GUEST: This is my grandmother's originally. And the story that I heard was that she got it from the artist herself.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And then when my grandmother passed away it went to my mother, and it's been hanging in the nursing home where my mother was for eight years until she passed away, and then it came to me.
APPRAISER: Now, do you know anything about it?
GUEST: Well, I know it's by Pauline Palmer, and I know that she was a Chicago artist and was quite well known in the '20s and '30s.
APPRAISER: That's right.
GUEST: But beyond that, I don't know much about it.
APPRAISER: Well, the work is signed very clearly, it's Pauline Palmer. She was married in 1891 to a doctor by the name of Albert Palmer. And in this time usually when a young lady marries, that's the end of any career she might wish to have. But Dr. Palmer was a very interesting man and actually encouraged her to continue to paint, encouraged her to go to the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1890s.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: Encouraged her to study in Paris as well. So he was totally fine with having his wife be a working woman. And she was extremely successful. She was part of the Chicago Society of Artists. As a matter of fact, she was the first female president of the society.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Now, she and her husband would summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Most summers they had a place there. And after he passed she started spending more and more time there. And that's what we're seeing here is a view of Provincetown, and the Provincetown views are her most desired views.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: She did landscapes in this neck of the woods, she also did portraiture. But what people love are those Provincetown landscapes.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So this would have been painted in the late 1920s or the early 1930s. Now, I'm looking at the surface of this oil, and the surface is a little unusual.
GUEST: Well, shortly after my mother acquired it, I came in and found her cleaning the surface with the cut half of a white potato.
APPRAISER: (laughs) And interestingly enough, using a potato to clean frescos was fairly common.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: More common was actually white bread. And bread works beautifully. Potato leaves grime on the surface. Starch. Which isn't brilliant. The best solvent for cleaning the surface of a painting is spit applied with a Q-tip.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: And conservators still use that today. And this picture could definitely use a cleaning.
GUEST: Yes, very definitely.
APPRAISER: In its current condition-- which is really just dirty, there's nothing else problematic about its condition at all-- were I to see this at auction, I would expect it to fetch between $8,000 and $12,000, conservatively.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Cleaned up, I would expect it be more like $15,000 to $20,000.
GUEST: Very nice! We'll keep it in the family.
APPRAISER: Absolutely, I think you should.
