studied in New York and then moved to the San Francisco area and he taught here. He developed a type of painting, California coastal painting. This is a classic down-the-center, A-1, wonderful example of his work.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: We nearly fainted when we saw it, actually. Several of us looked at it and thought, "This is just beautiful." Now, he died in 1900 at a rather young age. He was only 52. So it's one of his later pictures, but it's absolute, full-cry, high-style Yelland California painting. Now, as you've observed, there's some damage to the edges. On the other hand, it is just to the edges. Even in this condition, I'd expect this to sell for about $15,000 at auction.
GUEST: No! No way.
APPRAISER: Way.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh.
APPRAISER: This is one of the great finds I've seen on the Roadshow and it's a real treasure.
GUEST: For $10, that's amazing.
