GUEST: Well, this painting's been in our family for over 90 years. It was given to my great- grandmother by Norman Rockwell. My great-grandmother was his aunt.
APPRAISER: And what do you know about the painting?
GUEST: Well, it's a 1919 Collier's cover, from March of 1919, and that's about all I know. We just love it.
APPRAISER: What's interesting about Rockwell is that he always knew that he wanted to be an artist and he really showed a lot of talent early on. By age 14, he was enrolled in art classes. He was born in 1894, and in 1910, he actually quit high school so he could go to art school full-time, and he became the art director of Boys' Life when he was just 18 years old. Interesting. So we tend to associate Rockwell with Saturday Evening Post covers. Collier's Magazine was actually their biggest rival in the 1920s through the '40s, but he only did four covers for them, all in 1919. And this picture was called The Little Model. This is an oil on canvas. And here we see this young woman. She has the tattered stockings and the broom, and she's imitating this image of this much fancier lady in this fashion poster on the wall. And here's her faithful dog, who probably can't wait for her to quit posing. It's always great to have a dog in a Rockwell painting. Rockwell was a master of sort of telling these stories, and he really was so adept at tapping into the nostalgia for a more innocent time. It is such a charming work. Around the time of the late '90s, his work started to consistently bring about six figures. So I would think in today's market, you would want to have a replacement value on this of about $500,000.
GUEST: I better get more insurance. (laughs)
APPRAISER: So are you surprised to hear that?
GUEST: Yeah, very surprised.
APPRAISER: Thank you so much for bringing it in.
GUEST: You're welcome. Wow, I didn't realize...
