GUEST: The illustration's by one of my favorite children's illustrators. His name is Garth Williams. He'd probably be most known for his illustrations that he did for the Golden Book Company, the Little Golden Books. He did a lot of those. He did the drawings for this in 1949, so it's a new work.
APPRAISER: And what's this book?
GUEST: The book is called Flossie and Bossie.
APPRAISER: Well, I thought there were a number of things about this that were quite interesting. And speaking of the book itself, one of the more interesting things to me is, that book is by Eva Le Gallienne, who was a very famous actress in New York in the 20th century.
GUEST: I didn't know that.
APPRAISER: She's extremely well-known in theatrical circles, so I was kind of charmed by the fact that she apparently wrote a children's book, which is very little-known, or at least to me. Working artists' drawings for reproduction I always think are quite interesting because an artist is able to show some corrections and make some changes. You see here where he's used white-out and changed the drawing. See the information here about where and how it's to be used. "No text under the picture, left hand." So we actually get the sense of the artist's working drawing, and then how the drawing was manipulated to be used in the actual book. His work is quite famous for another reason that you didn't mention, was his collaboration with E.B. White and his original illustrations for both Stuart Little and for Charlotte's Web.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: And as an illustrator, he's very well-known amongst collectors for that. What is it that you'd like to learn from us today, if we can tell you anything you don't know?
GUEST: Well, more than anything, probably just how to care for it.
APPRAISER: Care is an important thing to be aware of. And the main thing with any work on paper is to shield it from direct sunlight or too much light of any kind. Aside from that, as long as it's framed with archival materials and acid-free backing and so on, they're not really as fragile as people think. It's in wonderful condition now, and there's no reason it shouldn't stay that way. I was able to find only one auction record for a drawing by Garth Williams selling, and that was a drawing sold in New York at auction two years ago, and it sold for $18,000. It was a drawing of a mouse and it was dated 1945, so I did a little thinking and I called up the person who sold the drawing, who happens to be a colleague and a friend of mine, and I said, "Was this by any chance a Stuart Little drawing?" And he said, "Yeah." And that explained the price. On the other hand, we discussed this, and both came to the conclusion that because of the incredible charm and activeness and fun of the subject, this would have to be worth at least between $6,000 and $8,000.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh.
APPRAISER: And possibly more than that.
GUEST: Wow!
