Rembrandt Etching, ca. 1630
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GUEST:
Well, I got it from my aunt, who was a librarian at the University of Nebraska. She never married, so when she died, I was the PR of her estate and I cleaned out everything, and nobody in the family wanted this, so... I thought it kind of looked familiar, so I kept it.
APPRAISER:
Did anybody know what it is?
GUEST:
Well, I mean, it's got on the back of it, it's got a thing that says "Vincent Price Collection."
APPRAISER:
And do you have any idea about the artist?
GUEST:
Well, I think it's Northern European's about all I'm guessing, but I don't know.
APPRAISER:
Let's start with the artist. It's by Rembrandt, Rembrandt van Rijn, so you've got a nice, early etching by Rembrandt from the 1630s.
APPRAISER:
Just when he was starting—
GUEST:
Whoa.
APPRAISER:
--just when he was starting out his career in Amsterdam. And he did a number of etchings, subjects of which are peasants. It was very much en vogue at the time to make these everyday scenes of peasant men and women that he would have seen in and around Amsterdam. A lot of very wealthy collectors were interested in pictures like this. In the upper right here, in the etching plate itself are his initials. It's a beautiful dark printing with a very nice, sharp plate mark. That's the indentation that the copper plate causes to the paper when it's run through the etching press. Very little sign of wear in the printing itself, which is all indicative of it being an early impression. What a lot of people don't know about these Rembrandt etchings are that the copper plates that he etched on survived him beyond his death and were printed from by people well into the 1800s. I believe what you have here is an early impression done during his lifetime.
GUEST:
Holy moly.
APPRAISER:
If we take this off and I flip it around, you can see the sticker there for the Vincent Price Collection. Vincent Price was an artist and an art collector and he had a very good eye, and he put together quite a collection of etchings by the Old Masters right on up through the 19th century-- works by Whistler, even-- and these works were marketed through Sears, of all places.
GUEST:
I'm sure that's where my aunt got it.
APPRAISER:
Oh, she would have certainly got it. She might have paid from Sears $100 for this in the 1960s. Would you hazard a guess to what it might be worth?
GUEST:
I have no clue what it's worth. I could not guess what it's worth. And I would guess if I was watching on the show.
APPRAISER:
Sure, well, I would say at auction, this could fetch anywhere between $5,000 and $8,000, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it going upwards of $7,000 to $10,000 if it was being fought after, because it's a really nice printing of an early subject by him.
GUEST:
Holy moly! Good old Aunt Elizabeth.
APPRAISER:
Yes. (laughs)
GUEST:
Way to go!
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