GUEST: It was originally purchased by my grandfather somewhere between 1920 and 1970. He was an avid collector, and he had a large home, where he just, it was like a museum. He died in 1972. My father at the time wanted a bunch of things, so he bought a variety of antiques from the estate. He passed away in 2017, and I inherited it from him. I told him if he ever decided to sell it, I want first dibs at it, just like he did.
APPRAISER: This is a bronze by the Russian artist Evgeny Naps. It was cast in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Woerffel Foundry, and it's believed to have been cast circa 1882. That's one of the earliest known castings and believed to have been
reproduced over probably a ten-year period following that, so 1882 to 1892. He was an elusive artist, and there is no biography for him. Because there's no information, there's been some speculation that it was another artist, Lanceray, who was very well-known.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: He was in a, purportedly a very restrictive contract with the Chopin foundry. And there are some suggestions that possibly he was working under a pseudonym at a different foundry, um, to be able to...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...produce more varied works. So this is a really well-defined scene here. We've got this bear coming on a child, the mother, presumably, standing, wielding an ax to protect her young.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And really, everything about it is just really finely done. The title for this bronze is a little unclear. There's no written record. It's sometimes called "The Bear Attack."
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it's sometimes referred to as "Defending Her Child." In the 19th century, there was a real interest in sort of a national style. You see lots of winter scenes.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Troika sleds, Cossacks on horseback, animals. These sort of scenes that were really helping with the folklore of what the, the Russian culture was like. And St. Petersburg at the time was a very cosmopolitan and international city, producing these, and much were going to the West. So do you have any sense of what a value might be?
GUEST: In 1980, there was an appraisal done for $5,000.
APPRAISER: The size of this is really large. Most of the bronzes that we see on the market are smaller than those. For Russian artists of this period, tend to sell about between $1,500 and $5,000.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: If I were to estimate this for auction, I would say between $20,000 and $30,000.
GUEST: Wow. Unfortunately, I'll never see it. This is never leaving the house.
APPRAISER: (chuckles)
