GUEST: I'm not quite sure, but I'm almost positive it's a painting of my brother-in-law, who is a sheep rancher in Wyoming. It was painted, I believe, from the date, in 1959, and he died in 1964. They've had it in Cokeville, Wyoming, is where they lived. His wife died in '89, and it came to my wife. So it's been somewhat in the family since the time it was painted.
APPRAISER: Okay, and do you know who the artist is?
GUEST: Minerva Teichert, who, from what I've been reading about her, was quite a well known artist and did a lot of religious and rural scenes. She was a Mormon lady in the Salt Lake area.
APPRAISER: And it's interesting that you mention Cokeville, Wyoming, because that's where Minerva lived at the latter part of her life. They even hold contests and exhibitions in her name in Cokeville. In Cokeville, she was actually a well-known personality.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: She was born in 1888 in the Utah Territory. She was raised in Idaho with a strict Mormon upbringing.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: She is one of the more famous Mormon artists actually today. She was sent to school, first in Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied under Vanderpoel, and then later, she herself went to New York, and she studied there at the Art Students League under Robert Henri, who basically was one of her biggest mentors, and they had a very good relationship. He really pushed her to do what she did and return and paint the Mormon subjects that she loved. She was famous for doing a lot of large-scale works as well, a lot of murals.
GUEST: Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER: And some of her murals are in famous Mormon temples and also at the Brigham Young University.
GUEST: Oh yeah.
APPRAISER: So she was the first female artist that was really given official recognition and allowed by the Church of LDS to actually study painting. This is an oil-on-canvas painting.
GUEST: Yes, it's the original frame also, I believe.
APPRAISER: Which we can also add to its value. And it has her typical palette, which is a kind of a subdued, but very light colors. She's one of those artists who are very famous, but they don't have that many works appear at auction, so to put a fair market value on it is a little harder. But I can tell you that one work at auction, which was a similar subject, sold for $10,000 on an estimate of $800 to $1,200. So basically, that shows you that the interest was really significant, much more than the estimate. I would estimate this work at auction with a very conservative estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST: Oh, that's interesting.
APPRAISER: And I think that's conservative because with enough interest, which I'm sure there would be, given the fact that she's such an important Mormon artist, I think it could do a lot better. It could even go up to $20,000 or $30,000.
GUEST: I'm sure it'll stay in the family.
APPRAISER: For insurance, I would say at least $20,000 as a retail replacement value.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
